After last month’s collective media freak-out about Google’s self-driving vehicles being involved in – but not responsible for – 11 crashes since the program launched, Google is now issuing monthly reports about the progress of the project. Oh, and they’ve been involved in two more crashes in just the last week because human drivers tend to suck.
The report for May is out now (PDF) and Google has made a dedicated site to host the monthly updates. The report catalogs the total number of vehicles being tested, the total amount of miles traveled in both autonomous and “manual” mode, along with “interesting situations.”
For this initial report, Google has put together a clearing house of information, giving a broader view of what’s taken place up until now and compiled all the crashes it’s been involved in since the project began in 2009.
The total reported crashes stands at 12, but just yesterday that number rose to 13, with a driver in Mountain View rear-ending one of the autonomous Lexus SUVs while stopped a traffic light.
Google’s transparency about its testing – not its technology or IP, but the process of development – is exactly what we asked for when reports surfaced last month about the number of crashes Google has been involved in. To push the game forward, getting information out in the open is key, so props to Google for getting this together.
Contact the author at damon@jalopnik.com.
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