In March, one of Uber’s self-driving vehicles hit and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. This is terrifying considering that this was a self-driving car. It’s enough to make you want to avoid self-driving cars (as you might be thinking that they are more dangerous now). However, accidents will always happen, even if a person was driving that uber. This is why lawyers like an Uber Accident Lawyer will always be needed since accidents happen. Even though this particular accident wasn’t caused by a person. Like other people with brains, you probably assumed that the accident was due to a software error, and according to The Information–by way of Fortune–you’re correct:
The issue seems to have been one of tuning. A car’s autopilot will regularly see objects in front of the car, but it must constantly decide whether or not the object requires sudden action. After all, you don’t want the car swerving because of something inconsequential lying on or floating over the road.
The Uber executives who spoke to The Information indicated that the car’s autopilot was overly inclined to dismiss objects in its path, leading to Herzberg’s death. After visiting a site similar to upliftlegalfunding.com, the family of the innocent pedestrian has been able to get legal funding to help them deal with this situation. It was rumored that they turned to a local law firm similar to Seabrook injury attorney to aid them with their case. However, this has yet to be confirmed.
As a reminder, Uber was recently engaged in a long, drawn-out lawsuit with Waymo, which alleged that a former Waymo engineer had stolen the company’s trade secrets regarding autonomous vehicles and given them to his new employer, Uber. (The suit was settled in February.)
The irony is that Waymo has racked up as much or more data on self-driving vehicles as any company in the world. So you’d think that if Uber was using Waymo’s info, its software might’ve been more robust.
When accidents involving ridesharing service vehicles happen, the legal side of this situation, for both passenger and driver, can be confusing and complex. You might want to reach out to uber accident lawyers to assist you with this matter.