In a horrible accident in Arizona, an Uber self-driving car hit and killed a woman pedestrian.
Following up on my earlier tweet, Uber car was in autonomous mode with a human safety driver and it struck a woman (not a bicyclist) who walked into street. She has died. We think this is the first pedestrian killed by an autonomous vehicle. Uber is cooperating. Story coming
— Daisuke Wakabayashi (@daiwaka) March 19, 2018
Watch below:
A woman died of her injuries after being struck by a Uber self-driving vehicle in Arizona, police say, prompting the ride-hailing company to suspend ts autonomous-vehicle programme across the US and Canada.
Monday’s accident in Tempe, Arizona, marked the first fatality from a self-driving vehicle, which are still being tested around the globe, and could derail efforts to fast-track the introduction of the new technology in the US.
At the time of the accident, which occurred on the night between Sunday and Monday, the car was in autonomous mode with a vehicle operator behind the wheel, Tempe police said.
Pretty terrible.
And another:
There’s a counterpoint to the obvious Luddist response to shutting down all self-driving cars:
As you hear a ton about this, remember that people die *all the time* from non-autonomous vehicles. The deaths per mile are already much lower for autonomous vehicles (nowhere near their safety peak) than non-autonomous vehicles (relatively close to their safety peak).
— Austin Wallace (@austeane) March 19, 2018
People dying is hellishly terrible, and should be mourned and taken seriously always, whether the death happened with a human driver at the wheel or not.
If we can get autonomous driving up to its potential, motor vehicle deaths should almost disappear.— Austin Wallace (@austeane) March 19, 2018
I doubt there are enough numbers to know the averages, since self-driving cars are so new. But I doubt we’re going to stop the march of progress in that arena. It’s just that companies developing the technology will obviously need to be much more careful than Uber was here. And I’m sure they can except a big lawsuit.