Victim Stepped Suddenly in Front of Uber Self-Driving Car

Police say a video from the Uber self-driving car that struck and killed a woman Sunday shows her moving in front of it suddenly, a factor that investigators are likely to focus on as they assess the performance of the technology in the first pedestrian fatality involving an autonomous vehicle.

The Uber had a forward-facing video recorder, which showed the woman was walking a bike at about 10 p.m. and moved into traffic from a dark center median. “It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode,” Sylvia Moir, police chief in Tempe, Arizona, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said, referring to the backup driver who was behind the wheel but not operating the vehicle. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”

The chief’s account raises new questions in the investigation that holds importance to the future of the burgeoning autonomous vehicle industry. Uber Technologies Inc. halted autonomous vehicle tests in the wake of the accident.

It’s too soon to draw any conclusions from the preliminary information that has emerged, said Brian Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who has studied autonomous vehicle liability.

The operator of one of Uber’s self-driving cars that hit and killed a pedestrian Monday is a convicted felon who served nearly four years in prison, according to court records.

Rafaela Vasquez, 44, the operator of the Volvo, who was in the driver’s seat, reportedly had the car in self-driving mode when he struck a woman who was walking outside the crosswalk Monday. According to Court records obtained by the Arizona Republic, Vasquez served three years and 10 months in a state prison for convictions on attempted armed robbery and unsworn falsification.