content: The google car usually run in a "paranoid grandma" setting : if something is different than what's expected, it stop. ( Then you take over ) And with the sensors it has, it manage to react to events before we even see them.    Is it perfect? No way. But each failure is limited thanks to its paranoid way of driving and the whole system keep recording in order to get enough data to teach it for the future. So, according to what I know :   The biker was not expected to be prone on the road, the lidar detect him as an obstacle on the road, the system stop to give back control to the driver.   Lidar detect an unexpected change in the geometry of the road : stop   The driver hit the emergency stop in order to call the authorities. If not, the system will detect an unexpected obstacle on the road ( the cars ) and stop.   I think they have already encountered that one : the car did stop until the ducks crossed.