SAN FRANCISCO, March 21 (Reuters) - Police in Arizona on Wednesday released a short video of a fatal collision between an Uber self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian, as an investigation continues into the accident that has put new focus on the safety of autonomous vehicles.

The video, taken from inside the Volvo sport utility vehicle that Uber has used for testing, shows the vehicle driving along a dark road when an image of a woman walking a bicycle across the road appears in the headlights.

The woman, Elaine Herzberg, 49, later died from her injuries.

Police have released few details about the accident that occurred Sunday night in Tempe, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, while the car was driving in autonomous mode. Uber suspended its self-driving testing in North America after the incident.

The video shows the vehicle traveling in the right hand lane of a divided four-lane roadway. It is dark but the vehicle's headlights are on. Suddenly, the headlights illuminate a woman directly in front of the car who is crossing the car's lane with her bike.

A photo released by safety regulators on Tuesday of the vehicle showed that the impact occurred on the right side of the vehicle.

The video also shows the driver at the wheel, who appears to be looking down. Just before the video stops, the driver looks up and suddenly looks shocked. </s> Dramatic video footage released by police in Tempe, Arizona, shows the moment a female pedestrian pushing her bicycle was knocked down by a self-driving Uber car on Sunday, March 18.The victim, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, later died in hospital from her injuries.Police named the driver as 44-year-old Rafaela Vasquez, while stating that the vehicle was in “autonomous mode” at the time of the crash, according to ABC15 Arizona. The accident happened on Mill Avenue near Curry Road, the report said.This video first shows the Uber hitting the cyclist from the perspective of the driver, before revealing the driver’s reaction to the crash. Credit: Tempe Police via Storyful </s> Video of the fatal crash involving a self-driving Uber car shows the critical moments just before the vehicle makes contact with a pedestrian walking her bike across a dimly lit road. The release from Tempe, Arizona, police provides a startling piece of evidence in a case that could shape laws and public perceptions around driverless vehicles.

In the video, a woman carries her bike into the middle of a dark street. The vehicle, a Volvo from Uber Technologies Inc. operated in autonomous mode, doesn’t appear to slow down. The video freezes as the car is about to collide with the woman, a 49-year-old named Elaine Herzberg.

The video also shows the view from the inside the vehicle. Uber’s safety driver, Rafael Vasquez, appears to look down at something off-camera in the moments before the collision. Police said they’re reviewing this detail as part of the investigation.

Uber suspends self-driving vehicle testing in Toronto after pedestrian killed in Phoenix </s> Investigators looking into the crash of an Uber self-driving car that struck and killed a woman crossing a road in Tempe, Arizona, earlier this week have released unsettling dashcam video of the incident.

In an exterior camera view, the Volvo XC90 SUV test vehicle is seen traveling the partially lit road when a woman, identified as 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, suddenly appears in the headlights as she walks a bicycle across the vehicle's lane. The fatal impact occurs in a split second.

Another camera mounted inside the car is trained on the Uber safety driver, identified by Tempe police as Rafael Vasquez, 44, whose job is to take over the operation of the vehicle if necessary. The driver's gaze seems divided between something inside the car and the road. His eyes appear to be diverted from road for about four or five seconds before he looks up with a startled expression less than a second before the impact.

Sunday night's fatal crash near Mill Avenue and Curry Road in Tempe marks the first pedestrian death involving an autonomous vehicle.

Uber called the video released Wednesday "disturbing and heartbreaking to watch," in a statement to The San Francisco Chronicle, adding "our thoughts continue to be with Elaine's loved ones."

The vehicle was traveling at 38 mph at the time of the impact on a stretch of road that police say is a 35-mph zone.

Following the crash, Vasquez reportedly told Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir that "it was like a flash, the person walked out in front." He said that "the first alert of the collision was the sound of the collision."

However, experts suggested that the technology employed in the Uber test vehicle should have been able to detect Herzberg and avoid a crash.

"The victim did not come out of nowhere. She's moving on a dark road, but it's an open road, so lidar (laser) and radar should have detected and classified her" as human, Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies autonomous vehicles, tells The Associated Press.

"It absolutely should have been able to pick her up," Sam Ambuelsmaid, an analyst at Navigant Research who follows self-driving technology, tells the AP. "From what I can see in the video, it sure looks like the car is at fault, not the pedestrian."

Soon after the crash, Moir was quoted in an article by The Chronicle as saying she believed the Uber driver was not at fault even though her department had yet to make such a determination. Wednesday's statement said, "Chief Moir and the Tempe Police Department would like to reaffirm that fault has not been determined in this case."

