Emergency brake was disabled on self-driving Uber that killed woman

A federal investigation into a self-driving Uber SUV that hit and killed a pedestrian in March has found that the vehicle's emergency braking system was disabled. The preliminary report, issued by the National Transportation Safety Board, said on Thursday that while the vehicle's guidance system had spotted the woman about six seconds before hitting her, emergency braking manoeuvres were not enabled in order to "reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior". Instead, the Uber system anticipated that the human back-up driver would intervene. However, the automated system was not designed to alert the driver of the impending danger. The car was traveling at 43 miles per hour and its sensors determined that braking was needed 1.3 seconds before impact, according to the report.