But what would really bolster people’s confidence is if the companies could prove that the autopilot performed well at preventing or avoiding a crash — not merely that it wasn’t the cause of a crash. In this universe, the inattentiveness, speeding, road rage and the half-dozen other reasons accidents happen today would have been eradicated. Over the 6 years since we started the project, we’ve been involved in 11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during those 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel, and not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident.  Internet search company Google Inc's self-driving cars have been involved in 11 accidents, but have not been the cause of any, over the last six years since the project began, the program's director said on Monday.
– Google's fleet of 23 self-driving Lexuses has been involved in 11 accidents over the past six years of testing in California—but the company says not one of those incidents was the fault of a Google car, the AP reports. Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving initiative, writes in a Medium blog post that its vehicles—which have logged 1.7 million miles—had accidents that involved "light damage, no injuries"; seven of the cars were rear-ended (usually at traffic lights) and most of the accidents took place on city streets, not highways, Reuters notes. Urmson also lists other reasons why cars may get into accidents other than not having a driver: tricky intersections and turns, people not paying attention (he even cites one driver spotted playing the trumpet). The accidents are being labeled as minor and somewhat typical—Urmson notes "if you spend enough time on the road, accidents will happen whether you're in a car or a self-driving car"— and advocates for driverless cars say they actually improve safety because the cars are constantly scanning the environment for accident-causing factors and may react more quickly, the Washington Post notes. A nonprofit watchdog is trying to get both Google and the California DMV to release full reports for these accidents and any future incidents, but that doesn't seem to be happening: The DMV is citing confidentiality laws and won't give access, while Google (for now) is declining comment, per the Wall Street Journal. (A Google Street View car that got into an accident had a human driver.)