An autonomous vehicle was involved in a minor crash early this month in what is reportedly San Francisco's first traffic accident involving a self-driving car.

On the afternoon of Jan. 8, a Nissan Leaf managed by Cruise Automation hit a parked Toyota Prius near the intersection of 7th Street and Bryant Street, according to a DMV report.

But don't be so quick to condemn self-driving technology: Though the incident began when the automated system steered the car incorrectly, the crash was technically a case of human error.

Based on the DMV account, the driver took manual control, but did not change the vehicle's path, before colliding with the other car. It remains unclear exactly how much time the motorist had to redirect; Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt told IDG that the smart car alerted its handler several seconds in advance.

"There was enough time," Vogt told IDG. "He took over manual control but unfortunately made a mistake."

Minor damage was sustained to both vehicles, but there were no injuries.

Cruise Automation did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment. The California start-up is developing a $10,000 add-on autopilot system called RP-1, which can be retrofitted into 2012 and later Audi A4 and S4 models.

This isn't the first autonomous car crash, though. Last May, reports tipped four accidents among the nearly 50 self-driving vehicles being tested on California roads. Three involved "souped-up Lexus SUVs" operated by Google, and the fourth was an Audi with self-driving gear from Delphi Automotive. But only two of the cars were in self-driving mode at the time of the collisions; the other two times, a person was in control of the vehicle.

Still, autonomous cars are better drivers than most humans, according to a recent Virginia Tech study, which found that self-driving vehicles are involved in 1.6 major accidents per one million miles, compared to 2.5 for cars driven by mortal beings.