The operator of a self-driving Uber that hit and killed a pedestrian in Tempe last year was the primary cause of the accident because she was watching "The Voice" on her phone instead of the road. That's the finding from the National Transportation Safety Board, although the federal agency identified several other contributory causes in its final report submitted on Tuesday. The board also recommended new federal and state requirements for testing autonomous cars on public roads. Beyond the driver, the board found plenty of blame to go around for the nation's first pedestrian fatality involving a self-driving car. Officials called out Uber's lax safety culture, the pedestrian who was high on methamphetamine, and the state of Arizona's lack of safety requirements for the cars.

Uber has decided to suspend its self-driving car program in Arizona two months after one of its autonomous vehicles struck and killed a female pedestrian. In an internal memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Uber relayed its decision to halt its self-driving technology testing program in the state in light of the accident that took the life of a 49-year-old woman this past March. Uber stated that it still wants to push through with the program in Arizona, but it will focus on conducting a "top-to-bottom safety review" for now. It also maintained that the program will resume in the future. "We're committed to self-driving technology, and we look forward to returning to public roads in the near future," Uber said in the memo.

SAN FRANCISCO – Uber is pulling its self-driving cars out of Arizona, a reversal triggered by the recent death of woman who was run over by one of the ride-hailing service's robotic vehicles while crossing a darkened street in a Phoenix suburb. The decision announced Wednesday means Uber won't be bringing back its self-driving cars to the streets to Arizona, eliminating the jobs of about 300 people who served as backup drivers and performed other jobs connected to the vehicles. Uber had suspended testing of its self-driving vehicles in Arizona, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto while regulators investigated the cause of a March 18 crash that killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Arizona. It marked the first death involving a fully autonomous vehicle, raising questions about the safety of computer-controlled cars being built by Uber and dozens of other companies, including Google spin-off Waymo. Uber still plans to build and test self-driving cars, which the San Francisco company considers to be critical to maintaining its early lead in the ride-hailing market.

It's found just the right place in Arizona, which has continued its lax regulatory policy for autonomous vehicles after an Uber self-driving Volvo killed a pedestrian on March 18 in Tempe. Nuro's co-founder and president, David Ferguson, signed a registration letter to the state Department of Transportation for the company on April 17, confirming that it planned to start testing fully autonomous vehicles on Arizona roads. On March 1, Governor Doug Ducey published an executive order to address fully autonomous vehicles, adding a modicum of oversight to his pro-business policy. All companies that intend to put fully driverless vehicles on Arizona roads in the near future, or are already testing them on roads, were ordered to register with the state within 60 days. As of May 2, Nuro was one of only two companies that had filed the required statement.

The first thing to understand about the fatal incident involving a pedestrian and self-driving Uber vehicle is the lay of the land, literally. Primary avenues in metropolitan Phoenix are very wide. The typical right of way for a major "arterial" is 140 feet. This is a metro engineered for driving, moving cars quickly and efficiently. Thousands of shade trees were felled over the decades to widen streets.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's staff worked with ridesharing company Uber to launch the company's experimental autonomous vehicle program without informing the public, emails obtained by the Guardian revealed. The conversations between Ashwini Chhabra, the head of policy development at Uber, and Ducey's deputy chief of staff Danny Seiden show that the state willingly accommodated Uber's self-driving cars -- a considerable departure from the government's harsh words for the company following a fatal accident involving one of the vehicles. Emails reveal Uber and Arizona governor Doug Ducey hid autonomous vehicle program from public. According to the emails published by the Guardian, Chhabra contacted Seiden on Aug. 19, 2016, to alert him that Uber would begin "testing some self-driving functionality" starting that weekend. "There will be safety drivers at the wheel, so won't look much different from what's already been on the road but wanted to flag it for you nonetheless," Chhabra promised.

Uber Technologies Inc. said it doesn't plan to renew its permit to test autonomous vehicles in California following a fatal crash involving one its robot vehicles last week in Tempe, Ariz. The company will let its testing permit lapse at month's end, rather than resubmit for renewal and face potential scrutiny amid an investigation into the circumstances of the accident. Uber's self-driving vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian crossing a Tempe street with her bicycle outside of a crosswalk. "We proactively suspended our self-driving operations, including in California, immediately following the Tempe incident," said an Uber spokeswoman in a statement. "Given this, we decided to not reapply for a California DMV permit with the understanding that our self-driving vehicles would not operate on public roads in the immediate future."

'After more than a year of thorough planning, development and safety reviews, we transitioned most operations to having a single vehicle operator, without a second person to collect feedback for our engineers using a laptop in the passenger seat,' the company said in the statement. 'This transition happened slowly as we worked with our vehicle operators to make sure they were well-trained and felt comfortable with this new job. 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.

Arizona's Republican governor repeatedly encouraged Uber's controversial experiment with autonomous cars in the state, enabling a secret testing program for self-driving vehicles with limited oversight from experts, according to hundreds of emails obtained by the Guardian. The previously unseen emails between Uber and the office of governor Doug Ducey reveal how Uber began quietly testing self-driving cars in Phoenix in August 2016 without informing the public. On Monday, 10 days after one of Uber's self-driving vehicles killed a pedestrian in a Phoenix suburb, Ducey suspended the company's right to operate autonomous cars on public roads in Arizona. It was a major about-face for the governor, who has spent years embracing the Silicon Valley startup. Uber's behind-the-scenes efforts to court Ducey, and the governor's apparent willingness to satisfy the company, is made clear in the emails, which were sent between 2015 and 2007 and obtained by the Guardian through public records requests.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. On Monday night, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey rescinded Uber's authority to test autonomous vehicles on the state's streets, following the March 18 crash in Tempe that killed Elaine Herzberg. Uber had already suspended its AV program in the wake of the incident, as it has routinely done after crashes. Since then, the investigation has revealed a safety protocol with more holes than a Scottsdale golf course. Video from the crash revealed that the woman had not come "from the shadows right into the roadway," as Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir initially said, but had already crossed several lanes of open, if darkened, asphalt before being hit by the computer-navigated Volvo SUV.