Backup Uber driver of self-driving car that killed pedestrian in 2018 pleads guilty to endangerment

PHOENIX — A backup driver of an autonomous car pleaded guilty to endangerment Friday in Maricopa County, Arizona, after a pedestrian was killed in 2018.

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Rafaela Vasquez, 49, pleaded guilty Friday, The Associated Press reported. She was sentenced to three years of supervised probation by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Garbarino, who accepted her plea deal.

The crash occurred in March 2018 in Tempe between a self-driving car and a pedestrian named Elaine Herzberg, according to KSAZ. Herzberg was walking a bike outside the crosswalk lines when she was struck and killed.

The crash became the first deadly one involving a self-driving vehicle, according to the AP.

Vasquez was charged with negligent homicide which is a felony, the AP reported. Since she pleaded guilty to “an undesignated felony,” that meant her charge was reclassified to a misdemeanor.

Vasquez reportedly told police that Herzberg “came out of nowhere,” according to the AP. She said she didn’t see her before the crash happened.

Prosecutors claimed that Vasquez was watching a television show on her phone at the time, KSAZ reported. Video showed Vasquez looking down just before the crash happened.

Vasquez’s attorney claimed that she was looking at a messaging activity, which is something employees of Uber use on her work phone, the news outlet reported. They said that she was streaming a show on her personal phone, which was in the passenger seat.

“The defendant had one job and one job only,” prosecutor Tiffany Brady told the judge, according to the AP. “And that was to keep her eyes in the road.”

Prosecutors did not file charges against Uber related to the crash following the National Transporation Safety Board’s investigation that found that the cause of the crash was Vasquez’s “failure to monitor the road,” KSAZ reported.

The deadly crash in 2018 was not the first crash involving a self-driving Uber vehicle. An Uber SUV flipped in March 2017 in Tempe as well but there were no injuries, the news outlet reported. The driver of the other car however was cited for a violation.

“The defendant in this matter was responsible for the operation of a vehicle on our city streets that ended with a woman being killed,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in a news release. “Determining an appropriate plea in this case involved considering a multitude of factors. We believe the Judge ordered an appropriate sentence based on the mitigating and aggravating factors.”

“Getting behind the wheel of a car is a serious responsibility. Regardless of whatever technology might be available to drivers, safety for everyone on the street and in the vehicle must always be a driver’s first priority,” Mitchell continued.