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Uber's Self-Driving Service in California Lasted a Full Few Hours

Yesterday, Uber announced it would start offering its customers self-driving rides in San Francisco, despite not having a permit to do so. Even so, people who requested an uberX ride in the Californian city could have expected to be picked up by a semi-autonomous Volvo XC90 SUV.
Uber's self-driving XC90 6 photos
Photo: YouTube screenshot
Uber's self-driving VOlvo XC90Uber's self-driving VOlvo XC90Uber's self-driving VOlvo XC90Uber's self-driving VOlvo XC90Uber's self-driving VOlvo XC90
The reasons why Uber decided to do this are obvious - it wants to push the adoption of self-driving vehicles since that would eliminate the human drivers component, the one that's given the company the most headaches so far. The way it chose to do it, however, might raise a few questions.

The ride hailing giant read between the lines of California DMV's definition of an autonomous car, which states that they are systems that can drive "without the active physical control or monitoring by a human operator." Uber's cars - a fleet of Volvo XC90 SUVs - have a company engineer in the driver's seat at all times, so they don't fall into this category.

That didn't stop it from advertising them as "self-driving" though. In fact, Uber insisted on differentiating between "self-driving" and "autonomous," saying that one implies the absence of human intervention, while the other simply states the vehicle is (also) able to drive itself at times.

Well, unfortunately for the mobility company, its recent venture turned out to be short-lived. A few hours after the announcement was made, the state DMV received a footage showing one of Uber's self-driving cars running a red light just a few feet away from a pedestrian crossing the road.

The official agency reacted immediately and informed Uber it was to cease the use of these vehicles or face legal action. The company countered moments later and somewhat ironically tried to take this incident and turn it in favor of driverless cars. This is what the statement read: "This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate."

We have no reason to assume Uber is lying about what happened, but even so, the timing of the incident could not have been any worse. The company was already operating on the fringes of the law, so the last thing it needed was this kind of attention. It will be interesting to see where this thing leads from here.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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