Remember the fatal crash that Uber‘s prototype self-driving car was involved in? Well, it appears that Uber has reportedly discovered the flaw. Sources told The Information that this was caused by software faultily set up to ignore objects on the road.
Essentially, the programming detects objects around the vehicle and car operators fine-tune the sensitivity to make that that it only reacts to true threats. An example of this is the car reacting to solid object in front of it instead of a bag flying across due to high winds. Unfortunately though, it appears that the car’s software was supposedly set too far in the lighter direction, and did not stop in time to avoid hitting bicyclist Elaine Herzberg.
At the time of the crash, there was a human driver behind the wheel, but reportedly took their eyes off the road in the seconds leading up to the crash that fatally killed the bicyclist.
Ultimately, Uber did settle with the family of the victim, but there were some other consequences too. Arizona governor put a halt to all of Uber‘s testing, and there were also other companies that voluntarily delayed their own testing until everything was figured out.
Uber is working with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on the investigation. The ridesharing company is hoping to reach an initial conclusion well-ahead of NTSB‘s detailed report.
