Uber's new self-driving cars would likely detect woman killed in 2018 crash, according to NTSB findings

More than a year and a half ago, Elaine Herzberg was struck and killed while walking her bicycle across a Tempe, Arizona road. A self-driving Uber with a safety operator sitting in the driver seat struck her. On Tuesday, a federal agency published detailed findings about the crash, clearly spelling out Uber's deadly shortcomings.

In the documents, reports include what led up to the crash in the hours before the safety driver got into the vehicle as well as Uber's testing policies, how the self-driving car system worked, and what happened in the moments before impact. The report also delved into how Uber has changed its autonomous testing program since the first-ever autonomous car fatality in the U.S.

On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board released 43 documents from its investigation for the March 2018 crash. In the "vehicle automation report" for the March 18 crash, the car's detection system — made up of computers, cameras, light-emitting LiDAR sensors, and radar detectors — noticed 49-year-old Herzberg and her bicycle were in the 2017 Volvo SUV's path only 1.2 seconds before impact. At 5.6 seconds, the visual system registered something in the roadway, but initially determined the "unknown object" wasn't in the vehicle's path.

After the crash, Uber pulled all its self-driving vehicles off public road testing until December 2018 when it reintroduced a modified autonomous program in Pittsburgh. It has since expanded its revamped testing, albeit slowly (and mostly in manual mode), and changed up the software and hardware used in its newest modified Volvo XC90. Uber told the NTSB its new software "would have been able to detect and correctly classify the pedestrian at a distance of approximately 88 meters—4.5 seconds—before the original time of impact."

The old system had trouble classifying Herzberg and her bicycle as a pedestrian and bicycle and didn't start braking, but Uber says its new system would've started braking more than 4 seconds before hitting her.

Uber gave the NTSB full access to information about its self-driving program as part of its investigation, which is technically ongoing. In a statement, an Uber spokesperson said, "We regret the March 2018 crash involving one of our self-driving vehicles that took Elaine Herzberg’s life. In the wake of this tragedy, the team at Uber ATG has adopted critical program improvements to further prioritize safety."

The report also noted 37 previous incidents with Uber vehicles in self-driving mode before the crash. Between September 2016 and March 2018, 33 non-Uber vehicles hit Uber's test cars. In only two cases, Uber cars hit the other car. Two other incidents were pedestrians damaging the stopped Uber vehicles.

As to the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, she was streaming the Hulu app on her phone at the time of the crash just before 10 p.m. — an Uber safety violation. Uber had fired nine other safety drivers for breaking its cell phone policy between April 2017 and February 2018, and reported nine other incidents.

The night of the crash, Vasquez was glancing down at the same spot near the center console where authorities believe she had a cellphone streaming a show. In a 27-minute window leading up to the crash she looked at the same spot 204 times, keeping her eyes off the road for nearly 7 minutes.

The NTSB is meeting later this month in Washington, D.C., to determine the cause of the crash and to give Uber formal safety recommendations. Uber previously settled with Herzberg's family in a wrongful death suit. Uber won't be charged in the crash, but Vasquez could still be determined at fault.