Report: Uber crash due to software programmed to ignore objects in road
May 7, 2018, 5:13 PM
(Twitter Photo/@NTSB_Newsroom)
(Twitter Photo/@NTSB_Newsroom)
PHOENIX — Uber’s self-driving vehicle involved in a deadly March crash that left one woman dead was reportedly tuned to ignore obstructions in the road, according to The Information.
The report stated that the car’s sensors did in fact pick up the woman crossing the street with her bicycle, but Uber’s software ignored the pedestrian, striking and killing her.
Uber’s software contains the ability to ignore minute things like plastic bags or other objects, also called false positives, that wouldn’t normally cause any damage to the vehicle.
The ride-sharing company issued this statement:
We’re actively cooperating with the NTSB in their investigation. Out of respect for that process and the trust we’ve built with NTSB, we can’t comment on the specifics of the incident. In the meantime, we have initiated a top-to-bottom safety review of our self-driving vehicles program, and we have brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture. Our review is looking at everything from the safety of our system to our training processes for vehicle operators, and we hope to have more to say soon.
The company’s executives believed the software was tuned down to react less often while on the road, according to the report.
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On March 18, a woman walking a Tempe street was struck and killed by a self-driving Uber car, police said.
There was an Uber employee in the driver seat of the Volvo XC90, but it was operating in autonomous mode. The company halted any further tests of those vehicles as Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey suspended Uber from testing and operating self-driving cars.
It was the third time a self-driving car accident in Tempe had happened in the past year. In September 2017, another road test near the main Arizona State University campus ended up in a wreck, that one with multiple vehicles. One person was injured.
A few months before that, in the spring, an Uber vehicle was hit by a car. Testing was halted for an investigation.
Uber began to send self-driving Volvos onto Valley streets in February of 2017.
