Uber car crash will set back autonomous vehicles by decades

The death of a pedestrian by a self-automated vehicle belonging to Uber has brought the ride-sharing service's trials of self-driving cars to a screeching halt that experts said may last for decades.

On Sunday, a self-driving Uber SUV killed 49 year-old Elaine Herzberg after running over him as he was crossing a lane, leading to Uber's decision to suspend all testing of its autonomous vehicles.

Significantly, a follow-up investigation by police found that the SUV may not have had time to stop or avoid hitting the pedestrian, "our investigation did not show at this time that there were significant signs of the vehicle slowing down."

However, according to the Tempe (Arizona) police it may have been the pedestrian's fault, since she was crossing the street 100 yards away from the nearest crosswalk.

The autonomous car’s back-up driver said "it was like a flash" and that her first alert of the collision was the sound of the woman hitting the car.

Uber is one of the companies that are racing to be the first to develop driver-less cars and it had been carrying out test drives for months.

Dr Jenifer Baxter, Head of Engineering at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers said, "Uber are right to suspend their trials of autonomous vehicles until the cause of this accident is fully understood. In 2016, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in our Case Study on Autonomous and Driverless Cars raised the need to address societal questions before highly and fully automated cars are both accepted and legally able to be positioned on our roads; this will include having the right regulatory framework in place.

"Engineers will need to create an environment where connected autonomous vehicles can operate safely with or without an operator during the transition period to a fully autonomous vehicle system. This transition period could last for several decades."