In a statement released with the video, the Tempe Police Department said its investigation of the incident "will address the operating condition of the vehicle, driver interaction with the vehicle, and opportunities for the vehicle or driver to detect the pedestrian that was struck."

The department said as part of its investigation, it was cooperating with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Uber and that it would be looking into the technology aboard the vehicle and all its electronic data.

In its statement, Uber said: "Our cars remain grounded, and we're assisting local, state and federal authorities in any way we can." </s> TEMPE, Ariz. (Reuters) - Police in Arizona on Wednesday released a short video of a fatal collision between an Uber self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian, as investigators probe the accident that has put new focus on the safety of autonomous vehicles.

The video, taken from inside the Volvo XC90 sport utility vehicle that Uber has used for testing, shows the vehicle driving along a dark road when an image of a woman walking a bicycle across the road appears in the headlights.

The woman, Elaine Herzberg, 49, later died from her injuries.

Police have released few details about the accident that occurred on Sunday night in Tempe, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, while the SUV was driving in autonomous mode. Uber suspended its self-driving testing in North America after the incident and federal safety regulators are conducting their own probe.

The video shows the vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of a divided four-lane roadway. Suddenly, the vehicle’s headlights illuminate a woman directly in front of it who is crossing the SUV’s lane with her bike.

A photo released by safety regulators on Tuesday showed that the impact occurred on the right side of the vehicle.

The video also shows the driver at the wheel, who appears to be looking down throughout most of the video. Just before the video stops, the driver looks up and looks shocked.

“The video is disturbing and heartbreaking to watch, and our thoughts continue to be with Elaine’s loved ones,” Uber said in a statement. “Our cars remain grounded, and we’re assisting local, state and federal authorities in any way we can.”

The video is likely to be a key part of investigations of Uber’s self-driving car technology and whether it was ready for testing on public roads.

Although the exact specifics of Uber’s technology are not known, self-driving cars generally use a combination of sensors, including radar and light-based Lidar, to identify objects around the vehicle, including potential obstacles coming into range.

One question on regulators’ minds would be why the sensors did not pick up on the presence of Herzberg, who would ostensibly have already crossed three lanes of traffic before arriving in the path of the Uber vehicle. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Uber dashcam footage shows moment before fatal impact

Police have released two videos showing the moments leading up to a fatal crash involving a self-driving Uber car in Tempe, Arizona, on Sunday.

In the 14-second video, the autonomous vehicle is seen failing to slow down before hitting Elaine Herzberg, 49, who is walking her bike across the road.

One video shows dashcam footage of the impact. The other, an Uber operator monitoring the car's controls.

Uber has suspended self-driving tests in North America following the crash.

In footage released on Wednesday by the Tempe police department, the human Uber operator sitting inside the Volvo appears to be looking down at something while the vehicle is travelling in autonomous mode.

Moments later, the woman appears visibly shocked as she looks up to see Ms Herzberg crossing the highway in their path seconds before impact.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Uber has been testing autonomous Volvo vehicles

"The video is disturbing and heartbreaking to watch, and our thoughts continue to be with Elaine's loved ones," Uber said in a statement.

"Our cars remain grounded, and we're assisting local, state and federal authorities in any way we can," the statement added.

Police said the accident happened on Sunday night, adding that Ms Herzberg had not been using a pedestrian crossing.

Ms Herzberg was taken to a local hospital following the collision but died of her injuries.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board earlier said they would be investigating the incident in Tempe.

While self-driving cars have been involved in multiple accidents, it is thought to be the first time an autonomous car has been involved in a fatal collision with a pedestrian. </s> Police in Arizona on Wednesday released a short video of a fatal collision between an Uber self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian, as investigators probe the accident that has put new focus on the safety of autonomous vehicles. The video, taken from inside the Volvo XC90 sport utility vehicle that Uber has used for testing, shows the vehicle driving along a dark road when an image of a woman walking a bicycle across the road suddenly appears in the headlights.

The woman, Elaine Herzberg, 49, later died from her injuries.

Police have released few details about the accident that occurred on Sunday night in Tempe, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, while the SUV was driving in autonomous mode. Uber suspended its self-driving testing in North America after the incident and federal safety regulators are conducting their own probe.

Fall-out from the accident could stall the development and testing of self-driving vehicles, which are designed to perform far better than human drivers and sharply reduce the number of motor vehicle fatalities that occur each year.

