DRIVERLESS CARS ‘UBER SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN’:
FRIENDS OF SELF-DRIVING CAR CRASH VICTIM SEEK JUSTICE
Friends of the first known pedestrian to be killed by a self- driving car have called for Uber to be held accountable as questions mount about how the autonomous tech- nology failed to stop the vehicle from hit- ting a human in its path. Two days after an Uber SUV fatally struck the 49-year- old Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona, while traveling in autonomous mode, friends of the victim have argued that the ride-share company should face conse- quences and crit- icised government officials for encour- aging car companies to test the vehicles on the state’s public roads. “This shouldn’t have ever happened,” said Carole Kimmerle, a Mesa resident who said she had been friends with Herz- berg for more than ten years and had previously lived with her. “I think this should be a negli- gent homicide … and the government should also be held accountable.” Herzberg’s loved ones said they were still in shock after police announced that the Uber car, an SUV Volvo, was driv- ing roughly 40 miles per hour on its own and did not appear to slow down when it collided with the victim, who was walking her bicycle
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Elaine Herzberg, the victim in Uber crash
in front of the car at 10pm on Sunday 18 March. There was a human operator in the front seat, but police said the car was in autonomous mode, which meant the radar technology may not have detected the pedes- trian or the vehicle did not stop for another reason. According to
the
Guardian, Tempe police said Herzberg was not in a cross- walk when she was hit, though some have argued that the car still should have stopped. Uber said it was temporarily pausing its self-driv- ing operations in Phoenix and other cities, but the com- pany has not com- mented on the cause of the crash. As federal investiga- tors have begun their inquiry, local police officials have appeared to cast blame on the victim, saying Uber may not have been at fault, sparking further
backlash from the woman’s friends. “The attorney would
want to say to a hypothetical jury, ‘These are really scary systems. They demand the utmost care and responsibil- ity.’ And the lawyer would suggest that’s not the case here,” said Bryant Walker Smith, an assistant professor at the Uni- versity of South Carolina and a legal expert on auto- nomous cars. Ryan Calo, a Univer- sity of Washington law professor and self-driving expert, predicted the com- pany would try to resolve any case quickly and private- ly: “Uber will settle this immediately for an undisclosed am- ount of money.” The first reported fatal self-driving car crash happened in 2016 when a Tesla on “autopilot” did not detect a white truck in its path. There have since been a series of high-profile
incidents involving Teslas, Ubers and other companies, and some have raised concerns that even if self-driving technology is a safer mode of travel, the industry is entering a particularly danger- ous phase of development when the vehicles aren’t yet fully autonomous and require humans to intervene. Arizona has lured self-driving car oper- ators to the state by arguing it has fewer regulations than other jurisdictions – a fact that upset Herzberg’s friends, who said the govern- ment should have done more to pre- vent these kinds of crashes. “In Tempe, they’re everywhere,”
said
Jerry Higgins, anoth- er friend of Herz- berg, who said he keeps his eye on the self-driving cars and said he was strug- gling to understand how the collision occurred: “Don’t they have a driver in the car that’s sup- posed to keep stuff like this from hap- pening? … I don’t see how they didn’t work something like this into the pro- grammes.” Meanwhile, a profile has emerged of the backup driver who was supervising the Uber driverless vehi- cle: Rafaela Vas- quez, a 44-year-old woman with a prison record and a court appearance for the
Rafaela Vasquez was supervising the driverless Uber vehicle
traffic offence of running a red light. According to the Daily Mail, Ms Vasquez was jailed for attempted armed robbery in 2000 and served over three years – as a male. Police said that fol- lowing the Uber collision incident in Arizona, Ms Vasquez could face charges over the death of Ms Herzberg. It is understood that drivers for the test cars have the same background checks as regular taxi drivers, which in- clude not having more than three minor driving of- fences and one major one within the past three years. Ms Vasquez had passed these checks.
“Uber should be shut down for it,” one friend, Deniel Klapthor, told the Guardian. “There has to be a bigger pun- ishment than not allowing them to drive it on the street.” Carole Kim- merle added, “She was not in any way unsafe. She rode a
bike everywhere.
She was very cau- tious of the laws.” Herzberg had strug- gled with home- lessness, according to her friends, who said she had recently turned her life around and was in the process of start- ing a new job. If her family were to pursue a civil case, attorneys could potentially make a range of negligence claims, Bryant Walk- er Smith added. Depending on what might have gone wrong, the victim’s family could argue that a number of players were liable, including the car maker, the operator behind the wheel, the manufacturers of various specific technologies, and Uber itself, he said. Herzberg loved to read and write and was always generous and offering to help others even when she was dealing with her own struggles, said Kimmerle. “She was very loving,” she said. “The world lost a good person.”
APRIL 2018
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