Much was discussed since the first unfortunate autonomous accident over a week ago, and investigations have been going on. The latest is a letter from Doug Ducey, Governor of Arizona, to Uber CEO Khoshrowshahi to stop operating in the state indefinitely.
Ducey described the accident as ‘an unquestionable failure’ that took the life of Elaine Herzberg on March 19. Uber voluntarily stopped conducting tests with driverless cars right after that. They as well stepped up to cooperate with the investigators.
Ducey’s letter puts Uber one step back on course to revive the program.
We continue to help investigators in any way we can, and we’ll keep a dialogue open with the governor’s office going forward. – spokesperson Matt Kallman
Arizona is friendlier than other US states letting in driverless technologies to prep for public roads. Two weeks before the accident, Ducey approved the cars without safety drivers. However, there was a driver in the car when the accident took place.
In relevance to the matter, Massachusetts last week quietly asked the companies to take off for a few days from test driving on the road. The cars were driven elsewhere. The Arizona ban on Uber is yet another pushback for the entire autonomous industry that was on smooth progress 10 days before.
While public safety comes before new experiments, Uber does want the latter to come back soon enough, this time with safer technologies of course. Stay with us to follow developments in this case.
