In apparent first, self-driving Uber car kills pedestrian

A woman in Tempe, Arizona, has died after being hit by a self-driving car oper- ated by Uber, in what appears to be the first known death of a pedestrian struck by an autonomous vehicle on a pub- lic road.

The Uber vehicle was in autonomous mode with a human safety driver at the wheel when it struck the woman, who was crossing the street outside of a crosswalk, Tempe police said in a statement. The episode hap- pened around 10 p.m. Sunday. The woman was not publicly identified.

Uber said it had suspended testing of its self-driving cars allowing companies to test in Tempe, Pittsburgh, San autonomous vehicles with- Francisco and Toronto. out anyone behind the wheel.

“Our hearts go out to the Arizona already allows victim’s family. We are fully self-driving cars to operate cooperating with local author- without a driver behind the ities in their investigation of wheel. Since late last year, this incident,” an Uber spokes- Waymo, the self-driving car woman, Sarah Abboud, said unit from Google’s parent in a statement. company Alphabet, has been

The fatal crash will most using cars without a human likely raise questions about in the driver’s seat to pick regulations for self-driving up and drop off passengers cars. Testing of self-driving there. The state has largely cars is already underway for taken a hands-off approach, vehicles that have a human promising that it would help driver ready to take over if keep the driverless car indus- something goes wrong, but try free from regulation. As states are starting to allow a result, technology com- companies to test cars without panies have flocked to Aria person in the driver’s seat. zona to test their self-drivThis month, California said ing vehicles. that, in April, it would start Autonomous cars are expected to ultimately be safer than human drivers, because they don’t get distracted and always observe traffic laws. However, researchers working on the technology have struggled with how to teach the autonomous systems to adjust for unpredictable human driving or behavior.

An Uber self-driving car was involved in another crash a year ago in Tempe. In that collision, one of Uber’s Volvo XC90 SUVs was hit when the driver of another car failed to yield, causing the Uber vehicle to roll over onto its side. The car was in self-driving mode with a safety driver behind the wheel, but police said the autonomous vehicle had not been at fault.