UBER SUSPENDS THE TESTING OF SELF-DRIVING CARS AFTER A WOMAN CROSSING THE STREET IS STRUCK AND KILLED IN ARIZONA. THE DEATH IS THE FIRST INVOLVING A PEDESTRIAN AND A BLOW TO THE FLEDGLING TECHNOLOGY.
Pedestrian killed in U.S. the first by autonomous car
TEMPE, ARIZ.• An Uber self-driving car hit and killed a woman crossing the street in a Phoenix suburb, police said on Monday, marking the first fatal pedestrian crash involving autonomous vehicles and a potential blow to the technology expected to transform transportation.
Uber Technologies Inc. has suspended all of its self-driving vehicle testing, including a program in Toronto.
The vehicle was in autonomous mode with an operator behind the wheel on Sunday night when a woman walking outside of a crosswalk was hit, Tempe police Sgt. Ronald Elcock said.
Elaine Herzberg, 49, died of her injuries at a hospital.
Local television footage of the scene showed a crumpled bike and a Volvo XC90 SUV with a smashedin front. It was unknown whether Herzberg was on foot or on a bike.
“Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi on Twitter.
“We’re thinking of the victim’s family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened.”
Testing has been going on for months in Toronto, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and San Francisco as automakers and tech companies compete to be the first with the technology.
Uber Canada said Monday in an email that two of its vehicles are being tested in Toronto without passengers.
It said testing has been conducted since last fall, using software that was studied in simulation and on the test track before being deployed to the road.
The Ontario government said Monday that it is following the situation in Arizona and “will consider what measures are appropriate” as more information about the fatality is released.
U.S. federal safety regulators were sending teams to investigate the crash.
Volvo confirmed its vehicle was involved but said the software controlling the SUV was not its own.
Uber is one of seven organizations participating in an Ontario government pilot program, launched in 2016, that allows automated vehicle testing on provincial roads. Bob Nichols, a spokesman for Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation, said Uber has been conducting “limited, onroad testing” in Toronto.
“All companies testing autonomous technology on our roads are expected to follow a strict set of guidelines and rules, designed to provide the utmost safety for all road users. We regularly communicate with our pilot program participants about safety,” Nichols said in an emailed statement.
Last May, Uber announced the launch of a research hub in Toronto focused on the development of self-driving car technology. Led by University of Toronto professor and Canada Research chair Raquel Urtasun, the Advanced Technology Group was one of four groups working on the self-driving technology, mapping and vehicle safety.
So-called robot cars, when fully developed by companies including Uber, Alphabet Inc., and General Motors Co., are expected to drastically cut down on motor vehicle fatalities and create billion-dollar businesses. But Monday’s accident underscored the possible challenges ahead for the promising technology as the cars confront real-world situations involving people.
On Monday, safety advocates called for a national moratorium on all robot car testing on public roads.
“Arizona has been the wild west of robot car testing with virtually no regulations in place,” said Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. “That’s why Uber and Waymo test there. When there’s no sheriff in town, people get killed.”
But the fatality isn’t likely to derail the industry because it is at such an early stage in its development, said Ross McKenzie, managing director at the University of Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research.
“I’m shocked. It’s very, very disappointing,” he said.
“It’s shocking because it’s something we aspire to never have happen. The whole purpose of autonomous driving is to make the operation of vehicles safer because you take out of equation the random, unpredictable behaviour of human operators, like speeding to get through an amber light or taking your eyes off the road to pick up a coffee cup.”
He added the incident will serve to further focus the industry on safety.
The Waterloo research centre has a four-car fleet of autonomous car it is currently testing. McKenzie said most of the testing takes place on a closed track but the first tests on a public road took place last year.
More on-road testing is scheduled for this year and he said the incident has not resulted in any immediate change to that schedule.