Uber has reached a settlement with the family of a pedestrian killed during an Arizona road test of the ride-hailing firm’s self-driving vehicles.
Cristina Perez Hesano, an attorney for relatives of 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, declined to provide further details on the matter “as it has been resolved.” Herzberg, whose death was reportedly the first involving so-called autonomous vehicles, was struck as she attempted to walk a bicycle across a Tempe, Ariz., street about 10 p.m. on Sunday, March 18, according to local police, who are investigating the accident along with the National Transportation Safety Board. Uber declined to comment.
The resolution was reached amid growing concerns about the safety of self-driving cars, which have been supported by President Trump’s administration as a way to curb traffic fatalities. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who has previously backed the vehicles on similar grounds, ordered Uber to halt its tests in the state, and Senate Democrats started probing a legal loophole that could block consumers from suing autonomous-vehicle companies.
In a letter to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, the Arizona governor described a video of the accident as “disturbing and alarming” and said it raised questions about the firm’s testing.
“Improving public safety has always been the emphasis of Arizona’s approach to autonomous vehicle testing, and my expectation is that public safety is also the top priority for all who operate this technology in the state of Arizona,” Ducey wrote. The March 18 crash, he added, “is an unquestionable failure to comply with this expectation.”
We will hold companies accountable. We will enforce the law. We will take strong action against any company or operator that does not demonstrate they are ready for primetime. If you’re going to operate in Arizona; you will have to meet these standards. 4/4
— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) March 27, 2018
An Uber spokesperson noted that the company had suspended self-driving car tests in all cities where they were being conducted. “We continue to help investigators in any way we can, and we’ll keep a dialogue open with the governor’s office to address any concerns they have,” the representative said.
Trials of Uber’s self-driving cars, run through the company’s Advanced Technologies Group, were previously under way in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and the Canadian metropolis of Toronto, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The technology behind self-driving cars, which requires wireless communication between moving vehicles and their surroundings to gauge relative positions, is still in its infancy, though many automobiles already on the road offer limited features based on it. Ford’s assisted-parking service, for instance, can steer vehicles into spaces while drivers control the brakes and accelerator, though the automaker warns that it may not work in all conditions.
Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet that’s also developing self-driving vehicles, uses technology that likely would have prevented an accident such as the one in Tempe, CEO John Krafcik said afterward.
“Based on our knowledge of what we’ve seen so far with that accident and our own knowledge of the robustness that we’ve designed in our systems, I can say with some confidence that in situations like that one, with pedestrians — in this case, a pedestrian with a bicycle — we have a lot of confidence that our technology would be robust and would be able to handle situations like that.”