The video shows the vehicle traveling in the right-hand lane of a divided four-lane roadway. The vehicle’s headlights illuminate a woman directly in front of it who is crossing the SUV’s lane with her bike. The woman appears to be jaywalking as she is not in a crosswalk.

A photo released by safety regulators on Tuesday showed that the impact occurred on the right side of the vehicle.

The footage also shows a view of the vehicle’s interior and the driver at the wheel. The driver appears to be looking down, and not at the road, for two periods of about five seconds each. Just before the video stops, the driver looks upward toward the road and suddenly looks shocked.

“The video is disturbing and heartbreaking to watch, and our thoughts continue to be with Elaine’s loved ones,” Uber said in a statement. “Our cars remain grounded, and we’re assisting local, state and federal authorities in any way we can.”

The video is likely to be a key part of investigations of Uber’s self-driving car technology and whether it was ready for testing on public roads.

Although the exact specifics of Uber’s technology are not known, self-driving cars typically use a combination of sensors, including radar and light-based Lidar, to identify objects around the vehicle, including potential obstacles coming into range. While cameras do not perform well in the dark, radar and Lidar can work at night.

One question on regulators’ minds will be why the sensors did not pick up on the presence of Herzberg, who would ostensibly have already crossed three lanes of traffic before arriving in the path of the Uber vehicle.

One self-driving car expert, Bryant Walker Smith, said his first impression was of “outrage” viewing the video.

“Although this video isn’t the full picture, it strongly suggests a failure by Uber’s automated driving system and a lack of due care by Uber’s driver (and by the victim),” said Smith, a professor of law at the University of South Carolina.

“The sensors should have detected the pedestrian in this case; the cameras were likely useless but both the radars and the Lidar must have picked up the pedestrian,” said Raj Rajkumar, a professor at Carnegie Mellon.

“Though no information is available, one would have to conclude based on this video alone, that there are problems in the Uber vehicle software that need to be rectified,” he said.

Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its systems.

The video is likely to renew calls for more oversight in a nascent industry that lacks standardized testing or safety definitions. Lawmakers have had to juggle the need to encourage innovations that promise to dramatically improve safety on roads with current public safety concerns.

Companies including Uber, Alphabet’s Waymo and General Motors’s Cruise Automation have been testing their self-driving technology in Arizona, which has welcomed the industry with a lighter regulatory touch than in states like California, for example.

On Tuesday, Arizona transportation officials said they saw no immediate need to tighten rules on the testing of self-driving cars in the state.

Although some within the self-driving industry have suggested agreeing testing and safety standards for autonomous technology, there has been no concerted effort to do so.

Timothy Carone, an associate teaching professor at Notre Dame University’s Mendoza College of Business whose research specialties include artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, said the question is whether Uber did enough testing before sending robot cars out onto streets alongside humans.

“Did they jump the gun?” he said. “If their testing is found to be inefficient, that cannot be allowed to happen again because these systems have to be ready for road tests.”

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App </s> TEMPE/SAN FRANCISCO (REUTERS) - Uber was likely not at fault in the accident in Tempe, Arizona, where a woman was struck and killed by one of Uber’s self-driving cars on Sunday (March 18), the authorities said on Monday, though concerns have been raised over possible challenges faced by the promising technology.

The San Francisco Chronicle late Monday reported that Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir said that from viewing videos taken from the vehicle "it's very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway".

Moir told the Chronicle, "I suspect preliminarily it appears that the Uber would likely not be at fault in this accident," but she did not rule out that charges could be filed against the operator in the Uber vehicle, the paper reported.

An Uber self-driving car hit and killed a woman crossing the street in Arizona on Monday, marking the first fatality involving an autonomous vehicle and a potential blow to the technology expected to transform transportation.

The ride services company said it was suspending North American tests of its self-driving vehicles, which are currently going on in Arizona, Pittsburgh and Toronto.

So-called robot cars, when fully developed by companies including Uber, Alphabet Inc and General Motors Co , are expected to drastically cut down on motor vehicle fatalities and create billion-dollar businesses.

But Monday's accident underscored the possible challenges ahead for the promising technology as the cars confront real-world situations involving real people.

US lawmakers have been debating legislation that would speed introduction of self-driving cars.

"This tragic accident underscores why we need to be exceptionally cautious when testing and deploying autonomous vehicle technologies on public roads," said Democratic Senator Edward Markey, a member of the transportation committee, in a statement.

Elaine Herzberg, 49, was walking her bicycle outside the crosswalk on a four-lane road in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe about 10pm MST Sunday (0400 GMT Monday) when she was struck by the Uber vehicle travelling at about 65km per hour, police said.

