Uber self-driving car saw pedestrian but didn’t brake before fatal crash, feds say

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So what went wrong? The NTSB timeline of the fatal crash is as follows:

- At 9:14PM, Uber safety driver Rafaela Vasquez departs the garage to run an established test run.

- Immediately before the crash, she is on her second loop, traveling 43 mph north on Mill Avenue. At that moment, the car had been in autonomous mode for the preceding 19 minutes.

- At 9:58PM, Herzberg begins crossing east across Mill Avenue.
The vehicle’s radar and LIDAR sensors detect an object in the road about six seconds before impact.

- As their paths converge, the vehicle’s self-driving software classifies Herzberg first as an unknown object, then as a vehicle, and finally as a bicycle, with varying expectations of the future travel path.

- At 1.3 seconds before impact, the vehicle’s computer decides that an emergency braking maneuver was needed. But Uber has disabled the Volvo’s factory AEB system, “to reduce potential for erratic vehicle behavior.” The system is not designed to alert the driver that braking is needed.

- Vasquez intervenes “less than a second” before impact by grabbing the steering wheel. The car strikes Herzberg at a speed of 39 mph. Vasquez hits the brake less than a second after impact.

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