A self-driving shuttle service made quite an impression on its launch day in Las Vegas by crashing into vehicle operated by a – wait for it – a human.

The shuttle is the works of Navya, a French startup, but was being operated by a private transportation company named Keolis, which operates a one kilometre “loop around downtown Las Vegas offering free rides to residents”.

Cute.

Nick Statt from The Verge has more on the launch:

Within an hour of starting its new expanded operation today, following a two-week pilot test back in January, the shuttle hit the front end of a large delivery truck as the human driver pulled out into the street from a loading bay.

Eina.

But wait, there’s more.

The accident was due to the negligence of a human. Obviously.

Mike Blasky, a spokesperson for AAA who’s working with Las Vegas and Keolis to sponsor the programme and “survey driver attitudes toward autonomous vehicles” silenced an uneducated critic on Twitter:

Glad that nobody got hurt.

A Las Vegas government representative further explained the incident on the city’s official Tumblr page, saying:

The autonomous shuttle was testing today when it was grazed by a delivery truck downtown. The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it’s sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident.

Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle. Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided. Testing of the shuttle will continue during the 12-month pilot in the downtown Innovation District.

The shuttle will remain out of service for the rest of the day. The driver of the truck was cited by Metro.

One thing is for sure: the only way to prove the viability of self-driving vehicles is to get more of them on public roads, thus allowing human drivers and passengers to experience the technology and start shaping a more sophisticated collaboration between man and machine.

The world sure does like overreacting, though:

Everybody alright?

[source:theverge]