Who Killed Elaine Herzberg?
Who is ultimately to blame in the first self-driving car fatality — the technology, the victim, the safety driver, Uber, or the American city itself?
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) just released the final report of a crash in which a woman was killed after being hit by a self-driving car operated by Uber. The NTSB report excoriates Uber for its poor safety culture and takes issue with the threadbare rules that govern the testing of self-driving cars on public roads. But it also notes that there were methamphetamines found in the victim’s system, which may have impaired her ability to react to an approaching vehicle.
In an excerpt from his new book, Who’s Driving Innovation?, Jack Stilgoe, a professor in the science and technology studies department at University College London, argues for the need to learn from this tragedy as we develop a more intelligent approach to new technologies.
Elaine Herzberg did not know that she was part of an experiment. She was walking her bicycle across the road at 10 p.m. on a dark desert night in Tempe, Arizona. Having crossed three lanes of a four-lane highway, Herzberg was run down by a Volvo SUV traveling at 38 miles per hour. She was pronounced dead at 10:30 p.m.
