Consumer Watchdog has urged California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in the US to amend its Autonomous Vehicle Regulation that would mandate police investigation into any crashes of robot cars being tested on public roads.
Consumer Watchdog's Privacy Project director John M Simpson said: "The robot car accident reports are prepared and filed by the company doing the testing. Inevitably the companies will present their version of what happened in any crash in the best possible light.
"Relying solely on the word of the testing company is not adequate to protect the legitimate public interest in ensuring robot cars are tested safely."
It has also been highlighted that DMV would need any data and video gathered by a robot car just before and during a crash. The video and data, with personally identifying information redacted, should be released to the public, it was upheld.
It has been reported that since Google started testing its robot cars six years ago, its vehicles have been involved in 15 mishaps. Delphi has been involved in one crash.
Simpson wrote: "Google's cars have been involved in the most crashes - 15 - perhaps because they have the most vehicles on public roads. Under the current reporting system the DMV - and the public - must rely entirely on the Internet giant's version of what happened.
"There is no independent third-party verification. 'Trust us, we're Google' simply isn't good enough when our public highways become the company's laboratory."
