The news of the first person hit and killed by a self-driving car, operated by Uber, is causing a lot of discussion in the United States, where big companies like Google, Uber and Lyft have been experimenting and advertising the safety of their alternative systems for years. to traditional driving ones. Many details of the incident, which took place in Arizona, have yet to be clarified and will require a few days of investigation. Companies and advocates of autonomous driving systems now fear the introduction of new rules, which could slow down their development activities.
The incident
On Sunday 18 March around 10 pm a Volvo self-driving Uber SUV was driving along a high-speed road in Tempe, a city to the south -East of Phoenix, Arizona. On board the car, which was traveling in autonomous mode at about 65 kilometers per hour, there was only one driver, who was responsible for intervening in the driver's case in case of unexpected behavior by the car. Halfway down a block, in a spot with no crosswalk, a 49-year-old woman started crossing the street pushing her bicycle by hand. According to the reconstructions, Uber's car did not have time to detect the danger and brake, overwhelming the woman. Rescuers took her to the hospital, where she died of serious injuries sustained in the accident.
During a press conference, Tempe police explained that the woman was named Elain Herzberg and that “she was probably homeless”. The police also explained that the accident could hardly have been avoided even in the case of a human being driving. Herzberg would have started crossing suddenly, suddenly appearing in the middle of the road. It is unclear whether the car started braking or not, but it still wouldn't have had the space to stop in time to avoid the accident. The same thing would have happened with a person driving. However, further checks will be necessary to reconstruct the accident.
From the initial investigations it does not appear that the Uber driver had any problems or was distracted. Police said pedestrian safety should always be the priority, but nevertheless reminded the population to use pedestrian crossings to cross from one side of a road to the other.
Automatic driving in Arizona
For some years, Arizona has been the reference point for many manufacturers of automatic driving systems. Seeing the potential to attract large companies like Google and Uber, the state has passed specific rules to allow road testing of self-driving cars, reducing bans and red tape. Uber and Waymo (the company born from the division of Google that deals with these things) have taken advantage of this by significantly increasing their presence, with the aim of covering a large amount of kilometers to perfect their systems.
Considering the effects in Arizona, including from an economic and employment point of view, several other states have begun the approval of laws to simplify the use of experimental unmanned cars, with the aim of attracting in turn companies that they can allow for large investments. In California, for example, the approval of new rules is being considered to make driving legal without people behind the wheel. Approval of the law was expected in late April, but the Tempe incident could take longer.
Risks and dangers
Manufacturers like Waymo and Uber believe that their automated systems are much safer than a car driven by a human being: computers do not they never distract, take into account far more variables, and rely on cameras, radar and other sensors to anticipate dangers and unexpected events hundreds of meters away. The data collected so far in the tests seem to confirm this: since 2009 Waymo has made its cars travel about 8 million kilometers without recording any particular accidents, and the same was true until Sunday for Uber, with its 5 million kilometers of tests. In the United States alone, more than 37,000 people died in road accidents in 2016.
The progress achieved by autonomous driving is evident, but reducing the risk to zero is still impossible. The problem is that sometimes the city administrations themselves underestimate the risks, for fear of losing the presence of large companies in their territory. In Tempe, for example, there had already been a traffic accident involving an Uber car. It happened in March 2017: the car crashed into another vehicle. At the time, the police and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey said no changes to the regulations would be necessary for the trials, because the responsibility for the accident lay with the vehicle driven by a human being.
After Sunday's accident, the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency that deals with transportation safety, confirmed that it had sent four of its officials to Tempe to investigate the cause of the accident. Uber's Volvo has dozens of cameras and sensors that continuously collect and store data: the information on the on-board computer should therefore offer many elements to reconstruct the causes and dynamics of the accident.
What Uber says
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was among the first to spread the news of the Tempe crash, announcing that his company intends cooperate fully with the police to clarify the incident.
Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona. We're thinking of the victim's family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened. https://t.co/cwTCVJjEuz
– dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) March 19, 2018
Uber has so far limited itself to issuing a very short statement, in which it expresses condolences to the family of the person who died in the accident.
Our hearts go out to the victim's family. We're fully cooperating with @TempePolice and local authorities as they investigate this incident.
– Uber Comms (@Uber_Comms) March 19, 2018
Over the years Uber has received a lot of criticism for the conditions in which its drivers work, often forced to very long shifts to make some money, and for wanting to replace taxi services in large cities without respecting local rules and licenses. Over the years Uber has worked hard to improve things, also in view of its expected listing on the stock exchange which could lead the company to a multi-billion dollar valuation.
