Boston Officials Ask Self-Driving Car Companies To Hold Off

BOSTON, MA —After self-driving Uber SUV hit a woman in Arizona and killed her yesterday, city officials in Boston are asking self-driving car companies to stop testing on public streets for a bit.

"As a precautionary measure, we have temporarily asked Nutonomy and Optimus Ride to pause their autonomous vehicle testing programs on public streets in Boston," said Boston Transportation Department Commissioner Gina Fiandaca in a statement Monday night.

Boston has allowed three companies to test autonomous vehicles in the Seaport District, including nuTonomy, Optimus Ride and Delphi (renamed Aptiv). nuTonomy partnered with Lyft in the past year and just started giving rides to some Lyft riders in the Seaport District.

“We are working with City of Boston officials to ensure that our automated vehicle pilots continue to adhere to high standards of safety. We have complied with the City of Boston's request to temporarily halt autonomous vehicle testing on public roads," said a spokesperson at nuTonomy in an email to Patch

The Boston Transportation Department said they want to work with the companies to review safety procedures before they start up again.

“This tragic accident underscores why we need to be exceptionally cautious when testing and deploying autonomous vehicle technologies on public roads,” said Senator Markey. “If these technologies are to reap their purported safety, efficiency, and environmental benefits, we must have robust safety, cybersecurity, and privacy rules in place before these vehicles are traveling our roadways to prevent such tragedies from occurring," said Sen. Edward Markey in a statement.

Tempe Police said an Uber self-driving test car was traveling around 40 mph when it struck and killed a woman late Sunday. The fatality is believed to be the first by a self-driving test vehicle and it's still under investigation. At this point it's not clear if it was human error or the car's fault.

Still, since the crash, Uber has suspended its testing of self-driving vehicles. Optimus and Delphi did not immediately respond for comment in time for publication.

"Zero deaths. Zero Injuries. Zero disparities. Zero emissions. Zero Stress. This is Boston's vision for our transportation future," reads the Boston city website on its vision on the driverless car scene here.

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Photo courtesy nuTonomy.

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