An Uber self-driving car collided with another vehicle in Pittsburgh on February 24 in an incident first reported by Pittsburgh’s channel 11 last week. No one was seriously injured, but the incident caused serious damage to the vehicles. Uber and the other driver disagree on exactly what happened in the seconds before the crash, and it’s not clear if the Uber vehicle did anything wrong.
The driver of the other car was Jessica McLemore, a mother of three children. She described the incident in a Wednesday interview with Ars Technica.
The crash occurred in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. McLemore was on a four-lane road called Liberty Avenue, heading Northeast, while the Uber vehicle was approaching from the opposite direction. This screenshot from Google Maps shows the intersection.
Credit: Google Maps
Credit: Google Maps
“There was no other oncoming traffic,” McLemore told Ars. “I had my turn signal on to make the left and he had his right turn signal on.”
“As I was making my left, he continued to drive straight and slammed directly into the side of my vehicle,” she said.
McLemore took this picture of the damage to her car shortly after the crash and posted it to Facebook.
Credit: Jessica McLemore
McLemore took this picture of the damage to her car shortly after the crash and posted it to Facebook. Credit: Jessica McLemore
After the crash, McLemore confronted the safety driver of the Uber vehicle, capturing the conversation in a video she posted to Facebook. The Uber driver acknowledged that the self-driving system had been in control at the time of the crash, and he acknowledged that both cars had turn signals on.
“I was not expecting someone to turn from the far left lane into my lane,” the Uber safety driver said.
Uber declined to comment on the record about the incident, but the company did dispute an important detail in the story: Uber says that the Uber vehicle had its left turn signal on. That’s because, according to Uber, the car was preparing to change lanes.