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COMMUNITY NEWS
UBER
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“We haven’t had to deal with this yet because the autonomous vehicles haven’t been hurting anyone,” said attorney Mark Breyer, who handles liability cases throughout the region. The crash reignited a national debate over the safety of autonomous vehicles. In the wake of the crash, Uber suspended its uses of self-driving cars in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. Toyota told Bloomberg News it would “temporarily pause” testing its driverless vehicles on public roads “because we feel the incident may have an emotional effect on our test drivers.” A day after Uber’s announcement, Gov. Doug Ducey ordered that the company be forbidden from using Arizona roadways to test its autonomous vehicles. Uber issued a statement shortly after the accident that said: “Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We are fully cooperating with authorities in their investigations of this incident.” The Uber operator behind the wheel was not in physical control because the car was operating autonomously at about 40 mph, police said. Tempe Police Department’s preliminary investigation showed that impairment was likely not a factor. Uber is cooperating with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the police in the investigation. The police released video evidence that appears to show Herzberg walking a bicycle across the left lane before entering the right lane and being struck. She is walking in a dimly lit portion of road and becomes visible in the Uber’s headlights a split second before the accident. Dashcam footage shows the driver, identified by police as Rafaela Vasquez, looking down at an object out of the camera’s view as the accident occurred.
Special to SanTan Sun News
You won’t be seeing these autonomous vans own by Uber on local streets for a while as the company and local and federal investigators determine their safety.
Police and the NTSB are gathering and analyzing the vehicle’s technology and data transmitted to Uber. The vehicle was equipped with cameras that provided the police additional evidence. “It will definitely assist in the investigation, without a doubt,” Sgt. Ronald Elcock said. The investigation to determine who was at fault likely will take months, Breyer said. “The work of the detectives just got that much more complex and we are always off from knowing” who was at fault,” he said. That complexity became apparent when Police Chief Sylvia Moir made comments to the San Francisco Chronicle that seemed to steer fault away from Uber. Moir told the paper, “I suspect preliminarily it appears that the Uber would likely not be at fault in this accident, either ... I won’t rule out the potential to file charges against the (backup driver) in the Uber vehicle.” “The driver said it was like a flash. The person walked out in front of them. (Her) first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision,” Moir said, adding, “It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on
how she came from the shadows right into the roadway.” Moir also seemed to pin the blame on Herzberg by emphasizing that she was outside the crosswalk. But Herzberg’s friend and Mesa resident Carole Kimmerle told the Guardian that the victim “was not in any way unsafe. She rode a bike everywhere. She was very cautious of the laws.” Kimmerle told The Guardian she thinks negligent homicide charges should be filed and that the government should also be held accountable. Another friend, Deniel Klapthor, said, “Uber should be shut down for it.” The police later said in a press release, “Chief Moir and the Tempe Police Department would like to reaffirm that fault has not been determined in this case. Tempe Police Detectives will complete the investigation and it will subsequently be submitted to The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to determine if criminal charges are warranted.” Ducey signed an executive order on March 1 that enacted stricter rules on driverless vehicle testing in the state. The order requires the vehicles to comply with voluntary rules set out by NHTSA in 2017. Ducey’s order also deals with the
SANTAN SUN NEWS | APRIL 7–20, 2018
question of liability in the event of a traffic violation, stating that the “person testing or operating the fully autonomous vehicle may be issued a traffic citation or other applicable penalty in the event the vehicle fails to comply with traffic and/or motor vehicle laws.” For the purposes of this order, the word “person” likely refers to the company operating the autonomous vehicle, not the employee or contractor who may be behind the wheel, Breyer said. Beyond criminal accountability, the crash could also result in a civil suit. Breyer said the phrase “or other applicable penalty” in Ducey’s executive order would likely include civil damages. In an interview with The Guardian, University of South Carolina Assistant Professor Bryant Walker Smith said that if Herzberg’s family pursued a civil case, a lawyer could claim negligence. Smith is an autonomous