Arizona officials saw opportunity when Uber and other companies began testing driverless cars a few years ago. Promising to keep oversight light, they invited the companies to test their robotic vehicles on the state’s roads.

Then on Sunday night, an autonomous car operated by Uber — and with an emergency backup driver behind the wheel — struck and killed a woman on a street in Tempe, Ariz. It was believed to be the first pedestrian death associated with self-driving technology. 

The fatal car crash of the American company Uber in the city of Tempe, in the southwestern state of Arizona, has been the fault of the dead pedestrian, said San Francisco Chronicle, quoted by TASS. The local daily quotes the police.
 
According to it, the Volvo brand car, which did not stop and hit the woman on Sunday evening, was equipped with at least two observation cameras.

Police have investigated videos from which it has become clear that the pedestrian has jumped out in front of the car completely unexpectedly. It was concluded that even the driver would be have avoided a fatal blow.

Following the accident, Uber announced that it was temporarily suspending self-driving tests in Tempe, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Toronto and cooperating with the authorities.

Uber, Waymo and a long list of tech companies and automakers have begun to expand testing of their self-driving vehicles in cities around the country. The companies say the cars will be safer than regular cars simply because they take easily distracted humans out of the driving equation. But the technology is still only about a decade old, and just now starting to experience the unpredictable situations that drivers can face.

It was not yet clear if the crash in Arizona will lead other companies or state regulators to slow the rollout of self-driving vehicles on public roads.

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