Uber restarts self-driving cars following weekend wreck

World Today

The ride-hailing car service, Uber, has resumed testing on self-driving cars, after a crash last week briefly halted trials.

The crash happened in Arizona and it’s not the first time an autonomous vehicle has made the news.

CGTN’s Phil Lavelle reports.

Self-driving vehicles are proving to be a headache for Uber. Another of its cars has crashed and while there were no injuries in last Friday night’s incident, a police spokeswoman said the Uber vehicle was not responsible.

The tech firm, famous for its ride sharing app, has been heavily investing in autonomous vehicles. It moved its tests from California to Arizona rather than buying a permit to drive them there.

But that testing hit a bump in the road with the firm briefly suspending operations in San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Arizona, while an investigation was carried out.

This crash happened after police said a private car, being driven by a human, failed to give way at an intersection and the two vehicles hit each other. There were two people in Uber’s self-driving car as a standby measure. They weren’t able to stop the collision, their vehicle ended up on its side.

This is not the first incident involving Uber’s autonomous cars. Shortly after tests began in California, a vehicle ran a red light. The firm has previously said its vehicles will still need human intervention in many situations.