Uber has reached a settlement with the family of the woman involved in the fatal accident with a self-driving Uber vehicle earlier this month, Reuters reports. In the incident, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg died after being hit by an Uber self-driving vehicle while she was walking her bicycle across a street in Tempe, Arizona in the early hours of March 19.
Lawyers representing Herzberg’s daughter and husband announced that “the matter has been resolved,” ending a potential legal battle that would have come about from starting. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, and Uber declined to comment on the matter.
Uber suspended its self-driving tests following the incident. While unrelated to the matter, Toyota was also reported to have temporarily suspended all evaluation with its self-driving vehicle division following the fatal crash, and chipmaker Nvidia Corp also suspended self-driving testing on public roads.
Released footage from the onboard cameras on the self-driving Uber vehicle, a Volvo XC90, raised questions about why the autonomous car failed to stop in time. According to reports, the XC90 was moving at 61 km/h (38 mph) in a 56 km/h (35 mph) zone at the time of the accident, and failed to slow down before the collision.
The accident might potentially stall the development and testing of self-driving vehicles, with Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz saying that ongoing risks will definitely have an impact on the industry’s progress on the autonomous front.
“There will be mistakes from vehicles, from systems, and a hundred or 500 or a thousand people could lose their lives in accidents like we’ve seen in Arizona,” Lentz said at a Reuters event connected to the New York auto show.
“The big question for government is: How much risk are they willing to take? If you can save net 34,000 lives, are you willing to potentially have 10 or 100 or 500 or 1,000 people die? I think the answer to that today is they are not willing to take that risk – and that’s going to really slow down the adoption of autonomous driving,” he explained.
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Ironic. Money solves everything in land of ‘fair & freedom’. Even deaths.
Not here thou. Rip
Yes. Lucikly here money cant solve everything.
Human greed will bring about Skynet.
BFM discussion from this morning? :p
Automation self driving car will make all the trains and other public transportation lose appeal
Can the accident be avoided ? YES. I’m surprised that no one ask – Why the women CONTINUE to cross the road when there is a vehicle coming with lights ON !?
We were told from young by our parents to check for vehicles B4 we cross any road. At 61 km/h, it is not exactly fast.
I’m NOT defending the driver or Uber here. Let them pay whatever compensation that the judge think is Right. I’m just asking – Can the accident be avoided ?
In US and most western countries, pedestrians has right of way. When I was in Aussie, cars upon even seeing someone reaching a crosswalk will stop regardless if the person wanna cross or not. Robots dunno that, dswai this happen.
Yapping & continue yapping without substance. Did U answer the question – “Can the accident be avoided”?? Can’t under the question isit ??
The answer is yes, but your questions is supposed who?
And the answer is driver and not pedestrian
Let me get this straight. U din ask: “Why the women CONTINUE to cross the road when there is a vehicle coming with lights ON !?” Which I answered.
Ok. Then who did? Ur poltergeist? Evil twin?
Autonomous driving can only be borderline used if they could win F1 driver. Autonomous driving should not be allowed in the first place not until they are fully tested in race tracks.
The answer to your question as to whether the accident can be avoided – yes of course, if the safety mechanisms kicked in.. which unfortunately was disabled at the point of impact.
Ask yourself a very serious question then. If the woman was your relative/mother/sister, would you still blame the victim or would you place the bulk of the blame on Autonomous Driving? It’s obvious that this technology is too premature to be tested in REAL ROADS, especially with 12 year old mat rempits riding as if they have a death wish.
Hello ben, It is obvious U are not my dad bcos my dad taught me to cross road ONLY when its safe & never cross road at night alone.
Who is defending Uber or Autonomous Driving here ??! U have problem comprehending & U have failed Big time as a Dad.
On the topic of defending Autonomous Driving.
The tragedy here, Uber has been allowed to test unproven technology on real roads and today we have a dead woman as a result of their testing. Did she sign an agreement consenting to be part of Uber’s test?
If I read the comments here correctly, a certain amount of people have to die for this technology to be improved. What’s an acceptable number? Perhaps you can volunteer to be one of them. Leave aside your childish antics – not everyone has the luxury to drive at night. There are people who have no choice but to walk and cross roads to feed their families. There are hardworking makciks who sell kueh at night.
To a 12 yearold kid, mortality is something that he cant fathom until he suffers real loss. His childish manner reflects his naiveness and petty disregard for human lifes as if its currency to be spent for tech advancement. Pity he has thrown his humanity to Skynet.
really 12 years old mentality. maybe the woman is blind ? are you going to blame the blind woman for not being able to see the headlamps ?
in such edge cases, the tech should be able to compensate for the shortcomings of humans.
The question is not about how many lives we are willing to sacrifice for a “net benefit”. This is not war. This is the same reason we have ethics and procedures in medicine and do not immediately jump into testing medicines on human subjects.
Carmakers have been drawn to Nevada, away from the natural technological centre of Silicon Valley, because Nevada basically decided to forego most restrictions on self-driving cars, while California enacted strict regulations to make sure things are done properly with accountability.
This all just boils down to corporate greed and disregard for human life.
Looking at the footage, even human with super reflex cant avoid this accident.