Police in Tempe, Arizona have released the dashcam video of the fatal crash between an Uber autonomous vehicle and a woman from earlier this week. There are two clips below, one from the exterior of the car looking forward and one from the interior looking at the driver. The clip cuts off at impact, but we’ll warn you now that it’s pretty graphic:
BREAKING: Tempe Police release the video from the @Uber Self-Driving Car fatal crash from Sunday night. pic.twitter.com/I1AtY4QErt
— Matt Rodewald FOX 10 (@Matt_Fox10) March 21, 2018
As you can clearly see in the video, the safety driver is not looking at the road when the crash occurs:
The @Uber safety driver is glancing downward and not looking at the road for six of the seven seconds preceding impact.
— Pete Bigelow (@PeterCBigelow) March 21, 2018
https://twitter.com/ryanfelton/status/976591092924801024
But worse for Uber, there are questions as to why the car didn’t stop or attempt to miss the woman:
https://twitter.com/ryanfelton/status/976596800483282944
Tempe’s police chief is also under fire after he said, before the video was released, that it would’ve been “difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode”:
https://twitter.com/ryanfelton/status/976601370668224512
It doesn’t look good for the chief:
Also can’t help but wonder if Tempe PD felt they had to release this after their chief basically exonerated Uber
— Andrew J. Hawkins ???? (@andyjayhawk) March 21, 2018
Automobile experts think Uber’s car should have been able to avoid the collision:
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https://twitter.com/ryanfelton/status/976606274031898624
Current technology can already do this:
This. Everything this. I'm floored that the vehicle didn't detect her crossing the road. Were all systems operational? There's got to be more to this story. THEN add the fact that the safety driver was distracted. https://t.co/zMpicNynXQ
— David Undercoffler (@autolist_dave) March 22, 2018
I've driven cars *currently on the market with existing active safety tech* that detected people in similar situations.
— David Undercoffler (@autolist_dave) March 22, 2018
In summary, Uber has a lot of questions to answer and it doesn’t look good for them, at all:
https://twitter.com/ryanfelton/status/976626362030149633
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