Recently released video shows a Google vehicle sideswiping a transit bus in California's Silicon Valley area.
The Lexus SUV was a prototype that was outfitted with sensors and cameras that allow the car to drive itself, The Associated Press reported.
It was being tested on public roads.
Google said the car was responsible for the crash. Other accidents involving self-driving cars have been reported over the years, but Google officials blamed other drivers for those crashes.
Even thought the accident happened as the car was traveling at the low speed of 15 mph, it crashed the front left side of the car, flattened a tire and ripped off the radar that the car used to sense its surroundings.
The car had to be towed.
No one, including the Google employee who legally had to be behind the wheel and the people on the bus was hurt, The AP reported.
Under California law, someone has to be in the driver's seat in self-driving cars to take the wheel in an emergency.
The Lexus was trying to compensate for two small sandbags on the right-hand side of the road. The driver, and the car's software assumed that the bus would let the Lexus merge into the lane.
The Google driver did not take control of the car.
"This is a classic example of the negotiation that's a normal part of driving. We're all trying to predict each other's movements. In this case, we clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn't moved there wouldn't have been a collision," Google said in a statement.
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