Emotional effect on test drivers cited.
Japanese automotive giant Toyota may be working towards a reality where driving won’t be required in a motorcar, but that future is still a way off. And in the world of today, where an Uber autonomous vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, the human behind the wheel, regarded as a safety-net should the systems falter, still need to have an eye kept on them.
As such, Toyota has opted to temporarily halt the testing of its ‘Chauffeur’ autonomous driving program and will be doing so for a little while, citing concerns for the emotional condition on their test drivers.
“Because we feel the incident may have an emotional effect on our test drivers, we have decided to temporarily pause our Chauffeur mode testing on public roads.” — Brian Lyons, Spokesperson, Toyota Motor Corporation
To recap, Elaine Herzberg was struck by one of Uber’s autonomous Volvo XC90 test vehicles earlier this week, succumbing to her injuries at a hospital following the accident. She was 49. Behind the wheel of the Uber vehicle, which was operating in full-autonomous mode at the time, was Rafaela Vasquez, 44, said the whole thing happened “like a flash.”
Volvo has denied responsibility in the accident, as its software was not in control of the vehicle at the time.
Preliminary findings of the investigation indicate that Uber and/or Vasquez may not have been at fault at all. Tempe police chief Sylvia Moir said to the San Francisco Chronicle:
“It is very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode, autonomous or otherwise, based on how [the pedestrian] came from the shadows, right into the roadway. The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them. [Her] first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.” — Sylvia Moir, Tempe Police Chief
For the industry as a whole, the incident in Arizona could set the technology back some way. Carmakers have been plunging head-first into the autonomy race, with all players trying to get their systems to the market fastest. It’s inevitable that there will be a slowdown in the progress being made towards autonomous driving, with automakers definitely looking to exercise a great deal more caution going forwards.
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