Just two months ago one of Uber’s vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian while it was in autonomous mode. The accident prompted them to freeze all autonomous testing. Now Uber has announced that they will renew testing of their autonomous vehicles in Pittsburgh.
After the fatal accident, Uber quickly became a target for politicians – even ones that had embraced self-driving technology in the past. Arizona’s Governor called the accident “an unquestionable failure,” and banned Uber’s autonomous testing indefinitely. Since then, Uber has been quietly staying off of public roads – and trying to stay out of the public eye.
Now Uber says it will be returning to testing in Pittsburgh this summer. But not everyone is pleased with the news.
“Uber did not tell me of today’s announcement, and I was forced to learn about it through social media reports,” read a statement from Mayor William Peduto. “This is not the way to rebuild a constructive working relationship with local government, especially when facing a public safety matter.”
Uber claims it is working on a “top-to-bottom safety review,” but according to recent reports, it may have a lot of work to do.
New findings issued by the National Transportation Safety Board indicate that while the Uber involved in the fatal accident did properly detect the pedestrian who was crossing the street, it didn’t apply the brakes. In fact, the system reportedly even concluded that “an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision,” but it didn’t apply the brakes because that feature was deliberately turned off.
Uber told NTSB investigators that “emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior.”
Source: ttnews, ttnews, forbes, wired, theverge, usatoday, fortune, truckersreport, arstechnica, mline, bloomberg
They need a button that says “pedestrian crunch” on it. To run over the pedestrians, just hit the button. Wonder if a bunch of autonomous supporting bots are going to comment on this article?
I dont think that uber should be testing on public roads. Test on tracks abd continue testing fir at least a year untill all concivable veribals have been met. UBER, STAY OFF THE ROAD. YOU ENDANGER MY LIFE
All these companies are using the general public for there testing grounds for an unproven device that clearly puts human life at risk.Its clearly reckless endangerment.
As far as I’m concerned, we need to stay as far away from this self-driving ‘technology’ as we can. It’ll be a long time before we reach “The Jetsons” stage. I know some will argue it’s the wave of the future – and it may be – but it’s not NOW!
What’s interesting is they want driverless trucks on the road. As you can tell there is plenty of trucks on the road right as now. When the age comes when all you see are huge caravans of driverless trucks on the highway are we better off using the train system?
Anyway anyhow you cut it you will always need the useful hand of an actual human driver to maneuver around crowded cities and infrastructure. A machine or robot will not be able to determine different driving situations that are sudden or judgement calls. This could endanger a lot of people.
More self driving cars…goes to show, you cant cure stupid ! ! !
OK, my question is, when they cut you off …are flipping off anybody?