Associated Incidents
Photo: Tempe Police Department
The crash of an Uber self-driving car that killed an Arizona woman in March was “entirely avoidable,” according to police reports released by the Tempe Police Department. Cellphone data obtained by police suggests that the Uber operator was also streaming an episode of reality show The Voice at the time of the fatal incident.
The documents, released to Gizmodo in response to a public records request, show that Tempe police found that the operator of the Uber autonomous vehicle could likely have avoided the fatal crash, had she been paying attention—but instead she was likely watching a video on her phone. Police also noted that Uber’s vehicles apparently did not alert operators to take over the vehicle during incidents.
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After the crash, Uber laid off 300 test drivers from its autonomous vehicle unit and halted testing in Arizona. An Uber spokesperson noted that using any device behind the wheel, even a smartwatch, would be considered a fireable offense.
The crash killed Elaine Herzberg, a 49-year-old woman who was walking across the street with a bicycle when she was struck by the Uber vehicle. Uber’s autonomous technology failed to detect Herzberg, and the human driver who was supposed to act as a safeguard appeared distracted in previously released footage. Now, several documents in the 318-page report suggest the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, may have been streaming an episode of The Voice at the time of the crash.
“The driver in this case could have reacted and brought the vehicle to a stop 42.61 feet prior to the pedestrian,” one of the documents concluded.
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However, Tempe police also noted that Uber’s vehicles did not alert autonomous vehicle operators about when to take control of their cars.
“During the current development phase, vehicle operators are relied upon to perform evasive maneuvers,” one Tempe detective wrote. “I was not able to find anywhere in the literature that the self-driving systems alerts the vehicle operator to potential hazards or when they should take manual control of the vehicle to perform an evasive maneuver.” Uber’s spokesperson said that the company is reviewing safety practices and procedures and has hired former National Transportation Safety Board chair Christopher Hart as a safety advisor.
In a statement, an Uber spokesperson said the company’s policy prohibits drivers of its autonomous vehicles from using mobile devices while behind the wheel.
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“We continue to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations while conducting our own internal safety review. We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles,” the spokesperson told Gizmodo. “We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon.”
Following the crash, police obtained warrants for work and personal cellphones belonging to Vasquez. Police also sent search warrants to YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu to recover Vasquez’s viewing history on her devices around the time of the accident.
“The driver in this case could have reacted and brought the vehicle to a stop 42.61 feet prior to the pedestrian.”
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The crash occurred around 10pm—more specifically, the report states that video from inside the car “ceases recording with a UTC time of 4:58:50 [9:58pm local time], just moments after striking the pedestrian.”
The data Hulu provided to authorities shows Vasquez was streaming an episode of The Voice called “The Blind Auditions, Part 5" between 9:16pm and 9:59pm local time, according to account history turned over to the police by Hulu’s legal team. In response to the warrants, YouTube and Netflix said that Vasquez was not actively viewing video on either platform at the time of the crash.
Screenshot: Tempe Police
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Hulu’s legal team initially released viewing data for another user’s account, according to the police reports, then corrected the error in response to follow-up questions from the Tempe police and released Vasquez’s data.
In reviewing footage collected from Uber’s own cameras, which filmed the car’s view of the road and Vasquez as she was driving, police determined that Vasquez was frequently distracted.
“She appears to be looking down at the area near her right knee at various points in the video,” the report reads. “During the 9 video clips, I found that the driver looked down 204 times with nearly all of them having the same eye placement at the lower center console near her right knee. One hundred sixty-six of these instances of looking down occurred while the vehicle was in motion.” Vasquez was appeared to laugh or smirk during moments when she was looking towards her knee, the report added.
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Police didn’t just note the number of instances her eyes were off the road, they also focused on the aggregate amount of time that Vasquez was apparently distracted. “The vehicle was in motion for 21 minutes, 48 seconds. Of that time, the total amount of t