After the accident with the robot car: Uber wants to test again

Auto broker Uber wants to return to work after a fatal accident that stopped testing the robotic car. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is currently considering a request for the city of Pittsburgh, a Wall Street Journal spokeswoman said.

Uber boss, Dara Khosrowshahi, said in a report from the robotic car division yesterday that cars would not be able to move independently on public roads until security was improved.

After the road accident test

The auto broker has been driving the test car since July only by people back in Pittsburgh. The tests of the robotic car were halted after one of the vehicles killed a pedestrian in Arizona. It was the first and so far the only fatal accident with an autonomous car.

According to a preliminary report from the NTSB Accident Investigation Service, the Uber software had difficulty identifying the woman who was pushing a bike beside her, even though many sensors had registered her. The car did not brake. The Volvo integrated emergency braking badistance has been disabled. And on the video footage of the vehicle, we can see that the driver of the driving safety did not look at the road before the impact.

The program costs $ 750 million a year

Among the changes made by Uber, again, two people must sit in the car at each test drive. It is better controlled if a safety driver is tired or distracted. People should not spend more than four hours a day driving – earlier, it could be eight hours. And the emergency braking badistant must stay on.

According to US media, Uber would also have considered temporarily hiring its robotic car program. He devoured the "Wall Street Journal", just for last year, $ 750 million. For a service like Uber, however, autonomous cars also offer great cost benefits and are considered a key technology for the future. That's why the company continues to focus on developing its own robotic vehicle technology.