Photo: Uber
After the 2018 deadly crash in Tempe, Arizona, in which a self-driving Uber vehicle hit and killed a jaywalker, Uber is proceeding with maximum caution in the expansion of its self-driving program.
Tests are already underway on the streets of San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Toronto, and Uber’s self-driving cars will be arriving next in Dallas, Texas, according to a Medium blog post by Austin Geidt, head of Uber ATG strategy. There is catch, though: the self-driving cars will be manually driven.
That’s where the “caution” part comes in: at the time of the 2018 crash, there was a driver in the vehicle but he was too busy streaming TV shows on his phone to pay attention to the road, though he had been instructed to do so. The accident prompted Uber to shut down the program and reconsider the approach altogether, and from what Geidt is saying, it now includes gathering data with a self-driving car driven by a human in an initial stage.
The program kicks off in November and will see a Mission Specialist, defined by Geidt as a “specially trained vehicle operator,” driving through Dallas to collect data. Some of the data will be used in simulations and on the test track, to see how the car responds to real-life scenarios. Depending on that, Uber will decide the next step in the expansion.
“The data we collect will inform our next steps – we may not look to test our self-driving system in Dallas immediately following this first round of data gathering,” Geidt writes. “While we are certainly excited by this possibility, we are also committed to ensuring that every mile we drive on public roads contributes meaningfully to our development work.”
Self-driving cars come with countless benefits, but in order to get to that stage, careful planning and caution are vital parts of the process.
Or, as Geidt puts it, “In order to arrive at that future, we must approach building this technology thoughtfully and with a strong sense of responsibility to the communities where we operate, which our team is dedicated to doing everyday.”
That’s where the “caution” part comes in: at the time of the 2018 crash, there was a driver in the vehicle but he was too busy streaming TV shows on his phone to pay attention to the road, though he had been instructed to do so. The accident prompted Uber to shut down the program and reconsider the approach altogether, and from what Geidt is saying, it now includes gathering data with a self-driving car driven by a human in an initial stage.
The program kicks off in November and will see a Mission Specialist, defined by Geidt as a “specially trained vehicle operator,” driving through Dallas to collect data. Some of the data will be used in simulations and on the test track, to see how the car responds to real-life scenarios. Depending on that, Uber will decide the next step in the expansion.
“The data we collect will inform our next steps – we may not look to test our self-driving system in Dallas immediately following this first round of data gathering,” Geidt writes. “While we are certainly excited by this possibility, we are also committed to ensuring that every mile we drive on public roads contributes meaningfully to our development work.”
Self-driving cars come with countless benefits, but in order to get to that stage, careful planning and caution are vital parts of the process.
Or, as Geidt puts it, “In order to arrive at that future, we must approach building this technology thoughtfully and with a strong sense of responsibility to the communities where we operate, which our team is dedicated to doing everyday.”
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