WASHINGTON: An Uber safety driver at the wheel of an autonomous car during a 2018 accident in Arizona that killed a pedestrian has been charged with negligent homicide, prosecutors said.
The Maricopa County prosecutor's office said in a statement Tuesday that 46-year-old Rafaela Vasquez had been indicted in the death of Elaine Herzberg on March 18, 2018.
Vasquez was behind the wheel of the Uber self-driving car operating in autonomous mode when it struck and killed Herzberg, who was pushing a bicycle across an unlit section of roadway at night.
No charges were filed immediately after the incident, but a National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that Vasquez, who was able to take the controls from the autonomous car at any time, "was visually distracted throughout the trip by a personal cell phone."