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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.
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.
This is the same Yavapai County AG that is prosecuting legal medical marijuana patients for possessing cannabis concentrates that were purchased legally in a dispensary. She recently claimed that distilling extracts from cannabis was similar to making explosives with AMFO
Speaking of contributions, she got $500,000 from Insys Pharmaceuticals which markets a synthetic THC and Fentanyl lollypops, two products which are threatened by medical marijuana.
> 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. [theguardian.com] 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.
You have a point, but conversely: people are really, really, really bad at vigilance tasks, where they are supposed to monitor something that almost always goes right, look for something that almost always doesn't appear, etc. Asking someone to be a vigilant backup driver for 4 hours may be a lot harder than driving for 4 hours.