Backup driver for self-driving Uber that killed Arizona pedestrian pleads guilty

The backup Uber driver for a self-driving vehicle that killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018 pleaded guilty Friday to endangerment in the first deadly crash involving a fully autonomous car. Arizona state judge David Garbarino, who accepted the plea agreement, sentenced Rafaela Vasquez to three years of supervised probation for the crash that killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. Vasquez, 49, told police that Herzberg "came out of nowhere" and that she didn't see Herzberg before hitting her on a darkened Tempe street on 18 March 2018. Vasquez had been charged with felony negligent homicide. The charge to which she pleaded could be reclassified as a misdemeanor if she completes probation. Authorities say Vasquez was streaming the television show The Voice on a phone and looking down in the moments before Uber's Volvo XC-90 SUV struck Herzberg, who was crossing with her bicycle.