Waymo blames self-driving collision on pesky human

Waymo has admitted in a blog post that one of its test vehicles hit a motorcycle in Mountain View. The company has defended its technology in the post, though, clarifying that the event was caused by human error. Apparently, the test driver took control of the vehicle after seeing a passenger car to the left moving into their lane. Waymo says they moved the car to the right lane without noticing that a motorcycle had moved from behind to pass the test vehicle. The test car sustained minor damage, but the collision was unfortunately serious enough to send (PDF) the motorcyclist to the hospital. According to the Alphabet-owned company, it was exactly the type of incident self-driving vehicles could prevent.