Uber desire to restart self-driving car tests on public roads

Uber wants to resume testing on public roads about eight months ago one of its self-driven test vehicles hit and killed an Arizona pedestrian.

On Friday, with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the company has forwarded an application to test its vehicles in Pittsburgh, and it has issued a lengthy 70-page safety report promising to put two human backup drivers in each vehicle and take a push of other precautions to make the vehicles safe.

Firm officials admitted that it will be challenging to reclaim public trust after the March 18 crash in Tempe, Arizona, that killed Elaine Herzberg, 49, as she was crossing a darkened road outside the lines of a crosswalk.

Police said Uber’s backup driver in the autonomous Volvo SUV was streaming the television show “The Voice” on her phone and looking downward before the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board told the autonomous driving system on the Volvo spotted Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled. A Volvo emergency braking system also had been turned off.

Uber’s head of system safety for self-driving cars, Noah Zych, told in an interview. “Our goal is to really work to regain that trust and to work to help move the entire industry forward,” “We think the right thing to do is to be open and transparent about the things that we are doing.”

Along with the other precautions, San Francisco-based Uber will keep the autonomous vehicle system engaged at all times and activate the Volvo’s automatic emergency braking system as a backup. It is requiring more technical training and expertise of employees sitting behind the wheel of the vehicles.

The report comes after the ride-hailing company shut down autonomous vehicle testing to do an internal review of its safety procedures, as well as an outside evaluation by risk management firm LeClairRyan.