A self-driving SUV tested by Google has struck a bus on a city street, making it the first time one of the company’s automated vehicles caused an accident.
The vehicle was travelling at 2mph when it struck the bus.
No one was injured during the incident.
The collision was reported in an accident report on Monday.
The report indicates that the car was attempting to travel around some sandbags in Mountain View, California, when it struck the side of the bus.
The report does not specify the fault.
Google said in a statement Monday that “we clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn’t moved, there wouldn’t have been a collision. That said, our test driver believed the bus was going too slow or (would) stop to allow us to merge into the traffic, and that there would be sufficient space to do that.”
“Our car had detected the approaching bus, but predicted that it would yield to us because we were ahead of it,” says Google.
DMV spokeswoman Jessica Gonzalez said the agency hoped to speak with Google on Monday about what went wrong.
