by Gabe Zaldivar
Last updated: 12:00 PM ET, Tue September 27, 2016
The greatest danger to self-driving cars seems to be humans, as evidenced by the latest knucklehead to drive into a self-driving car.
The Guardian reports that a Google self-driving automobile was rammed in the side by another car driven by a human that blew past a red light. Thankfully, there were no injuries during the collision that took place Friday in Mountain View, California.
However, there is visual evidence of just how dangerous the classic method of operating a motor vehicle can be when you don't pay close attention to the traffic lights.
Here is an image tweeted out by Ron van Zuylen of the aftermath.
What makes this collision so alarming is that a person was indeed behind the wheel of the Google car. However, according to the report, it was in self-driving mode when another car ran a red light and hit the Lexus on the passenger side.
Again, we are happy to note that there were no injuries.
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The innovation continues to become a more entrenched technology that may soon take over the travel world. As we recently noted, the U.S. Government was preparing regulations to welcome self-driving technology onto the nation's myriad roadways.
A Wired report back in February noted how rare a crash with self-driving cars remains and how human error is normally the cause of such collisions: "Google's cars have driven more than 1.3 million miles since 2009. They can recognize hand signals from traffic officers and 'think' at speeds no human can match. As of January, they had been involved in 17 crashes, all caused by human error. Google has previously predicted they'll be road-ready by 2020."
Of course, this is not to undersell the tragedy that can still occur with like technology as we saw in the devastating loss of life when a Tesla Model S crashed earlier this year.
In this more recent case, there is nothing more than a tremendous scare and shaken nerves in what certainly looked like a horrific crash.
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