Self-driving Uber 'detected woman before fatal Arizona crash but chose not to react', report claims

Uber's Volvo XC90 SUV killed a woman during testing in Arizona in March
AP
Tom Powell9 May 2018

Uber’s self-driving test car that killed a woman crossing the street had detected her but chose not to react, a report has said.

The car was travelling at 40mph when it struck 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona, in March. She later died from her injuries.

Uber has determined that the fault lies with the software which decides how the car should react to objects it detects, according to The Information website.

Its software was apparently tuned too far to ignore objects which might be “false positives”, such as plastic bags floating over the road, and didn't react fast enough.

Police released this footage of the seconds before the fatal crash
Tempe Police

The report added that the backup human driver was not paying enough attention to intervene before the fatal collision.

The crash, near Phoenix, was the first fatality involving a self-driving vehicle in the US.

Uber immediately suspended its self-driving vehicle testing in Arizona, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto.

The terrified safety driver filmed at the moment of the car's impact

Police have since released a 22-second video showing a woman walking from a darkened area onto a street just before the Uber SUV strikes her.

The human safety driver appears on the video to be looking down before the crash and then looks startled around the time of the impact.

An Uber spokesman told the Standard: “We’re actively cooperating with the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] in their investigation.

“Out of respect for that process and the trust we’ve built with NTSB, we can’t comment on the specifics of the incident.

“In the meantime, we have initiated a top-to-bottom safety review of our self-driving vehicles programme, and we have brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture.

“Our review is looking at everything from the safety of our system to our training processes for vehicle operators, and we hope to have more to say soon.”

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