confirmed
Elaine Herzberg, 49, Arizona: killed by an Uber self-driving test car
An Uber ATG test SUV operating in computer control mode struck and killed a pedestrian walking a bicycle across N. Mill Avenue at night. The system detected her about 5.6 seconds before impact but never classified her as a pedestrian or predicted her path, and Uber had disabled the Volvo's factory automatic emergency braking. The backup operator was looking at a phone.
- Status
- Confirmed by an official finding
- Deaths
- 1
- Date
- 18 March 2018
- Place
- Tempe, Arizona, United States
- AI system
- Uber ATG developmental automated driving system (lidar/radar/camera perception and classification), modified 2017 Volvo XC90
- Developer / operator
- Uber Advanced Technologies Group
- Named
- Elaine Herzberg
The finding
Probable cause: the vehicle operator's failure to monitor the driving environment and the automated driving system because she was visually distracted by her personal cell phone. Contributing: Uber ATG's (1) inadequate safety risk assessment procedures, (2) ineffective oversight of vehicle operators, and (3) lack of adequate mechanisms for addressing operators' automation complacency, all a consequence of its inadequate safety culture; plus the impaired pedestrian crossing outside a crosswalk and the Arizona DOT's insufficient oversight of AV testing. The findings (not the probable cause) add that Uber ATG did not adequately manage the risk of the system's 'inability in this crash to correctly classify and predict the path of the pedestrian', and that deactivating Volvo's FCW/AEB removed a layer of safety redundancy.
Legal status
NTSB report adopted 19 November 2019. Prosecutors declined to charge Uber as a corporation (2019). The backup operator, Rafaela Vasquez, pleaded guilty to endangerment on 28 July 2023 and was sentenced to three years' supervised probation. No civil verdict against Uber has been reported.
Notes
The NTSB's probable cause names only the distracted safety operator. We count the death as confirmed because the NTSB's contributing factors name Uber's handling of its automated driving system, including its failure to address operators' complacency, and its findings record the system's failure to classify her or predict her path. Widely reported as the first pedestrian killed by a self-driving car.
Sources
- Collision Between Vehicle Controlled by Developmental Automated Driving System and Pedestrian, Tempe, Arizona, March 18, 2018 (HAR-19/03)
- Investigation HWY18MH010
- NTSB blames Uber's 'inadequate safety culture' for self-driving fatality
- The backup driver in the 1st death by a fully autonomous car pleads guilty to endangerment