The backup Uber driver for a self-driving vehicle that killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018 pleaded guilty Friday to endangerment in the first fatal collision involving a fully autonomous car.
Rafaela Vasquez told police that 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg "came out of nowhere" and that she didn't see Herzberg before the March 18, 2018, collision on a darkened Tempe street.
Vasquez's attorneys said she was looking at a messaging program used by Uber employees on a work cellphone that was on her right knee. They said the TV show was playing on her personal cellphone, which was on the passenger seat. It was not the first crash involving an Uber autonomous test vehicle. In March 2017, an Uber SUV flipped onto its side, also in Tempe when it collided with another vehicle. No serious injuries were reported, and the driver of the other car was cited for a violation.
In Herzberg's death, the contributing factors cited by the NTSB board included Uber's inadequate safety procedures and ineffective oversight of its drivers, Herzberg's decision to cross the street outside of a crosswalk and the Arizona Department of Transportation's insufficient oversight of autonomous vehicle testing.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Metro Ford in Calgary is automaker's 1st store on Indigenous landFord of Canada and Calgary’s Metro Ford marked a landmark event earlier this month with the grand opening of the automaker’s first franchised dealership on Indigenous land.
Read more »
Singapore executes woman for 1st time in nearly 20 years for drug offence | CBC NewsSingapore conducted its first execution of a woman in 19 years on Friday — its second hanging this week — for drug trafficking. It comes despite calls for the city-state to cease capital punishment for drug-related crimes.
Read more »
Police find 2,000-year-old ship full of hundreds of ancient jarsThe ship dates to around 1st or 2nd century BC, around the same time the Roman Colosseum was built
Read more »
Arizona mom never stopped looking for her missing daughter. She showed up 4 years later in MontanaWhen Alicia Navarro disappeared in 2019 from her home in a Phoenix suburb days before her 15th birthday, she left a signed note for her family promising she would return.
Read more »