Over a the fascinating Medium series, "The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car," Chris Urmson, the lead of Google's autonomous car project, lays out one of the bigger problems facing his team: "Our self-driving cars are being hit surprisingly often by other drivers who are distracted and not paying attention to the road."

To illustrate his point, Urmson uploads data recorded from a fender bender in Las Vegas:

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Writes Urmson about the accident:

Our braking was normal and natural, and the vehicle behind us had plenty of stopping distance — but it never decelerated. This certainly seems like the driver was distracted and not watching the road ahead. Thankfully, everyone in both vehicles was okay, except for a bit of minor whiplash, and a few scrapes on our bumper. The other vehicle wasn't so lucky; its entire front bumper fell off.

Because Google's self-driving cars are continuously collecting data on the road, Urmson believes Google might have more accurate information about the actual driving habits of Americans. Right now data on accidents is only from police-reported crashes. But minor fender-benders, such as the one recorded above, often don't get reported to the police.

Writes Urmson: "We're now driving enough—and getting hit enough—that we can start to make some assumptions about that real crashes-per-miles-driven rate; it's looking higher than we thought."

In fact, he writes, "other drivers have hit us 14 times since the start of our project in 2009 (including 11 rear-enders), and not once has the self-driving car been the cause of the collision."

Self-driving cars have a long way to go before they're truly ready for the road. But plenty of American drivers have a long way to go before they're ready for the road as well.

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