Uber AV Allegedly Opted to Ignore Pedestrian in Fatal Accident

More details have surfaced from the investigation into Uber’s fatal autonomous vehicle accident with a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona.

According to The Information, the Uber software in the autonomous Volvo XC90 test vehicle registered the presence of the victim, 49-year old Elaine Herzberg, but recorded it as a “false positive” and thus didn’t choose to apply the brakes. The software is reportedly programmed to ignore objects in its path that wouldn’t impede the vehicle, such as a plastic bag or a stick. Uber engineers were purposely tuning the software to do this, but may have loosened the reins a bit too much, resulting in the fatal crash.

As the published video of the accident shows, the operator behind the wheel wasn’t paying attention to the road at the time of the crash, but rather looking down. The presence of the operator is intended to act as a safety net, with the human driver taking control of the vehicle if it disengages from autonomous mode or makes an error.

SEE ALSO: Autonomous Uber Strikes and Kills Pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona

In a statement, Uber denied to comment on the report awaiting the findings of an NTSB investigation.

“We’re actively cooperating with the NTSB in their investigation,” the company said. “Out of respect for that process and the trust we’ve built with NTSB, we can’t comment on the specifics of the incident. In the meantime, we have initiated a top-to-bottom safety review of our self-driving vehicles program, and we have brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture. Our review is looking at everything from the safety of our system to our training processes for vehicle operators, and we hope to have more to say soon.”

Uber remains committed to developing self-driving vehicles, but with this hiccup, will find itself lagging further behind rivals such as Aptiv, which has a partnership with Uber rival Lyft, and Google’s AV offshoot Waymo.

[Source: The Information]