Uber shutting down self-driving operations in Arizona after fatal crash in March
Uber shutting down self-driving operations in Arizona
after fatal crash
Ryan Randazzo, The Republic | azcentral.com Published
9:06 a.m. MT May 23, 2018 | Updated 11:26 a.m. MT May 23, 2018
Tempe police have released two angles of a fatal crash
involving a self-driving Uber SUV and a pedestrian on March 18, 2018.
Uber is shutting down its self-driving car tests in
Arizona, where one of the cars was involved in a fatal crash with a pedestrian
in March, the company said Wednesday.
The company notified about 300 Arizona workers in the
self-driving program that they were being terminated just before 9 a.m.
Wednesday. The shutdown should take several weeks.
Test drivers for the autonomous cars have not worked
since the accident in Tempe, but Uber said they continued to be paid. The
company's self-driving trucks have also been shelved since the accident.
Uber plans to restart testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh
once federal investigators conclude their inquiry into the Tempe crash. The
company also said it is having discussions with California leaders to restart
testing.
Uber has engineering hubs in Pittsburgh and San
Francisco, and the company said it is easier to test vehicles near those
workers. Engineers from those hubs frequently traveled to Arizona to work on
the testing project here.
“We’re committed to self-driving technology, and we look
forward to returning to public roads in the near future," Uber said in a
prepared statement. "In the meantime, we remain focused on our
top-to-bottom safety review, having brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher
Hart to advise us on our overall safety culture.”
Uber's traditional rider service will continue to operate
in Arizona. The company has an operations center in downtown Phoenix and
employs about 550 people in the state, not counting contract drivers, and plans
to hire about 70 more, the company said.
Uber program relocated following Calif. Conflict
Uber brought its test program to Arizona in December 2016
following a conflict with California.
The company said at the time that a 2015 executive order
from Gov. Doug Ducey was key to its decision to move here, and Ducey made the
announcement when the vehicles arrived in the state.
"While California puts the brakes on innovation and
change with more bureaucracy and more regulation, Arizona is paving the way for
new technology and new businesses," Ducey said at the time.
After the fatal crash, Uber voluntarily pulled its
self-driving cars from the roads, but the governor also ordered them to stay
off until the crash investigation was complete.
"The governor's focus has always been on what's best
for Arizonans and for public safety, not for any one company," Ducey's
spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said Wednesday.
He added that the suspension remains in place for the
company's Arizona tests.
The bad news of a tech operation leaving the state broke
at an opportune time for the governor, as the NFL announced Wednesday morning
that Arizona would host the 2023 Super Bowl.
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