After investigations, more details surrounding the crash of the self-driving Uber earlier this year have come to light.
It turns out, the car in the Arizona incident didn¡¯t miss the woman in the road. It actually spotted her six seconds before the crash, but didn¡¯t swerve.?
Images courtesy: Reuters
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its preliminary findings on Thursday about the March 18 crash. In the accident, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg was struck and killed by one of Uber¡¯s self-driving cars while she was wheeling a bicycle across a four-lane road. Unfortunately for her, though the car had a safety driver behind the wheel, footage showed she was distracted and looking away at the moment of the crash.
According to the report, the Volvo XC90 was in autonomous for 19 minutes before the crash. The car¡¯s system, using its radar and LIDAR sensors, actually detected Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her. At first, it identified her as an ¡°unknown object¡±, then as a car, and finally as a bicycle.
It was finally only 1.3 seconds before the crash that the car realised it needed to hit the emergency brakes. At the time, it was doing 69 kmph in a 72 kmph zone.?
The thing is, it¡¯s somewhat also the driver¡¯s fault yes, but the main problems are with the self-driving system. Firstly, it wasn¡¯t able to properly classify the woman, though that¡¯s the point of testing I suppose. Secondly, when it couldn¡¯t identify the unknown object, it should have already begun braking for safety purposes. It turns out Uber just didn¡¯t build that safety mechanism into the system. Thirdly, at no point in time was the safety driver alerted to the danger, which is absolutely necessary seeing as the emergency brakes are not under the car¡¯s control. But the driver received no warning whatsoever.
¡°Over the course of the last two months, we¡¯ve worked closely with the NTSB, an Uber spokesperson said in a statement. ¡°As their investigation continues, we¡¯ve initiated our own safety review of our self-driving vehicles program. We¡¯ve also brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture, and we look forward to sharing more on the changes we¡¯ll make in the coming weeks.¡±?