Self driving car is at fault hitting a bus

Goog's self-driving cars struck a VTA muni bus at 2 mph in a minor crash on Feb 14, 2016.

                                  photo -courtesy of Mark Bergen

The crash may be the first case of one of its self-driving cars hitting a moving vehicle as a the fault of self-driving car. The Mountain View, CA auto systems developer (Google) stated it made changes to its software. 

Goog said the minor accident took place in Mountain View when a self-driving Lexus RX450h with a test engineer on board sought to get around some sandbags from over prepared El Nino flood which did not come in a wide lane.

The auto vehicle was traveling at less than 2 miles per hour, while the bus was moving at about 15 miles per hour.  Lexus test driver both thought the bus would slow or allow his vehicle to continue. But the programming assumption was more "aggressive". Three seconds later, as the Googl car in self driving mode re-entered the center of the lane, it struck the side of the bus, causing  slight body damage.

This intrigues me as I was pulled over in the same neighborhood during lunch hour by the MV Police not long ago while following Google map voice to make a left turn. The cop stated I was 6 inches away in front of another turning monster truck in a dual turning lane. While the Google map has no smarts there were a number of cars in front and behind during noon hour. I could have hit some moving car but through the mirrors and listening to the map direction I do not believe I could have done better.  I was not cited and it was just a warning asking me to be more defensive. These monster trucks (I think it was a F-350) and full sized SUVs are getting popular again as Americans just love oversizesd vehicles when gas price drops. I feel the bus driver has a tougher time to see what is on his sides and behind. May be the software guru needs to be ticketed as car does what firmware comments. In my case I will avoid that area whenever possible not with those monster cars block my views.

Source: GOOGLE SELF DRIVING CAR 

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