Google's Self-Driving Cars Have Crashed 11 Times in 6 Years

May 12, 2015 02:39 PM EDT | Matt Mercuro

While some people can't wait for self-driving cars to take over roads around the world, others aren't sold on the idea yet.

The common argument against self-driving cars is that not everyone will have one (at first anyway) for other driverless rides to communicate with on the road. This means accidents will still happen no matter what technologies are available, which has apparently been an issue for Google the past six years.

Google confirmed this week that its self-driving test cars have been involved in 11 accidents during the past six years on California roads, according to the Associated Press.

Since September, when California started issuing permits for self-driving testing, three out of Google's 50 self-driving test cars have been involved in separate collisions.

While Google isn't hiding from the incidents, the tech-giant maintains that its vehicles were not at fault.

"Not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident," wrote Google's Chris Urmson in a web post.

Urmson, the director of Google's self-driving vehicle project, said in the post that the 11 incidents happened over 1.7 million miles of testing. He added that no one was injured during any of the accidents and only "light damage" occurred to the vehicles.

The California-based tech company has publicly stated that it hopes to start production on a self-driving car no later than 2020. Self-driving cars are expected to generate billions in revenue from mobile internet services and products since people will save about 50 minutes a day on average by not driving their vehicle.

Urmson listed a number of reasons why self-driving cars are needed in his post, including distracted drivers, crazy intersections, and confusing turns. He also assured all self-driving enthusiasts in his post that the company will continue testing to make the best vehicle that they can.

"We'll continue to drive thousands of miles so we can all better understand the all too common incidents that cause many of us to dislike day to day driving - and we'll continue to work hard on developing a self-driving car that can shoulder this burden for us," he said.

We reported back in March that Google was awarded a new patent to put air bags in the bumper of self-driving vehicles to protect pedestrians.

No accidents have been reported in any other state testing self-driving vehicles, like Florida, Michigan and Nevada.

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