A Google self-driving car was pulled over by a motorcycle cop in Mountain View, Calif., because it was moving too slowly, officials said. The officer had decided to stop the vehicle after noticing that the car, which was going 24 mph in a 35 mph, had caused traffic to become backed up behind it, according to NBC News.
In a statement, the police force confirmed the incident saying the officer "noticed traffic backing up behind a slow moving car" and decided to act. "The car was traveling at 24 mph in a 35 mph zone," it said, noting that the officer realized he was dealing with a Google Autonomous Vehicle as he approached it.
"The officer stopped the car and made contact with the operators to learn more about how the car was choosing speeds along certain roadways and to educate the operators about impeding traffic," the statement concluded.
The Google Self-Driving Car Project talked about the incident in a Google+ post, explaining that the speed of the prototype vehicles were capped at 25 mph for safety reasons because "we want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets."
The post also noted that people occasionally flag operators down to learn more about the project, according to The New York Daily News.
The officer had determined the car hadn't broken any laws in the end, thus opting not to issue a ticket, and giving Google a chance to toot its own horn, saying, "After 1.2 million miles of autonomous driving (that's the human equivalent of 90 years of driving experience), we're proud to say we've never been ticketed."
