Uber halts testing of its autonomous vehicles

Uber has halted testing of its autonomous vehicles across North America, the company announced Monday, after a woman was struck and killed Sunday night by one of its self-driving cars in Tempe, Arizona.

The moratorium on testing includes San Francisco, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Toronto, Uber said.

It is believed to be the first fatality in any testing program involving autonomous vehicles.

The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into the crash, NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said.

Uber issued a short statement.

“Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident,” a company spokeswoman said.

The vehicle was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash, though a driver was behind the wheel, Tempe police said in a statement. The crash occurred about 10 p.m. Sunday in the area of Curry Road and Mill Avenue, a busy intersection with multiple lanes in every direction.

Police said the vehicle was moving north on Curry Road when a woman, identified as 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, crossing from the west side of the street, was struck. She died at a hospital, the department said.

Missy Cummings, a robotics expert at Duke University who has been critical of the swift rollout of driverless technology across the country, said the computer-vision systems for self-driving cars are “deeply flawed” and can be “incredibly brittle,” particularly in unfamiliar circumstances.

Companies have not been required by the federal government to prove that their robotic driving systems are safe.

“We’re not holding them to any standards right now,” Cummings said, arguing that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration should provide real supervision.

Federal transportation officials have relied on voluntary safety reporting to oversee the burgeoning industry, which has emphasized the lifesaving potential of the technology in arguing against government mandates.

Arizona has aggressively courted driverless tech firms, based largely on its light regulatory touch. That approach has consequences, Cummings said.

“If you’re going take that first step out, then you’re also going to be [the] first entity to have to suffer these kinds of issues,” she said.