Google car pulled over for slow driving

A California police officer made a traffic stop — but wrote no ticket as the car had no driver.

The officer pulled over a Google self-driving car that was being tested on local roads on Thursday, Mountain View police said.

He noticed the car going a road-clogging 38kpm (24mph) in a 35mph zone and realised it was a Google Autonomous Vehicle. The officer stopped the car and contacted its operators to let them know it was impeding traffic. A person is required to sit behind the wheel of self-driving cars.

Google responded in a blog, saying it has never received a ticket and adding: “Driving too slowly? Bet humans don’t get pulled over for that too often.”

“As the officer approached the slow moving car he realised it was a Google Autonomous Vehicle,” the police department said. “In this case, it was lawful for the car to be travelling on the street.”

California law allows self-driving cars to operate on roads with speed limits of 35mph or slower. Google caps the speed of its self-driving cars at 25mph for safety reasons.