When an Uber self-driving car killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Ariz. Last March, the company called a halt to its tests. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi tweeted, “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.”
But according to an email leaked to The Information, top management received a warning about frequent accidents involving the cars.
Robbie Miller, head of the company’s self-driving truck operations, reportedly sent an email, just days before the fatal collision, which read in part, “The cars are routinely in accidents resulting in damage. This is usually the result of poor behavior of the operator or the AV (autonomous vehicle) technology.”
The email went on to say that in February 2018, a car was “damaged nearly every other day” and that they shouldn’t be “hitting things every 15,000 miles.”
According to a police report, the person behind the wheel of the vehicle in Arizona, Rafaela Vasquez, was watching the NBC talent show The Voice for 42 minutes before the crash. She was looking down 0.5 seconds before the car struck Herzberg.
The company told The Information:
Our team remains committed to implementing key safety improvements, and we intend to resume on-the-road self-driving testing only when these improvements have been implemented and we have received authorization from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
Coins2Day reached out to Uber for further comment.
