On Feb. 14, a Lexus SUV was traveling east on El Camino Real in Mountain View, California, about 12 minutes south of Google’s corporate headquarters. The Lexus was being operated by Google’s self-driving car technology, a system of sensors and software that allows the car to navigate without the aid of a human operator, though there was a Google tester sitting behind the wheel.
As the SUV came to a red light at the intersection of Castro Street, it put on its right-hand turn signal and moved into the right side of the lane to pass some cars that were stopped at the light. There were some sandbags placed around a storm drain that were in the SUV’s way, though, so it came to a stop. When the light turned green, the other traffic began to move again, and the SUV made its way back to the center of the lane to get around the sandbags...