Earlier this month, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas new autonomous vehicle (“AV”) guidelines which rely on voluntary standards, to the disappointment of auto safety advocates who have called for specific regulations. Continue reading
Tag: NTSB
NTSB determines immediate cause of fatal Uber crash was failure of human operator
Following an 18-month investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its conclusions on the fatal collision between an Uber-owned autonomous vehicle and a pedestrian in Arizona last year. As reported in our previous blog post, Arizona prosecutors determined that Uber was not criminally liable for the crash. Now, NTSB has concluded that “[h]ad the vehicle operator been attentive, she would likely have had sufficient time to detect and react to the crossing pedestrian to avoid the crash or mitigate the impact“.
The NTSB report also calls on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require mandatory safety self-assessment reports before autonomous vehicles can take to the roads. Continue reading
UBER NOT CRIMINALLY LIABLE FOR ARIZONA CRASH
Arizona prosecutors have recently announced the outcome of their investigations into the 18 March 2018 crash involving a Volvo XC90 that killed Elaine Herzberg. While the vehicle was operating in autonomous mode as part of an Uber test fleet, the investigation determined that Uber is not criminally liable and as such formal charges will not be brought.