After the Fatal Crash, Uber Revamps Its Robo-Car Testing

In the four months since an Uber self-driving car struck and killed a woman in Arizona, the ride-hail company's autonomous vehicle tech has stayed off public roads. The governor of that state banned Uber from testing there; the company let its autonomous vehicle testing permit lapse in California; it pulled its vehicles off the streets of Pittsburgh, home to its self-driving R&D center. Until today, when self-driving chief Eric Meyhofer announced in a blog post that Uber would return its self-driving cars to the roads in Pittsburgh. For now, the vehicles will stay in manual (human-driven) mode, simply collecting data for training and mapping purposes. To prep for the tech's return to the public space, Uber has undertaken a wholesale "safety review", with the help of former National Transportation Safety Board chair and aviation expert Christopher Hart.