The Volvo XC90 SUV was in autonomous mode with an operator behind the wheel. Herzberg later died from her injuries in a hospital, police said.

"The pedestrian was outside of the crosswalk. As soon as she walked into the lane of traffic she was struck," Tempe Police Sergeant Ronald Elcock told reporters at a news conference. He said he did not yet know how close Herzberg was to the vehicle when she stepped into the lane.

Elcock said he believed Herzberg may have been homeless.

The “Tempe Police Department does not determine fault in vehicular collisions,” the department said in a statement late Monday, in reply to questions from Reuters about the chief’s comments.

“Ultimately the investigation will be submitted to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for review and any potential charges.”

Tempe authorities and federal officials are still investigating the incident. Canada's transportation ministry in Ontario, where Uber conducts testing, also said it was reviewing the accident.

Volvo, the Swedish car brand owned by China's Geely , said the software controlling the car in the crash was not its own.

Video footage will aid the ongoing investigation, and the case would be submitted to the district attorney, Elcock said.

"Our investigators have that information, and they will be using that in their investigation as well as the Maricopa County Attorney's Office as part of their investigation," said Elcock.

"They are going to attempt to try to find who was possibly at fault and how we can better be safe, whether it's pedestrians or whether it's the vehicle itself."

Uber and Waymo on Friday urged Congress to pass sweeping legislation to speed the introduction of self-driving cars into the United States. Some congressional Democrats have blocked the legislation over safety concerns, and Monday's fatality could hamper passage of the bill, congressional aides said Monday.

Safety advocates called for a national moratorium on all robot car testing on public roads.

"Arizona has been the wild west of robot car testing with virtually no regulations in place," said Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit consumer advocacy group, in a statement. "That's why Uber and Waymo test there. When there's no sheriff in town, people get killed."

Arizona has opened its arms to companies testing self-driving vehicles as a means to economic growth and jobs.

Republican Governor Doug Ducey reached out to Uber in 2016 after California regulators cracked down on the company over its failure to obtain testing permits.

Self-driving cars being tested routinely get into fender-benders with other vehicles. Last week, a self-driving Uber crashed with another vehicle in Pittsburgh, local news reported. There were no injuries.

A year ago, Uber temporarily grounded its self-driving cars for a few days following a crash with another car in Tempe. The company has been the subject of a number of complaints about its autonomous vehicles, but the company has said the cars were being driven by a human driver at the time of the incidents.

Uber has said its ability to build autonomous cars is essential to its success in the rapidly changing transportation industry. The company envisions a network of autonomous cars that would be summoned through the Uber app that would supplement - and eventually replace - human-driven cars.

Uber has logged 2 million self-driving miles (3.2 million km) through December. The company has more than 100 autonomous cars testing on the roads of the greater Phoenix area, the company's prime testing ground due to the state's loose regulations and hospitable weather.

Rain, snow and ice are particularly challenging for autonomous cars. The company also tests in Pittsburgh and Toronto.

Concerns over the safety of autonomous vehicles flared after a July 2016 fatality involving a Tesla Inc automobile with a partially autonomous system that required human supervision. Safety regulators later determined Tesla was not at fault. </s> Uber Reaches Settlement With Family Of Arizona Woman Killed By Driverless Car

Uber Technologies has reached a settlement with the family of the woman killed earlier this month in Tempe, Arizona, after one of the company's driverless test vehicles struck her as she was crossing a street.

Member station KJZZ in Tempe reports that an attorney for the victim's family, Christina Perez Hesano, confirmed the settlement Wednesday night, but provided few details.

"The matter has been resolved," Hesano said, adding that the settlement was between Uber and the daughter and husband of Elaine Herzberg, 49.

The names of Herzberg's daughter and husband were not disclosed and the attorney said there would be no further comment.

Herzberg was seen in a dashcam video released last week from the self-driving SUV that hit her. It shows her walking a bicycle across a darkened road moments before the fatal impact.

Her death is believed to be the first involving a pedestrian struck by a self-driving vehicle.

An internal camera in the Uber test vehicle showed the human safety driver mostly looking down and not at the road in the moments before the crash.

KJZZ's Jimmy Jenkins says that earlier this week Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey instructed the Department of Transportation to suspend Uber's ability to test driverless cars on public roadways in Arizona.

Uber says it has halted testing while it works with the police and federal officials to learn more about the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board says its investigation into the incident will take 12 to 14 months.
Police release onboard video from an autonomous Uber car that fatally struck a pedestrian crossing the road in Tempe, Arizona.