Ars Technica reports Robbie Miller, a former operations manager in Uber’s self-driving truck program, says he sent an email to members of the program about safety issues that were discovered while testing the vehicles. Engadget reports that “it appears the email was prompted by an incident in Pittsburgh, where just a few days before Miller sent the message an Uber prototype swerved completely off the road and onto the sidewalk, where it continued to drive.” According to Miller, the incident was “essential ignored” for days until Miller raised the issue with other managers. In the email, Miller urged the group to “work on establishing a culture rooted in safety” and “offered a range of suggestions for improving matters, including reducing the size of the autonomous fleet, having multiple backup drivers per vehicle and giving authority to lower-level employees to shut down testing if they suspect the software is unsafe.” Gizmodo reports Miller also wrote in the email that “at Waymo, I would not have been surprised if the entire fleet was immediately grounded for weeks or longer if a vehicle exhibited the same behavior.” The Verge reports that “days later, on March 18th, a self-driving Uber vehicle was involved in a fatal collision.”
Additional coverage is provided by Fortune, Autoblog, and TechSpot.
From the news release of the American Association for Justice.
