Well I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later, right? Not too long ago, one of Google’s self-driving cars was pulled over by a police officer near the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. It looks like the car in question was actually going too slow and was impeding traffic, which is why the police officer decided to take action. To be more specific, traffic was slowing down at El Camino Real near Rengstorff Avenue, which is just 2.3 miles away from Google’s headquarters. The car was going 24 mph in a 35 mph zone, and after it was pulled over, the officer made contact with the vehicle’s operators in order to inform them of what just happened.
According to the Neighborhood Electric Vehicle Definition per 385.5 of the California Vehicle Code, Google’s autonomous vehicles can travel on roads that have speed limits under or at 35 mph. Since El Camino Real is rated at 35mph, it appears that the car was operating legally. Google issued a response in which it explained that it has limited the speed of its cars to 25 mph. The company also added the following statement:
“Like this officer, people sometimes flag us down when they want to know more about our project. 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!”
