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> The “safety” driver behind the wheel of a self-driving Uber that hit and killed a pedestrian was streaming the television show The Voice on her phone at the time of the crash, police have said.

The collision that killed Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was crossing the road at night in Tempe, Arizona, was “entirely avoidable”, a police report said, if Rafaela Vasquez had been paying attention.

Instead she repeatedly looked down at her phone, glancing up just a half second before the car hit Herzberg. Police said she could faces charges of vehicle manslaughter, but it would be for prosecutors to decide.

The Uber car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash, but Uber, like other self-driving car developers, requires a back-up driver in the car to intervene when the autonomous system fails or a tricky driving situation occurs.

Vasquez looked up just 0.5 seconds before the crash, after keeping her head down for 5.3 seconds, the police report said. Uber’s self-driving Volvo SUV was travelling at just under 44mph.

Police obtained records from Hulu, an online streaming service, which showed Vasquez’s account was playing the television talent show The Voice the night of the crash for about 42 minutes, ending at 9.59pm, which “coincides with the approximate time of the collision”, the report says.



Vasquez could not immediately be reached for comment and Reuters could not locate her attorney.



The crash dealt Uber a major setback in its efforts to develop self-driving cars, and the company ended its autonomous car testing programme in Arizona after the incident.

Uber declined to comment on the police report. The company prohibits the use of any mobile device by safety drivers while the self-driving cars are on a public road, and drivers are told they can be fired for violating this rule.



A spokeswoman last month said the company was undergoing a “top-to-bottom safety review”. 



Police said video from inside the car showed Vasquez was looking down during the trip, and her face “appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down”.

The report found that Vasquez “was distracted and looking down” for close to seven of the nearly 22 minutes prior to the collision.

According to a report last month by the US National Transportation Safety Board, which is also investigating the crash, Vasquez told federal investigators she had been monitoring the self-driving interface in the car and that neither her personal nor business phones were in use until after the crash.

That report showed Uber had disabled the emergency braking system in the Volvo, and Vasquez began braking less than a second after hitting Herzberg.



Herzberg, who was homeless, was walking her bicycle across the street, outside a crossing on a four-lane road, on the night of 18 March when she was struck by the front right side of the Volvo.

The police report faulted Herzberg for “unlawfully crossing the road at a location other than a marked crosswalk”. </s> Police in Tempe, Arizona, said Thursday that the test driver in a self-driving Uber prototype vehicle was streaming the TV show "The Voice" on Hulu on her cell phone in the moments leading up to a fatal crash that killed a pedestrian in March.

The Tempe Police Department's report released to Reuters builds on a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report filed May 24. In the government's report, backup driver Rafaela Vasquez confirmed she was looking away from the road but told federal investigators that she was monitoring the vehicle's experimental self-driving functions.

Piecing together the NTSB's timeline with data released by Hulu reveals that Vasquez had been streaming Hulu for all but three minutes of her 45-minute drive in a Volvo XC90 crossover SUV fitted with Uber's prototype self-driving car technology.

The Tempe police report said that during the drive, Vasquez “appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down.”

According to Tempe police, Detective Michael McCormick reached out to Hulu in an email on May 10 but the online streaming service didn't turn over its records until May 31.

Hulu records showed that Vasquez had been watching "The Voice" for about 42 minutes. Her phone stopped streaming the show at 9:59 p.m., which is about when the XC90 struck pedestrian Elaine Herzberg as she was walking a bicycle across a dark road in Tempe. Herzberg was not walking in a designated crosswalk.

The NTSB report says that Uber's radar and lidar systems spotted Herzberg "about 6 seconds before impact" and that the self-driving system determined 1.3 seconds before the impact that an emergency braking maneuver was necessary. Less than a second before impact, the vehicle's data recorder showed that Vasquez turned the Volvo's steering wheel but that she didn't apply the brakes until after Herzberg was struck.

A camera inside the vehicle pointed at the driver indicated that she didn't look up until half a second before impact. The vehicle was traveling at about 44 mph.

Though the XC90 was fitted with Volvo's own automatic emergency braking software, neither report implicates the automaker because Uber's systems turned off the factory-installed safety gear.

