Arizona governor Doug Ducey suspended Uber's self-driving vehicle testing privileges on Monday in the wake of a pedestrian fatality in a Phoenix suburb last week. Mr Ducey said in a letter to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi that video footage showed the company's'unquestionable failure'. The crash raised concerns about the San Francisco-based company's ability to safely test its technology in Arizona, he warned. He said he expects public safety to be the top priority for those who operate self-driving cars. Arizona governor Doug Ducey suspended Uber's self-driving vehicle testing privileges on Monday in the wake of a pedestrian fatality in a Phoenix suburb last week (stock image) 'The incident that took place on March 18 is an unquestionable failure to comply with this expectation,' Mr Ducey said. The move by the Republican governor marks a major step back from his embrace of self-driving vehicles.

FILE - In this March 1, 2017 file photo, people enter the headquarters of Uber in San Francisco. Uber suspended all of its self-driving testing Monday, March 19, 2018, after what is believed to be the first fatal pedestrian crash involving the vehicles. The testing has been going on for months in the Phoenix area, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto as automakers and technology companies compete to be the first with the technology. Uber's testing was halted after police in a Phoenix suburb said one of its self-driving vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian overnight Sunday.

Rand Corporation reported in 2016 that autonomous cars would need to be tested over 11 billion miles in order to prove that they're better drivers than humans. With a fleet of a hundred cars running 24 hours a day, that would take 500 years, according to the report. That seems both improbable and impractical, so companies like Cognata are filling the autonomous vehicle testing void with virtual miles. The need to establish the reliability of autonomous vehicles in short order has prompted Emerge Innovation Capital, Maniv Mobility, and Airbus Ventures to invest $5 million in funding in Cognata. The company's simulation system uses artificial intelligence, deep learning, and computer vision to create a virtual environment for testing cars without drivers -- no roads required.

Uber has to pay up and settle allegations that it duped drivers over how much they could earn and how much it costs to finance a car. Sean Dowling (@seandowlingtv) has more. SAN FRANCISCO -- Residents of this hilly city might be perplexed to find Uber's self-driving cars trolling its streets, given that the ride-hailing company as yet doesn't have permission from the state's Department of Motor Vehicles for autonomous testing. But the Uber Ford Fusion Hybrids packed with self-driving sensors that started making the rounds Wednesday are being driven by humans for the purpose of gathering valued road mapping data. "These cars are being used for Uber's mapping purposes only," said Uber spokesperson Chelsea Kohler. "They are being driven manually at all times and their self-driving systems are disabled."