ARIZONA, Mar 20: The autonomous vehicle, which was travelling at 65 km/hour and had an operator behind the wheel, did not seem to slow down as it approached the pedestrian.
A self-driving Uber car killed a woman crossing the street in Arizona’s Phoenix in United States, the police said on Monday. This the first fatality involving the death of a pedestrian by an autonomous vehicle, Reuters reported. The company said it was pausing its self-driving car operations in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto, The Guardian reported.
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The police said the autonomous Volvo XC90 SUV had an operator behind the wheel and was travelling at about 65 km/hour when it hit 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg in Phoenix. Herzberg later died from her injuries in a hospital. Police said the car did not seem to slow down as it approached the woman.
“Our hearts go out to the victim’s family,” Uber said in a statement. “We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident.”
Phoenix has allowed companies like Uber, Intel Corp., General Motors Co. and Waymo to organise self-driving car tests. In November, it was reported that Uber will buy 24,000 self-driving cars from vehicle manufacturing form Volvo.
In 2016, Tesla Motors had said that the driver of a car which was on Tesla’s autopilot mode had died after an accident in United States’ Florida.