Report on fatal crash doesn’t lessen Uber’s role
From the get-go, no one appeared blameless in the pedestrian fatality involving an Uber self-driving car around mid-March.
But now we know who appears most blameworthy. And why.
A Tempe police report released late Thursday indicates that the “backup” driver of the Uber autonomous vehicle was watching a talent show on one of her cellphones at the time of the crash.
Which would mean the first death in Arizona associated with driverless vehicles was caused by a distracted driver.
Ironic, that. And dreadful. And exasperating.
Not simply because Rafaela Vasquez was purportedly watching “The Voice” in the moments leading up to the Uber car striking Elaine Herzberg, who was walking her bike across Mill Avenue.
Or that over a nearly 22-minute stretch of driving before she hit Herzberg, Vasquez was captured on video looking down toward her right knee, presumably at her phone, for roughly a third of the time, according to the police report — actions that may result in charges against her in Herzberg’s death.
It’s awful because every party played a role in that deadly convergence on March 18:
❚ Vasquez, 44, a felon who, given a second chance, fumbles it away through apparent negligence.
❚ Herzberg, who crossed an unlit, unmarked roadway without paying attention. The 49-year-old, who was homeless and reportedly had a history of selfmedicating for depression, was found to have methamphetamine and marijuana in her system at the time of her death.
❚ And Uber, which disclosed after the incident that its emergency braking system and the factory-installed one that came with the Volvo XC90 were
disabled even though the vehicle was in autonomous mode.
Actually, the systems were turned off
because the vehicle was put in autonomous mode — the company explained that left on, the braking system produces a jerky-ride experience.
The rationale boggles the mind. When in autonomous mode, the vehicle’s sensors alert the backup driver of potential problems — a pedestrian crossing in his path, another vehicle veering into his lane, etc. — and it’s up to the backup driver to apply the brakes.
How much any of this was known to the state when it welcomed Uber with open arms is anyone’s guess. Arizona required no special permits or licensing or any particular oversight of Uber in luring its test program to relocate from regulation-rich California.
Uber has not satisfactorily answered how it monitored or assessed drivers’ performances or what its data yielded about performance and safety concerns about its driverless-vehicle program.
The same could be said for the entire enterprise of autonomous-vehicle testing. There remains a shroud of mystery as to how many autonomous vehicles are in Arizona, where and when they are being tested, and what percentage of them have backup drivers and the like.
Whatever lessons could be drawn from Herzberg’s death would be lost on Uber. At least for its operations in Arizona.
The ride-sharing company halted its testing of self-driving cars on Arizona roads after the crash and, a week later, Gov. Doug Ducey officially suspended the program in a letter to Uber’s CEO.
Late last month, as Tempe police announced it had completed its investigation and submitted it to prosectors, Uber said it was pulling up stakes and notified about 300 workers in the self-driving vehicle program in Arizona they were being terminated.
The case now rests with the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office.
About the most uncontested observation one can make is Elaine Herzberg paid the heaviest price for the mistakes so many others have shared in.