MOUNTAIN VIEW -- When one of Google's self-driving vehicles is pulled over, who gets the ticket? The passenger or the car? 
 
 The question was asked across the Internet on Thursday, after a police officer stopped one of the gumball-machine-shaped vehicles around noon on El Camino Real. 
 
 In a blog post, the Mountain View Police Department said the officer noticed traffic backing up behind a slow-moving car in the eastbound No. 3 lane, near Rengstorff Avenue. 
 
 The vehicle was traveling at 24 mph in a 35 mph zone. 
 
 "As the officer approached the slow-moving car he realized it was a Google Autonomous Vehicle," the post said. 
 
 Zandr Milewski photo A Mountain View police officer pulled over one of Google's self-driving cars on El Camino Real, near Rengstorff Avenue, on Thursday. The vehicle attracted the officer's attention because it was backing up traffic. No ticket, however, was issued. (Zandr Milewski) 
 
 "The officer stopped the car," the post continued, "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." 
 
 The vehicle didn't stop itself; a passenger took control and pulled over for the officer, according to police. 
 
 In a Google Plus post, the Google Self-Driving Car Project appeared to appreciate the humor of the situation. 
 
 "Driving too slowly?" the post asked. "Bet humans don't get pulled over for that too often." 
 
 "We've capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25 mph for safety reasons," the post explained. "We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets." 
 
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 As it turns out, the cars are considered "neighborhood electric vehicles" under the California Vehicle Code, and can be operated on roadways with speed limits at or under 35 mph, according to the police department's blog post. 
 
 "In this case," the post continued, "it was lawful for the car to be traveling on the street, as El Camino Real is rated at 35 mph." 
 
 So, no ticket, and the question of who would get it remains unanswered. 
 
 "Like this officer, people sometimes flag us down when they want to know more about our project," the Google Self-Driving Car Project said in its post. "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!" 
 
 Zandr Milewski photographed the car stop from an office building at 5150 El Camino Real in Los Altos. He was working on a project in a conference room when a colleague wandered in with news of what was transpiring outside. 
 
 "We all immediately dropped what we were doing to go look," Milewski said. "It's not something you see every day." 
 
 Email Jason Green at jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com or call him at 650-391-1337; follow him at twitter.com/jgreendailynews. ||||| This afternoon a Mountain View Police Department traffic officer noticed traffic backing up behind a slow moving car traveling in the eastbound #3 lane on El Camino Real, near Rengstorff Ave. The car was traveling at 24 mph in a 35 mph zone. As the officer approached the slow moving car he realized it was a Google Autonomous Vehicle. 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. The Google self-driving cars operate under the Neighborhood Electric Vehicle Definition per 385.5 of the California Vehicle Code and can only be operated on roadways with speed limits at or under 35 mph. In this case, it was lawful for the car to be traveling on the street as El Camino Real is rated at 35 mph. 
 
 The Mountain View Police Department meets regularly with Google to ensure that their vehicles operate safely in our community. 
 
 Media inquiries can be directed to policepio@mountainview.gov
– Apparently Google's self-driving cars have yet to learn how to evade cops. One of its bubble-shaped autonomous vehicles was pulled over during a traffic stop in Mountain View, Calif., on Thursday, though it managed to avoid a ticket, reports NBC News. An officer spotted the vehicle traveling 24mph in a 35mph zone, with traffic backed up behind it, police say, per the San Jose Mercury News. "The officer stopped the car and made contact with the operators to learn more about how the car was choosing speeds along certain roadways," authorities say in a blog post, noting "it was lawful for the car to be traveling on the street." According to the California Vehicle Code, the cars can operate on roads with speed limits of 35mph or under. However, "we've capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25mph for safety reasons," Google Self-Driving Car Project explains. "We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets." The project notes "people sometimes flag us down when they want to know more about our project," but "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!" (Apple is working on its own self-driving cars.)