Yahoo Finance Uber Wants to Restart Self-Driving Test; Pittsburgh Says Not So Fast
Uber announced plans this week to resume its self-driving testing program later this summer, with a concentration of options in Silicon Valley and in Pittsburgh. One small problem: the company didn’t tell officials of the latter city about those intentions.
Pittsburgh mayor William Peduto was perturbed to learn of Uber’s plans this week via social media reports rather than from any sort of constructive conversation with company officials.
“Uber did not tell me of today’s announcement, and I was forced to learn about it through social media reports,” he said in a written statement. “This is not the way to rebuild a constructive working relationship with local government, especially when facing a public-safety matter.”
Uber’s self-driving operations have been at a standstill since a fatal crash in Arizona in March, in which one of the company’s vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian while it was under control of its self-driving system. Earlier this week, Uber said it would permanently shutter its operations in Arizona while resuming its tests in Pittsburgh and the Bay Area.
But in talks with company officials since the crash, Peduto said, he made it clear that a federal investigation into the crash must be complete and additional restrictions must be adhered to before he agrees to further testing in his city. That investigation is not yet complete. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the Arizona crash remains ongoing; the federal agency released a preliminary report Thursday.
Peduto and Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure want assurances that Uber’s self-driving vehicles would never exceed 25 mph on any city street, regardless of the legal speed limits. The city is seeking this condition because it says the probability of a pedestrian surviving a collision is much better at lower speeds.
The Uber vehicle involved in the fatal Tempe, Arizona, crash had been traveling at 43 miles per hour in the moments leading to the crash, according to the NTSB; the human safety driver hit the brakes and slowed the vehicle to 39 mph at impact.
Further, the city wants Uber to use a driver app to alert human drivers when Uber vehicles are exceeding speed limits.
“I made it clear to Uber officials after the Arizona crash that a full federal investigation had to be completed, with strong rules for keeping streets safe, before I would agree with the company to begin testing on Pittsburgh streets again,” Peduto said.
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This isn’t the first time that relations between Pittsburgh and Uber have grown tense. Peduto criticized the company last year because he didn’t get expected support for the city’s Smart City Challenge application, which could have won the city $40 million in public funding for future-minded advanced transportation projects. His rebuke of Uber was unusual-some might say refreshing-because so many city officials from across the United States are eager to please their corporate tenants in the hopes of landing or retaining high-paying engineering and technology jobs within their jurisdictions.
It bears watching whether the latest fracas is merely another blip in the relationship. Or, should the stakes be raised, if Pittsburgh will fight to keep Uber’s self-driving vehicles off its streets.
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