Uber driver behind the wheel in fatal self-driving vehicle crash pleads guilty

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The Uber driver behind the wheel during the first reported fatal collision involving a fully autonomous vehicle pleaded guilty to endangerment on Friday, and was sentenced to three years of supervised probation. 

In March of 2018, Elaine Herzberg was killed while walking her bike outside the lines of a crosswalk in suburban Phoenix. 

Driver Rafaela Vasquez, 49, was streaming a show on her phone and not watching the road at the moment of the fatal accident, authorities said. Video released by the Tempe Police Department from inside the Vasquez's Volvo XC90 SUV shows her looking down at the moment of the crash, during which the vehicle was moving at 40 miles per hour. 

She told police that Herzberg "came out of nowhere" on the dimly lit street in Tempe. The Uber system detected that Herzberg was in the road 5.6 seconds before the crash, but failed to determine that she was headed into Vasquez's vehicle's path, according to reporting by FOX 10 Phoenix.

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Rafaela Vasquez speaks with her attorney during a court hearing prior to accepting a plea agreement of three years of supervised probation for the Uber autonomous vehicle crash that killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, at Maricopa County Superior Court, Friday, July 28, 2023, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

But the driver's attorneys claimed in court that Vasquez was looking at the Uber messaging app used by employees (while "The Voice" was playing on her personal cellphone in her passenger seat), and that the San Francisco-based company should share some of the blame. 

But prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against Uber in Herzberg's death after the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that Vasquez's inattention was the primary cause of the accident. 

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Elaine Herzberg, right, was fatally struck by a self-driving Uber vehicle that Rafaela Vasquez, left, was riding in, police said. (Facebook)

The board also determined that Uber's deactivation of its automated emergency braking system, relying instead on backup drivers to intervene, increased the risks associated with testing self-driving vehicles. 

Vasquez was initially charged with felony negligent homicide, a charge that carries a minimum one-year prison sentence. But prosecutors agreed to a plea deal that would reclassify the charge as a misdemeanor, provided the driver completes probationary requirements. 

Vasquez had spent more than four years in prison for two felony convictions - attempted armed robbery and making false statements while obtaining unemployment benefits - before she was hired by Uber, according to court records. 

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Rafaela Vasquez is pictured on dashcam footage at the moment of the crash that killed Elaine Herzberg. 

Although Herzberg's was the first death involving a fully-autonomous test vehicle, other crashes involving cars with self-driving features have been reported. An Ohio driver was killed after crashing into a semi-truck while his Tesla was operating in autopilot in 2016. In 2019, a Tesla Model A driver was killed when his vehicle, operating in autopilot, crashed into a tractor-trailer in Florida. 

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Nearly 400 crashes involving semi- or fully-autonomous vehicles - primarily Teslas - were reported over a 10-month period in 2022, per U.S. auto regulators. 

Since Herzberg's death, Uber has pulled its self-driving cars out of Arizona, and then-Gov. Doug Ducey banned the company from testing autonomous vehicles in the state.