vehicle legal expert who is also affiliated with Stanford Law School’s The Center for Internet and Society. However, Uber quickly reached a settlement with the victim’s daughter, precluding any civil suit. Based on the findings of pending investigations, those negligence claims could have included arguments that Uber, the operator behind the wheel and/or the companies behind the technology were liable, Smith told The Guardian. “Although this appalling video isn’t the full picture,” he later said, “it strongly suggests a failure by Uber’s automated driving system and a lack of due care by Uber’s driver” as well as by the victim. He noted that the Uber car’s lidar and radar detection should have detected Herzberg. He also said Herzberg appears about two seconds before the end of the video and that an alert driver may have had time to swerve or attempt to brake. Complicating the case further is that See
UBER on page 7
Accident gives Mesa lawmaker pause over automated deliveries BY HOWARD FISCHER Capitol Media Services
The killing of a pedestrian by an autonomous vehicle last month has a Mesa lawmaker giving second thoughts to allowing automated motorized delivery devices on sidewalks. House Majority Whip Kelly Townsend told Capitol Media Services that her bill to allow autonomous vehicles onto sidewalks to make deliveries, something not allowed under current Arizona law, likely needs a closer look after the fatal crash. And Townsend said HB 2422 may need more restrictions. Her concerns come in the wake of an incident March 18 in which a vehicle being tested by Uber, operating in autonomous mode, struck and killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who was crossing the street outside a crosswalk in Tempe. Preliminary reports say the vehicle did not brake before hitting her, suggesting it did not “see” her. In the interim, Uber has suspended all of its self-driving testing in Arizona and elsewhere. But HB 2422, pushed by Estonia-based Starship Technologies, already has cleared the House and now awaits Senate action. A company spokesman told reporters last month the plan is to have them do
File photo
House Majority Whip Kelly Townsend is concerned about giving delivery drones free reign on local sidewalks.
the kind of delivery that might otherwise be performed by a person, ranging from groceries to packages. The devices, he said, are programmed to unlock when they reach their desired destination. Townsend, who saw them in operation in Washington, D.C., liked the idea. But there was a problem: They’re not currently legal in Arizona. “I just need the bill to allow them to be on the sidewalk,” she said. The proposal is to give these devices the same rights and duties as pedestrians, with whom they will share the sidewalks
and crosswalks. That includes a mandate to follow all traffic and pedestriancontrol signals and devices. “Once it’s on the sidewalk, it has to obey the laws and it can’t be mowing people down, obviously,” Townsend said. “I want them to have to abide by our laws so that they’re not just running amok.” At the same time, Townsend said the idea is to allow the testing without a lot of up-front regulation. She said that is in line with the philosophy espoused by Gov. Doug Ducey, who first opened the door to autonomous vehicles on Arizona roads years ago by signing an executive order shortly after taking office in 2015. But Townsend said she can’t ignore what happened Sunday. “I don’t want my name attached to a fatality or injury,” she said of her legislation. “So, I want to make sure what we’re doing going forward is safe.” Townsend said she wants to be sure that what’s in the bill that makes it to the governor does that. Some of the safeguards built into her original proposal, the one she pushed through the House on a 52-7 vote, were removed when the measure went to the Senate Transportation Committee last month. Gone, for example, is that 100-pound weight limit.
Townsend said she agreed to that change because there are companies other than Starship Technologies that have their own devices weighing more than that. She said the state should not be crafting laws that favor one device or company over another. Still, she acknowledged, a heavier vehicle can cause a lot more injury if it runs into a pedestrian. And Townsend said, given what happened Sunday, she may insist that the weight limit be put back into the bill. But the version awaiting a Senate roll-call vote also removes some other provisions in the original bill, including a requirement that the devices have brakes. And it deletes a provision that would preclude the robots from transporting hazardous materials. Also gone is the requirement for $100,000 worth of liability insurance. Townsend said, given all the questions, it might be appropriate to put a “sunset” provision into her legislation, having it self-destruct at some future date unless specifically renewed by lawmakers. That would require the Legislature to review how the testing has gone and determine whether changes are needed in the law – or even whether Arizona wants to continue to allow the devices on the sidewalks.