Arizona Prosecutor Says Uber Not Criminally Liable In Fatal Self-Driving Crash (reuters.com)

Uber is not criminally liable in a March 2018 crash in Tempe, Arizona, in which one of the company's self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian, prosecutors said on Tuesday. "The Yavapai County Attorney said in a letter made public that there was 'no basis for criminal liability' for Uber, but that the back-up driver, Rafaela Vasquez, should be referred to the Tempe police for additional investigation," reports Reuters. From the report: Vasquez, the Uber back-up driver, could face charges of vehicular manslaughter, according to a police report in June. Vasquez has not previously commented and could not immediately be reached on Tuesday. Based on a video taken inside the car, records collected from online entertainment streaming service Hulu and other evidence, police said last year that Vasquez was looking down and streaming an episode of the television show "The Voice" on a phone until about the time of the crash. The driver looked up a half-second before hitting Elaine Herzberg, 49, who died from her injuries. Police called the incident "entirely avoidable."

Yavapai County Attorney's Office, which examined the case at the request of Maricopa County where the accident occurred, did not explain the reasoning for not finding criminal liability against Uber. Yavapai sent the case back to Maricopa, calling for further expert analysis of the video to determine what the driver should have seen that night. The National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are still investigating.

Comments

Re:Huh?

[slack_justyb]

You do not want to accept the job of 'backup driver' because you are basically taking the blame

Hold up. While it's tempting to think this case is the bar we're setting. Consider the released footage of the driver for a second. Imagine any industry where you look away from a machine in motion for that long, yeah, you're at fault for your reckless behavior. Like if I was watching a show on my phone while operating a table saw, yeah, I really wouldn't have a strong case for an injury lawsuit.

there is a cognitive disconnect between the autopilot and the 'backup driver' that is supposed to suddenly become situationally aware in a split second

Bull fucking shit. It's about as disconnected as using cruise control and asking people to keep tabs on how fast or slow traffic is going. Just keep your goddamn eyes on the fucking road, it's not brain surgery.

Anybody's guess who would be responsible the moment that some states allow a truly driverless car

No, there's no guessing, because when we get to that point, we'll have laws that outline who is at fault and the kinds of insurance a company needs to operate a fully driverless machine. I get we like to rag on politicians here at Slashdot, but you can't deny there's going to be dollar signs that pop up into someone's eyes about regulating fully automatic machines interacting with the general public. If anything greed will put short work to wild-wild-west style self-driving cars.

Basically the rest of your comment is "We don't know ABC..." Yeah, we don't but we can base it off of what we do know and go from there. Your comment is the Webster's definition of Luddite. No one has every answer, that's not a reason to stop doing anything. Yeah, there's going to be complication and people will get killed along the way, add that to the pile of 103 folks who died today in the US driving somewhere or the 15,000 people who were involved in some sort of highway collision. I mean shit dude, if we didn't do something simply because we didn't have all the answers upfront, fuck, we'd all be dead of preventable diseases. What is the point of your drivel here? That something new is complicated? Wow, big reveal there.