Driverless car kills a woman
First death of pedestrian by an autonomous vehicle
AN American woman has become the first pedestrian in the world to be killed by a driverless car.
The Uber vehicle, a Volvo 4x4, struck Elaine Herzberg, 49, as she crossed the road in Tempe, Arizona, early yesterday morning.
The controversial ride-sharing company immediately suspended all self-driving car tests.
The fatality will again raise questions about the safety of autonomous vehicles at a time when Uber and Google are pushing to have them on public roads in the US and the EU.
A safety driver was at the wheel of the Uber car yesterday, but she was unable to stop the accident. The Volvo XC90 was pictured parked by the side of a road with police nearby and its hazard lights on. A damaged bicycle lay on the pavement a few feet away. Reports said Ms Herzberg had been pushing the bike when she was hit.
America’s National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates major accidents such as train crashes, dispatched a team to Tempe.
An Uber spokesman said: ‘Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We are fully co-operating with local authorities in their investigation.’
In the US, former transportation secretary Anthony Foxx said: ‘This is a wake-up call to the entire autonomous vehicle industry and the government to put a high priority on safety.’
The accident in suburban Phoenix could have far-reaching consequences for the development of self-driving vehicles, which have been billed as potentially safer than cars with humans at the wheel. Uber autonomous car testing has been going on for months as car makers and technology companies compete to be the first with cars that operate on their own in what has been predicted to be a million-billioneuro industry.
Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi expressed condolences on his Twitter account and said the company is working with local police on the investigation.
The crash could be a setback for autonomous vehicle research and may lead to stricter regulations from states and the federal government, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina professor who studies the technology. But he said more than 100 people die each day on US roads in crashes of human-driven vehicles. ‘That’s a real contrast that we should keep in mind about this,’ he said. ‘We should be concerned about automated driving. We should be terrified about human driving.’
The crash in Arizona is not the first involving an Uber autonomous test vehicle. In March last year, an Uber SUV flipped onto its side, also in Tempe. No serious injuries were reported, and the driver of the other car was cited for a violation.
Ms Herzberg’s death is the first involving an autonomous test vehicle but not the first in a car with automated control features. The driver of a Tesla Model S was killed in 2016 when his car, operating on its autopilot system, crashed into a lorry in Florida.
The NTSB said driver inattention was to blame, not the vehicle’s autopilot system.
‘A real contrast we must keep in mind’