Uber is returning to public roads in Pittsburgh nine months after an Uber self-driving car struck and killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona.
However, Uber’s new testing program will be massively scaled back from the one it had a year ago.
At the start of 2018, Uber had an extensive testing program that operated in both the Pittsburgh and Phoenix metropolitan areas. Dozens of Uber cars were driving around both cities, racking up more than two million miles of testing under the supervision of safety drivers.
But the whole program was halted in March when a malfunctioning Uber car crashed into Herzberg. The in-car video seemed to show the safety driver glancing down at her lap for several seconds before the crash; records later revealed that she was streaming a television show on her phone at the time.
Uber shut down its testing program nationwide, and the company wound up completely dismantling its Arizona testing program and laying off most of its safety drivers in Pittsburgh and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Uber rehired some of these drivers and gave them more training on safe operation of the vehicles. Now, months later, Uber is slowly rolling out a new, much more modest testing program.
