Pedestrian Struck And Killed By Uber Autonomous Car
Uber has halted its North American autonomous testing programme following a fatality involving one of the ride-sharing firm’s specially-adapted Volvo XC90s.
While running in autonomous mode - with a safety operator behind the wheel - the vehicle hit 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who was pushing a bicycle across the road in Tempe, Arizona on Sunday night. She was taken to hospital, but later died from her injuries. It’s thought to be the first fatal accident involving an autonomous car and a pedestrian.
Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We’re fully cooperating with @TempePolice and local authorities as they investigate this incident.
— Uber Comms (@Uber_Comms) March 19, 2018
According to local police, Herzberg was not using a pedestrian crossing at the time of the accident. Uber says that it is “fully cooperating” with authorities, while CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said: “We’re thinking of the victim’s family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened.”
Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona. We’re thinking of the victim’s family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened. https://t.co/cwTCVJjEuz
— dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) March 19, 2018
This isn’t the first time Uber has temporarily taken its autonomous cars - which are also tested in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto - off the road. In March last year, the company temporarily suspended the test programme after one of the modified XC90s crashed into anther car and flipped onto its side in Tempe. The other vehicle had failed to yield, highlighting one of the problems with testing autonomous vehicles amidst regular traffic.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
So the problem is with Tempe. Anyway deepest sympathies to the family
I know it’s not just about pointing fingers, but who’s going to take the blame for this?
If not the autonomus vehicles, it would most likely not happened. Yes, there would be a possibility, but if there were only good drivers on the roads, then accidents would be way less common. That’s why they should make driving tests 100x harder with some racing driver techniques like drifting just to ensure that every driver knows what he’s doing behind a wheel. And they should be driving an car with max 100hp, no power steering, no abs, no TC, and only manual gearbox. Driving should be a privilage…
Check mate autonomy bullshit
This is desperately sad and it highlights just how far autonomous vehicles have still got to go before becoming a viable mode of transport.
Humans are unpredictable and you can’t program spontaneity.
We’re trying to get into autonomous cars way too fast… It is still way off it will probably not even happen in our lives. Companies are competing to be the first in this industry and that’s not helping at all.
I’ve never been so happy that someone had died before. They were a casualty in the war against autonomous cars. RIP my hero
“Autonomous cars are the future”, they say, and yet someone’s already been killed.
People might see this as something really bad. Which of course it is. But the really good part about it is that it is taken seriously. If a plane crashes, there will always be an investigation to help fix whatever caused the plane to crash. But with car crashes, we just swipe it under the rug and ask people to drive slowly and carefully and various other bullshit. But not anymore, I’m really glad at least in some part of the world, they are taking car crashes seriously. And if this is the future, sign me the f up.
P.S. I’m not being an AV fanboy, just pointing out the good here. Of course, if they decided that normal car crashes are just as critical as plane crashes, I wouldn’t have any issues.
the problem with autonomous cars is assuming we can create an algorithm to predict the total chaos that is humanity.