Uber Experiments Self-Driving Cars At Washington, D.C.
Recently, Uber Technologies Inc disclosed it would be putting self-driving vehicles on Washington, D.C. roads.
It is with human drivers in control, as it seeks to gather data for the upcoming deployment of fully self-driving vehicles.
The information was according to the rideshare firm last Thursday.
Moreover, Uber is collecting related road data. It is to boost the development of self-driving in Dallas, San Francisco as well as Toronto with human drivers in control.
The objective is for computers to operate the vehicles sooner or later.
In a statement, the firm stated it expects “this first round of manually driven data collection will lay be for testing our vehicles in self-driving mode in Washington, DC.”
Currently, Uber is running self-driving cars in an independent mode in Pittsburgh. It is with safety drivers at the back of the wheel but only during daylight hours.
In March 2018, Uber took a more careful approach. It is to testing since one of its self-driving vehicles killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona.
The accident is the first death concerning an autonomous vehicle.
In the aftermath of the collision, Uber halted all testing of self-driving vehicles.
Way back December 2018, the company has resumed experimenting in Pittsburgh with modified software and significant new limits along with safeguards.
Uber also stated that it would use a convoy of three vehicles gathering sensor data using a top-mounted sensor wing with cameras and LiDAR.
It will be during the manual driving in Washington. The process is an uncovering technology that uses pulsed laser light as an alternative to the radio waves used by radar.
Uber Criticized For Insufficient Attention To Safety And Decisions
Uber In Washington and further cities with self-driving Uber cars, a second member of staff will be in the passenger seat.
Last November, the National Transportation Safety Board blamed Uber for insufficient attention to safety and decisions.
Elsewhere, the matter has to do in the autonomous vehicle engaged in the Arizona casualty. It is also with the vehicle’s inattentive back-up driver.
The crash way back March 2018 killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. It happened as she was walking a bicycle throughout a street at night in Tempe, Arizona.
Moreover, the accident triggered significant safety apprehensions about the emerging self-driving car industry.
The NTSB condemned Uber’s “ineffective safety culture” at the time. It is when only one worker was in the front seat.
In a piece of separate technology news, Ford Motor Co is on trial with its self-driving vehicles. It is without passengers in six cities involving Washington with tech startup Argo AI, a business it invested in.
Since mid-2019, Ford has been putting to the test vehicles in self-driving mode in Washington.
The trial goes with two safety drivers and has approximately a dozen self-driving vehicles in the nation’s capital.
On the other side, Argo AI stated Washington “has some of the worst traffic congestion in America and a very complex street layout.”
