Google Self-driving Car Pulled Over For Driving 25 mph In A 35 mph Zone, And Obstruction of Traffic

by Benson Agoha | Technology

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA — A Google self-driving car was pulled over by police in Mountain View, California on Thursday for driving too slow and obstructing the flow of traffic, according media reports.

John C Abell, Sernior Editor at LinkedIn said the event, originally captured by Aleksandr Milewski and posted on Facebook, occurred as the self-driving car, which has reportedly driven 1.2 million miles authonomously without clock a single ticket, was spoted by an officer who thought it's speed was obstructing the flow of traffic.

The Officer reportedly pulled the car over, and "talked to the driver" - presumably referring to the human sitting in the front seat, saying that “apparently the Mountain View Police Department doesn’t get Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, a classification of vehicle that is limited to slower-moving roads and pulled them over to ask why they were all going so slow.”

But Google wasted no time in responding. In a message posted on Google Plus, Google said their car performs as well as humans and explained the reason why the car can't travel faster - for now.

"Driving too slowly? Bet humans don’t get pulled over for that too often," Google said, adding "We’ve capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25mph for safety reasons. We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets."

Google said, people also behave like the Police Officer and sometimes had flagged the down the car as it drives past because they are curious about the project that has seen their car drive 1.2 million miles without getting any ticket.

"Like this officer" Google said, " people sometimes flag us down when they want to know more about our project. After 1.2 million miles of autonomous driving (that’s the human equivalent of 90 years of driving experience), we’re proud to say we’ve never been ticketed!"

Google’s self-driving cars are still being tested, and their speeds are being capped at 25 mph for safety reasons.