8 thoughts on “Google Car Loses Its Cherry: The Movie

  1. Well, this is pretty much the picture I had in my head from reading the accident report. But it doesn’t make much sense. But the ridealong human’s remark that he thought the bus would stop for them doesn’t make much sense either.

    For other accidents, Google has produced a video that shows the cars picture of its surroundings at the time of the accident. I would like to see that.

    It might be that they thought not that the bus would stop, but that it would move over enough for them to have room in the lane.

    But this is merely technical interest, the car is clearly at fault here. I just don’t understand how the machine, which should have no lapses in vigilance, could have done that.Report

    1. I’ve a theory to offer: Googlecar interpreted the bus as a regular car. So it timed its pull-out from the other lane to begin when it thought the car was past — only it wasn’t a car, it was a bus.

      Perhaps this was caused by the color of the bus, the angle of the sun, or something else that made Googlecar think that the vehicle it sense was a passenger car of standard length rather than a bus.Report

      1. I thought about that, but all the PR stuff from Google has talked about expecting the bus to stop to let the car in. On the other hand, the point in my final paragraph is perhaps the most salient. When the Google Car finally caused an accident, Google went into weasel bullshit mode rather than simply fessing up.Report

  2. Unlike your jurisdiction, @richard-hershberger, California is a pure comparative liability state. But that’s a moot point here, because your assessment of liability is plainly correct from the video evidence: Googlecar is 100% liable.Report

      1. Betcha Google pays to fix the bus & that’s it (unless a passenger tries to file a claim/suit).

        The promised benefits of AV is too much to let development get delayed or derailed by spurious suits.Report

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