Google self-driving car hit hard in yet another rear-end crash

Marco della Cava | USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO - Picture the sad sack who has a sign saying "Kick me" taped to his back. Google's self-driving cars can relate, only the sign seems to say "Hit me."

Just weeks after reporting to the California Department of Motor Vehicles that its gadget-packed Lexus SUVs had been hit twice in the rear bumper while waiting at stop lights in Mountain View, Calif., Google reported Thursday that on July 1 a motorist smashed into its stationary autonomous vehicle at 17 mph, resulting in minor whiplash to passengers in both cars and causing the offending car's front bumper to fall off.

"We're seeing first-hand the true measure of how distraction is impacting driving," Google self-driving car project director Chris Urmson tells USA TODAY. "None of our accidents rise to the level of police reports. So what we are experiencing is what the road is really like."

This marks the 14th time Google's fleet has been in an accident since the search company began trolling the streets of its headquarters in 2009. In every instance, other motorists have been at fault, Google says. These accidents may soon grow in number as Google recently began mapping the streets of Austin, Texas, and added its new pod-like two-person cars to Silicon Valley roads.

To date, Google's autonomous vehicles have logged nearly 2 million miles, and add around 10,000 new miles of data each week. All of its cars are accompanied by law by safety drivers.

The July 1 accident, which is the focus of Urmson's latest blog post and a video that shows a computer readout of the incident, would appear to be another example of humans making Google's point: That distracted driving in the age of smartphones and social media is a growing menace that might benefit from us turning much of that task over to robots.

Skeptics, who include leaders of auto companies focused more on driver-assist technology, argue that fully autonomous cars come with regulatory, insurance and hacking liabilities.

In his blog post, Urmson writes: "Our self-driving cars are being hit surprisingly often by other drivers who are distracted and not paying attention to the road. That's a big motivator for us."

Urmson goes on to say that according to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration some 55% of minor accidents go unreported often despite police being on the scene. That was in fact the case for the July 1 crash, which was the result of Google's car stopping at an green-lit intersection - along with other motorists - because the traffic ahead was backed up.

Writes Urmson: "Our self-driving cars can pay attention to hundreds of objects at once, 360 degrees in all directions, and they never get tired, irritable or distracted. People, on the other hand, 'drive as if the world is a television show viewed on TiVo that can be paused in real time – one can duck out for a moment, grab a beer from the fridge, and come back to right where they left off without missing a beat,' to quote Sheila Klauer of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute in Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do. That's certainly consistent with what we're seeing."

Also Thursday, Google beat Wall Street earnings expectations and saw its stock shoot up 3.5% in after hours trading to $579.

Follow USA TODAY tech reporter Marco della Cava on Twitter: @marcodellacava