A self-driving Uber may have spotted the pedestrian killed in the first fatal crash with a driverless car but ignored her anyway.
The self-driving car which killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg in Phoenix, Arizona in March saw the pedestrian as a false positive, causing its on-board system to decide to ignore her rather than swerve to avoid the crash, according to The Information.
The car’s sensors detected the pedestrian, but according to Uber’s internal investigation into the crash, the self-driving car had been tuned to ignore obstacles it didn’t deem a risk.
Self-driving cars have been having problems with so-called false positives avoiding small objects that human drivers would normally ignore or drive over.
The car had been programmed to ignore more of these warnings, so that the car can drive over certain obstacles, such as a plastic bag floating in front of it, rather than seeing them as a risk and swerving to avoid them.
We’re actively cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board in their investigation. Out of respect for that process and the trust we’ve built with NTSB, we can’t comment on the specifics of the incident, Uber said.
Uber said it had initiated a “top-to-bottom” review of its self-driving car programme following the crash.
A full report into the crash from the transport authority and Uber is expected soon.
The ride-hailing company has been battling against Google’s Waymo and Lyft to launch a fully-operational self-driving taxi service, although the deadly incident has raised questions over the rush to get the first driverless cars on the road.