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One of Google’s famed driverless cars has been pulled over by police while being tested in California – for driving too slowly.
The Google-built car, which is still a prototype, was travelling at 24 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone in Mountain View, the city where the technology giant is based.
The cars are guided by a series of sensors that plot routes as well as track other vehicles and pedestrians around it.
The city’s police department said the car was stopped for being “over-cautious”, and causing a build-up of traffic.
Google made light of the incident in a post on Google+, joking: “Driving too slowly? Bet humans don’t get pulled over for that too often.”
A photo of the incident was also included in the post, which went on to explain that the car’s speed is in fact capped at 25 mph for safety reasons.
“We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighbourhood streets.”
In their own blog post on the the incident, the Mountain View Police Department said an officer “noticed traffic backing up behind a slow-moving car”.
Google revealed their autonomous vehicles have now covered 1.2 million miles of road in testing – the equivalent of around 90 years’ worth of driving they say.
The technology firm hasn’t revealed if and when it plans to launch the cars as consumer vehicles – for now they are only legally allowed to be tested on roads with a speed limit of 35 mph or less in California.
Other large firms, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Tesla are also working on driverless technology. Apple and car-sharing firm Uber are rumoured to be exploring it too.
