Uber self-driving car pedestrian fatality

WIRED has published an interview with Rafaela Vasquez, the test driver for an Uber autonomous car that crashed into a woman walking her bicycle across a road in Tempe, Arizona, on March 18, 2018. 

Operating in self-drive mode with Vasquez in the driving seat, the Uber fatally struck Elaine Herzberg. The incident is the first known case of a fatality involving a self-driving car.

While Uber escaped (pdf) prosecution, Vasquez was indicted by prosecutors in Arizona in August 2020 on a count of negligent homicide on the basis that she was checking Slack messages from Uber on her work mobile phone and watching a reality show on her personal phone.

Uber suspended its self-driving test programme following the incident, later restarting it in Pittsburgh.