Cop Stops Google Self-Driving Car—for Driving too Slow
Cop Stops Google Self-Driving Car—for Driving too Slow
So, when this photo first hit social media last night, the speculation was humorous. Viewers imagined a rogue Google Car, flagrantly disobeying its programming, tearing through Mountain View, California at an irresponsibly high speed.
The reality is much more hilarious.
On the Mountain View Police Blog—go figure, the local P.D. in Google’s hometown has a blog—the whole officer-autonomous-vehicle interaction is laid out.
24 in a 35 zone. The poor thing must have been terrified.
On Google’s own Self Driving Car page, the tech giant offers a slightly more generous spin on the situation.
We’ve capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25mph for safety reasons. We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets. Like this officer, people sometimes flag us down when they want to know more about our project. After 1.2 million miles of autonomous driving (that’s the human equivalent of 90 years of driving experience), we’re proud to say we’ve never been ticketed!
Emphasis added. If this is the future of Google’s no-steering-wheel Playskool pods, we’ll keep our old-school cars, thanks.
This story originally appeared on roadandtrack.com via Jalopnik.
0 Comments