In a landmark case that has drawn international attention, the transgender convicted felon operator of a self-driving Uber vehicle that struck and killed a pedestrian in 2018 has pleaded guilty to endangerment, avoiding a prison sentence.
Business Insider reports that the operator of a self-driving Uber car that struck and killed a pedestrian in 2018 has admitted to endangering others in order to avoid going to jail.
Rafaela Vasquez, the transgender convicted felon serving as the operator of the self-driving Uber, has been in legal limbo since the fatal incident. The case has been closely watched as it posed a significant ethical question: who bears responsibility when a self-driving car is involved in a fatal accident?
Breitbart News reported extensively on the accident in 2018:
The Wall Street Journal reports that a recently released video shows the moment that a self-driving Uber vehicle hit and killed a pedestrian. Convicted felon Rafaela Vasquez, 44, was at the wheel of the car as it was in self-driving mode — a feature being tested by Uber in many cities across the U.S. and Canada. 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg was walking a bicycle outside the lines of a crosswalk when the self-driving vehicle operated by Vasquez hit Herzberg who later died in a hospital. Vasquez appears to take her eyes off the road for a considerable period of time before the accident in the video.
Investigations into the incident revealed that Vasquez had been watching a video on her phone at the time of the crash and did not brake in time. The Uber system detected Herzberg 5.6 seconds before the crash but failed to determine that she was a bicyclist or that she was headed into the vehicle’s path.
Vasquez was sentenced to three years of supervised probation as part of a plea agreement.
Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan