For one cop patrolling in Mountain View, California, what would have been a pretty typical traffic stop turned out to be anything but. After seeing a small vehicle traveling more than 10mph under the speed limit–and causing traffic backups behind it–the cop pulled the car over.
To his surprise, the office of the Mountain View Police Department found a single passenger, but no driver in the car.
“As the officer approached the slow moving car he realized it was a Google Autonomous Vehicle,” a police department post said.
A post on Google explained, “We’ve capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25 mph for safety reasons,” the post said. “We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets.”
Luckily for that particular Google car, the officer decided not to issue any tickets. Google’s post also joked: “Driving too slowly? Bet humans don’t get pulled over for that too often.”
The Google Self Driving Car Project began back in 2009, when Google started testing self-driving technology with the Toyota Prius on freeways in California. Since then, the cars have driven more than 1.2 million miles–that’s more than the equivalent of 90 years of human driving experience!
Luckily, the cars’ perfect driving record is still perfect. See the news coverage below:
