Uber had suspended its fleet of self-Driving cars off the road after Arizona crash when an SUV turned on its side. According to police reports, the accident took place because of the failure of another driver giving way to Uber self-driving SUV. No serious injuries were reported; however, further investigation is still going on.
Fresco News posted some photos on Twitter showing how the Volvo SUV flipped on its side after a collision involving two other vehicles.
According to NBC news two "safety" drivers were in the front seats of the Uber SUV, which was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash while the back seat was empty.
What has Uber said?
An Uber spokeswoman reported to media, "We are continuing to look into this incident and can confirm we had no backseat passengers in the vehicle." Uber began testing its self-driving cars in Arizona in February after California’s Department of Motor Vehicles revoked the registrations of the company’s fleet operating in San Francisco.
Hard time for Uber
The company is already facing many challenges from the start of this year and Jeff Jones; Uber president also announced last week that he is quitting the job.
According to Recode, at least 19 employees, including top engineers, have left ATG since Uber’s August 2016 acquisition of the self-driving startup Otto. This month, the New York Times reported that Uber used a tool called Greybull to help drivers evade government regulators and enforcement officials. According to the BBC, the incident follows a tumultuous few weeks for Uber, after several negative stories
This incident has raised questions about the safety of autonomous vehicles and how wisely they can interact with other vehicles on the road. Also, the autonomous vehicles have been put into a doubtful situation raising questions whether they can share the road with human-driven vehicles. However, the investigation into the crash is still going on, and it has not been concluded yet whether the accident happened due to some fault in the self-driving car or due to the negligence of the driver driving the other car.