The Self-Driving Uber in Fatal Crash Didn't Have a Vision Problem

The tragedy of the first person killed by an autonomous vehicle points to a potential vulnerability with the nascent technology now being tested on the open roads: While robo-cars, powered by sophisticated sensors and cameras, can reliably see their surroundings, the software doesn't always understand what it detects.

New details about the Uber Technologies Inc. autonomous vehicle that struck and killed a woman in Tempe, Arizona, indicate that neither the self-driving system nor the human safety driver behind the wheel hit the brakes when she apparently stepped off a median and onto the roadway at around 10 p.m., according to an account the Tempe police chief gave to the San Francisco Chronicle. The human driver told police he didn't see the pedestrian coming, and the autonomous system behaved as if it hadn't either.