Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13 2018, @12:55AM (2 children)
You forgot, self-driving Uber has a safety driver who is filling out paperwork on a tablet computer.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Thursday December 13 2018, @04:05PM (1 child)
> paperwork
I didn't realize they'd renamed Bejeweled.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Thursday December 13 2018, @05:17PM
It's like the local dive bar named The Office or My Desk.
Or that folder on your computer named "Totally Boring Work Stuff, Really"