27/03/2018

Arizona bars Uber from resuming tests

BBC reports that the US state of Arizona has banned Uber from resuming its self-driving trials.

The fatal accident that occurred last week was the catalyst for the trials to be halted and now the state's governor Doug Ducey has written to the company expressing his concern that there hahd been an 'unquestionable failure' to make safety the top priority.

Referencing the video of the incident, Doug said, 'I found the video to be disturbing and alarming, and it raises many questions about the ability of Uber to continue testing in Arizona'.

He said that Uber no longer had the right to drive autonomous vehicles on local roads until investigators have come to a conclusion about the accident.

Aptiv, the company which supplied the crash-vehicle's radar and camera have spoken out to say that Uber disabled the standard collision avoidance technology in the Volvo XC90 SUV involved in the fatal collision. 'We don't want people to be confused or think it was a failure of the technology that we supply for Volvo, because that's not the case,' Zach Peterson, a spokesman for Aptiv, said. The Volvo XC90's standard advanced driver-assistance system 'has nothing to do' with the Uber test vehicle's autonomous driving system, he said.