The National Transportation Safety Board just released a 400 page report on the self-driving Uber fatality last March in Tempe, Arizona that killed 49 year old Elaine Herzberg, who was jaywalking with her bike.

The NTSB’s report says that the autonomous car didn’t recognize Herzman as a pedestrian up until a second before it struck her. Prior to that detection, the Uber’s software classified her as an unidentified object, and safely out of the car’s way. Uber said its software would have been able to identify her as a pedestrian had she been in a crosswalk, and have since updated their software. Herzberg’s family received a settlement two weeks after the crash, and Uber pulled all of it’s self-driving vehicles off the road. 

Joining us to talk about what’s in the report, the state of the technology, and where legislation may go from here are Alan Levin, Bloomberg Transportation Reporter who’s been covering autonomous car safety, and Petros Ioannou, a professor of electrical engineering at USC.

Guests:

Alan Levin, transportation reporter at Bloomberg who’s been covering autonomous car safety

Petros Ioannou, professor of electrical engineering and the associate director for research at METRANS (Metropolitan Transportation Center) at USC