Self-driving Uber's automatic emergency brake was switched off before fatal crash, report says

An autonomous Uber vehicle's emergency braking system was switched off in the critical seconds before the car fatally struck a pedestrian in Arizona earlier this year, a report found. The lethal March crash was the first known time a self-driving vehicle killed a pedestrian, and it raised grave questions about the future of the burgeoning autonomous vehicle industry. In the aftermath, Uber has suspended its self-driving car initiative in Arizona. In a preliminary report detailing how the accident occurred, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) noted that the car was equipped with an automatic emergency braking that does not function when the car is being controlled by its computer system, relying instead on a human to take over. Self-driving cars like the one involved in the crash have an autonomous mode, in which a computer does the driving, and a manual mode in which a human backup driver takes over.