Uber's self-driving car crashes in Arizona

Uber's very bad, not-at-all-great 2017 just got a whole hell of a lot worse. But this time, somehow, the problem isn't human interactions in the workplace, but self-driving cars on the road.

On Friday, photos posted to Twitter revealed an Uber self-driving car flipped over on its side after being involved in a car crash in Tempe, Arizona.

The authenticity of the photo of a damaged Uber self-driving Volvo resting on its side, posted by Fresco News, was confirmed by Uber via a Bloomberg news report.

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Details haven't been revealed as to whether there were any humans in the self-driving car or whether any other motorists on the road were seriously injured.

But what this does tell us is that the hard-charging, break all the rules in-service of innovation ethos that drives much of Silicon Valley falls apart when you're talking about human lives as opposed to a simple software glitch on a messaging app.

Rolling out a beta is one thing when you're talking about social networks, but this is real life, and the consequences of failure are literally life and death.

Uber decided to move its self-driving car tests from San Francisco to Arizona back in December. In recent weeks, new reports have revealed that Uber didn't seem very interested in following the guidelines laid out by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Back then, at least one video had already captured an Uber self-driving car dangerously violating San Francisco traffic laws.

Uber's also testing its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Of course, this is just the latest in a series of massive hits to the company's credibility in recent weeks including ongoing allegations of a sexist workplace and high-profile departures of its top executives, to say nothing of today's scandal of the morning (oh, just a failed cover-up involving escorts in Seoul).

So, Uber, not having the best day. You can kind of say that watching the company roll through a news cycle is a bit like...watching a (self-driving) car crash?

UPDATED: 1:15 p.m. ET: Uber sent me a statement: "We are continuing to look into this incident and can confirm we had no backseat passengers in the vehicle." Also, according to an Uber spokesperson, no one was seriously hurt and the Arizona self-driving program has been paused while the company investigates.