Additionally, the NTSB report said that Uber intentionally disabled automatic braking while the vehicle was under its system's control "to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior." Instead, Uber relied on its drivers "to intervene and take action" even though its system doesn't sound a visual or audible alert.

Uber has since halted self-driving car testing in Arizona and has faced a rocky re-start to its testing in Pittsburgh. </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. </s> New details from the police report on the “entirely avoidable” death of a pedestrian struck and killed by an autonomous Uber vehicle in Arizona suggest the safety driver behind the wheel may have been distracted by her smartphone.

Tempe police checked Rafaela Vasquez’s phone after the crash, as camera footage recorded inside the self-driving vehicle showed her to be looking down at something away from the road multiple times, according the report, first obtained by Reuters yesterday (June 21).

“She appears to be looking down at the area near her right knee at various points in the video,” the report said. “Sometimes, her face appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down. Her hands are not visible in the frame of the video during these times.”

Police obtained a warrant and recovered two LG smartphones owned by Vasquez. They found no signs that she’d been texting, or talking with anyone, but they did notice three video apps one on of her phones that could’ve been drawing her attention—Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu. Analysis from Netflix and Google (YouTube’s parent company) showed that Vasquez was not watching anything on their services prior to the crash. Hulu, after first mistakenly providing police with data on someone else’s account, found Vasquez was watching an episode of the popular NBC talent show The Voice around a minute before the crash, and for much of the preceding hour. “The end time of 21:59:00 hours coincides with the approximate time of the collision,” the report added.

Hulu provided detectives with Vasquez’s “subscription ID, IP Address, Source ID, Device and Internet Service Provider that was streaming the videos,” according to the report, suggesting it would know where the device was when it was streaming The Voice, although this information is redacted in the version of the report obtained by Quartz.

The report says that “Vasquez was distracted and looking down for 31% of the 21 minutes and 48 seconds prior to the collision,” and that she was “distracted and looking down for 5.2 seconds of the 5.7 seconds prior to impact.” Vasquez looked up just a half-second before impact. Investigators said “the crash was deemed entirely avoidable,” had she been paying attention.

“We continue to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations while conducting our own internal safety review,” an Uber spokesperson told Quartz. “We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles. We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon.” </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/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> 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> Tempe, AZ (KPNX) - According to a report released by the Tempe Police Department, the fatal self-driving Uber crash in Tempe back in March was avoidable. The safety driver sitting in the front seat at the time of the crash was distracted.

The car, being monitored by backup driver Rafaela Vasquez, slammed into Elaine Herzberg and killed her. Herzberg was walking her bike across Mill Avenue outside of a crosswalk.

Shortly after the crash, police body camera video shows Vasquez telling officers what she saw, which wasn't much. She claims she didn't see Herzberg until impact.

According to the report, Vasquez initially gave officers a bad address. Once they tracked her down, investigators obtained search warrants for her two cell phones. Police say Vasquez did not make any calls or texts in the moments leading up to the crash.

However, they did observe apps, like Hulu and Netflix on Vasquez's phone. They reached out to the streaming companies for data.

According to the spreadsheet of watch data from Hulu, Vasquez was streaming television episodes for approximately three hours the night of the crash. She was watching "The Voice" from 9:16 p.m. until 9:59 p.m. Police believe the crash happened while she was streaming that show.

In their report, Tempe Police say Vasquez was responsible for taking control of the vehicle in the event of an emergency. They added had she been paying attention to the road, they think she could have stopped the car 42 feet before the fatal crash.

In their conclusion, police say Vasquez's "inattention to the roadway" and "disregard for her assigned job function" ultimately resulted in the death of Herzberg.

This case is now in the hands of the Yavapai County Attorney's Office for review. It will bring forward any charges.

12 News reached out to Uber for comment, a spokesperson released this statement:

"We continue to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations while conducting our own internal safety review. We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles. We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon."

Uber has shut down its self-driving operation in Arizona.

MORE: Photos of self-driving Uber crash aftermath from Tempe police report
Police say the safety driver of an Uber self-driving car that fatally struck a pedestrian in Arizona was distracted by watching a TV show on her phone.