Watch Google’s self-driving car smack the side of a bus, and its passengers barely notice

“Be honest: Which one of you was it?”
“Be honest: Which one of you was it?”
Image: AP Photo/Eric Risberg,
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The Associated Press has obtained footage from the bus that crashed with Google’s self-driving car last month, and it seems to have a been a very undramatic incident. The fender-bender happened when the self-driving car, as well as the human in the driver’s seat monitoring the car, assumed a bus would yield to it (given that the Google car had the right of way) while it turned. Instead, the bus carried on forward and the robo-car hit the side of the bus.

As the footage shows, it wasn’t exactly a scene from Speed. Both vehicles were traveling less than 15 mph when the incident happened. The car hit the middle of the bus—which you can see happening at 0:17—and only about two bus passengers turned their heads toward the crash.

After looking back seemingly in confusion for a little while, the bus driver eventually pulls the bus over and lets all the passengers off—in a very orderly fashion—and inspects the damage. It looks like Google’s car took a lot more of the damage than the bus, which seems to have just had a cracked window and a bit of the car’s fender stuck in its door.