Cop Stops Car Driving Too Slow and Gets Surprise

Google’s self-driving cars have gone 1.2 million miles without receiving a ticket--will it be 1.2 million-and-one?

As the photo above attests, a Mountain View police officer pulled over a Google Autonomous Vehicle on Thursday and, true to its name, there was no one inside. Hey, at least it pulled over when the officer turned on his lights.

And the Google car’s infraction? Going too slow.

According to MVPD’s blog, an officer noticed that traffic was backing up behind a slow-moving vehicle. “The car was traveling at 24 mph in a 35 mph zone...the officer stopped the car and made contact with the operators to learn more about how the car was choosing speeds along certain roadways and to educate the operators about impeding traffic per 22400(a) of the California Vehicle Code.”

For the record, the car is permitted to drive at 35 mph, so it was just being a slowpoke.

Google’s online response: “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.”

That’s mighty nice of them. Just stay off El Camino.

--Image courtesy Google via Google+

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