Sunday, March 26, 2017

Uber Trouble

Uber has suspended its fleet of self-driving cars while it investigates a crash in Arizona involving one of its vehicles.

Photographs posted online show the car lying on its side next to another badly damaged vehicle. There were no serious injuries as a result of the incident.

The Uber Technologies car – a Volvo SUV – was carrying two engineers in the front and no backseat passengers but it is not yet clear whether the car was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash.

The incident is the latest blow for the car-hailing app which has been left reeling by a series of setbacks in recent weeks including the departure of its president, Jeff Jones.

Initial police reports suggest the collision was caused by a person who failed to give way to the self-driving car rather than a malfunction by the Uber vehicle.
  Guardian
Isn't that what a self-driving car is supposed to avoid?

And what's this with a self-driving fleet? Wasn't Uber supposed to be the Great White Hope of jobs providers?

And, just wondering, but how many accidents will self-driving cars be allowed? Surely we're not expecting them to have none. Shouldn't it be determined by a comparison to person-driven vehicle accidents?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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