Google to report driverless car accidents going forward

SAN FRANCISCO — Google will begin reporting incidents encountered by its driverless-car program on a dedicated website, the search company announced Friday.

Google had been taken to task recently when reports surfaced that its fleet of self-driving cars had been involved in various accidents during years of testing on the streets of the company's Silicon Valley hometown of Mountain View, Calif.

The site represents a swift reversal of a stance taken by Google co-founder Sergey Brin on Wednesday at a shareholders' meeting Wednesday, where he defended the company's decision not to reveal accident details in order to protect the humans at fault.

Though nothing "can be perfect," Brin said, "our goal is to beat human drivers."

Brin was confronted at the meeting on the reporting issue by Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project director John Simpson, who, while allowing that Google's new site is a step in the right direction, feels the company sure pursue even greater levels of disclosure.

"Google is dribbling out bits information in the hope to silence legitimate calls for full transparency," says Simpson. "They are testing on public roads and the public has a right to know exactly what happened when something goes wrong."

In addition to detailing any accidents (with human-driver details redacted), the site will give examples of how the cars, which by law are still accompanied by a Google driver, adapt to everyday traffic situations, and it will provide a forum for community feedback.

Google is slated to begin testing its pod-like driverless cars on city streets this summer, while continuing to gather data and other metrics through its fleet of heavily modified Lexus SUVs. After nearly six years of testing and 1.8 million miles driven, the Google fleet has been involved in 13 accidents, according to reports the company submitted to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Inside Google's self-driving car lair are parked a range of vehicles, from Lexus models rigged with elaborate radar, right, to Google's new pod-like prototype.

In a recent blog post, Google self-driving car project leader Chris Urmson noted that all of the accidents were the fault of other drivers and not the overly cautious driverless cars. A number of the incidents involved motorists rear-ending the Google cars at stop lights.

"Rear-end crashes are the most frequent accidents in America, and often there's little the driver in front can do to avoid getting hit," Urmson wrote. "We've been hit from behind seven times, mainly at traffic lights but also on the freeway. We've also been sideswiped a couple of times and hit by a car rolling through a stop sign."

Urmson reported that Google's chaperon drivers have noticed a range of distracted driving behavior over the years. "Our safety drivers routinely see people weaving in and out of their lanes," he wrote. "We've spotted people reading books, and even one playing a trumpet."