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Uber allegedly ignored safety warnings before self-driving fatality
Just days after Uber announced its plans to resume testing of its self-driving taxis, new information reveals that a whistleblower had made the company aware of the technology's safety failures before the incident in Arizona last March, which saw a pedestrian struck and killed by one of Uber's vehicles, and which led to the suspension of all testing activity.
According to The Information, Robbie Miller, a manager in the testing-operations group, sent a cautionary email to a number of Uber's executive and lawyers, warning that the vehicles were "routinely in accidents resulting in damage. This is usually the result of poor behavior of the operator or the AV technology."
It appears the email was prompted by an incident in Pittsburgh, where just a few days before Miller sent the message an Uber prototype swerved completely off the road and onto the sidewalk, where it continued to drive. According to Miller's email, the episode was "essentially ignored" for days, until Miller raised it with other managers. He also noted that towards the end of 2017, it took two weeks for engineers to investigate the logs of a separate Arizona incident, in which an Uber vehicle almost collided with another car.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Thursday December 13 2018, @02:52AM
Regulations are actually helping companies; it just takes time for them to realize. The main reason (there are others) is that without regulations it is always run to the bottom - one has to make cheaper things than the others and cutting corners is the easiest way. Eventually the industry falls. Regulations prevent this by setting a common bottom.
It's true for everything made by humans and all the exceptions are temporary.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.