A woman was struck and killed on Sunday night by an autonomous car of Uber – which also had an emergency driver at the wheels, on a street in Tempe, Arizona.

Uber has cancelled all of its testing of autonomous vehicles following the incident. This has also cats a shadow over the safety and security of driverless vehicles.

This is believed to be the first human casualty related to testing of the self-driving technology. this accident underscores the reality that self-driving technology is still an emerging technology and is in its experimental stages where the government requires to form regulations for safe and ultimate usage commercially.

There are multiple cities in the U.S. where there is wide spread testing of this technology by Uber, Waymo and a number of other tech companies and automakers. The argument about the enhanced safety of self-driving cars that is often put forward by its proponents is that this technology eliminates the need for distracted humans to be at the controls of an autonomous vehicles thereby reducing chances of accidents.

However, it has just been about a decade that the technology had started emerging and it is only now that the actual real life unpredictable situations are being faced by the technology – situations that can be faced by the driverless vehicles.

It is yet to be clear whether the emergence of the technology would be delayed by the accident and whether other companies working on self-driving vehicles would slow down their work.

Piecemeal regulatory environments have formed the basis for testing of most of the autonomous cars so far in the U.S. a lenient approach to the regulations have bene taken in Arizona.

A lighter approach to regulations have also been adopted by Federal policymakers. Some existing safety standards would be eliminated for autonomous-car makers if a Senate bill is passed the bill would also prevent some of the other states to creating their own safety laws.

“This tragic incident makes clear that autonomous vehicle technology has a long way to go before it is truly safe for the passengers, pedestrians, and drivers who share America’s roads,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut.

The deceased – Ms. Herzberg was walking on the street along with her bicycle when the Uber car bit her while it was travelling at a speed of 40 miles an hour according to the preliminary investigations of the incident, said Sgt. Ronald Elcock, a Tempe police spokesman. The police said that apparently it is being believed that the Uber car had not shown any signs of slowing down.

“Our hearts go out to the victim’s family,” an Uber spokeswoman, Sarah Abboud, said in a statement. “We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident.”

“We needed our message to Uber, Lyft and other entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to be that Arizona was open to new ideas,” Doug Ducey, Arizona’s governor, said in an interview in June 2017.

Investigators to examine “the vehicle’s interaction with the environment, other vehicles and vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and bicyclists” is being sent by it, said the National Transportation Safety Board in a news release.

(Adapted from NYTimes.com)

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