California regulators ban Uber self-driving cars after red light errors

Ride-hailing company Uber has been ordered to remove its self-driving vehicles from the road ins in California, with the company blaming "human error" on some of the vehicles failing to recognise red lights.

Videos surfaced on social media on Wednesday of the Uber-sponsored cars running red lights in the state, including one from traditional taxi company Luxor's boss Charles Rotter.

The Department of Motor Vehicles in California wrote to the company the same day to take the cars off the road, despite the fact that Uber had not applied for a permit to pilot them in the first place.

"It is essential that Uber takes appropriate measures to ensure safety of the public," the regulatory body said. "If Uber does not confirm immediately that it will stop its launch and seek a testing permit, DMV will initiate legal action."

Uber is one of the pioneers in the current drive to be the first company to develop the first fully autonomous vehicle, but the company doesn't see the latest incident as a setback, believing human error to have caused the traffic light infringements.

The company defended its actions in a blog post published on Wednesday.

"We understand that there is a debate over whether or not we need a testing permit to launch self-driving Ubers in San Francisco. We have looked at this issue carefully and we don’t believe we do."