Google self-driving car involved in another crash

Google has increased the number of accidents its self-driving cars have been involved in, as its co-founder defended the hi-tech programme.

Sergey Brin told shareholders on Wednesday that one of its automated vehicles had been rear-ended in the past week, taking the total number involved in collisions since their launch six years ago to 12.

Mr Brin said he would not release reports of the crashes to protect those involved, but said that "seven or eight times we were rear-ended”, while on another occasion a human driving one of the test vehicles rear-ended another car.

“Our greatest learning is that people don’t pay attention, even trained drivers.” he said. “The other three were situations where the car was not driving itself, we were at a stop light or we were sideswiped.

"I’m very proud of the record of our cars. We don’t claim to be perfect, our goal is to beat human drivers.”