Uber to restart its autonomous vehicle testing, nine months after the fatal Arizona accident

It was back in March this year when a self-driving car by Uber killed a pedestrian, a 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, in Tempe, Arizona. Uber, who had to halt the on-road testing of its autonomous vehicles after the incident, got the permission granted again to restart the testing yesterday. The authorization letter by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) confirmed that Uber will resume its on-road testing of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh.

As per the details of the accident’s investigation, Rafaela Vasquez, the backup driver, had looked down at his phone 204 times during a course of a 43-minute test drive. After the accident, Uber had to halt all of its autonomous vehicle testing operations in Pittsburgh, Toronto, San Francisco, and Phoenix.

Additionally, a shocking revelation was made last week by an Uber manager, Robbie Millie, who said that he tried to warn the company’s top executives about the danger, a few days before the fatal Arizona accident. According to Robbie Miller, a manager in the testing-operations group, he had sent an email to Uber’s top execs, where he warned them about the dangers related to the software powering Uber’s prototype “robo-taxis”. He also said that he warned them about the human backup drivers in the vehicles who hadn’t been properly trained to do their jobs efficiently.

Other than that, Uber recently released its Uber safety report, where the company mentioned that it is committed to “anticipating and managing risks” that come with on-road testing of autonomous vehicles, however, it cannot guarantee to eliminate all of the risks involved.

“We are deeply regretful for the crash in Tempe, Arizona, this March. In the hours following, we grounded our self-driving fleets in every city they were operating. In the months since, we have undertaken a top-to-bottom review of ATG’s safety approaches, system development, and culture. We have taken a measured, phased approach to return to on-road testing, starting first with manual driving in Pittsburgh”, said Uber.

Although Uber has not released any details on when exactly it will be restarting its AV’s road testing, it says that it will only go back to on-road testing when it has implemented the improved processes. Moving on forward, Uber will make sure to always have two employees at the front seat of its self-driving cars at all times. There’s also going to be an automatic braking system enabled to strictly monitor the safety of the employees within these self-driving cars.