Ride-hailing company Uber has reportedly suspended its self-driving car tests, after one of the vehicles met with an accident in the City of Tempe, Arizona, US.
The accident involved a Volvo SUV from Uber, which was carrying two engineers in the front.
Uber recently announced that it will be the first company to launch a pilot program where passengers will be carried using vehicles with high level autonomy.
The program will include two Uber employees sitting in the front, so that they can take control, if anything goes wrong.
In this particular incident however, there no passengers present the car.
Initial police report suggests that Uber’s vehicle was not to be blamed, but other car failed to yield to Uber’s vehicle, which caused the self-driving car to flip on its side.
Until, the investigation is complete, Uber said that it is suspending the self-driving trials indefinitely in the states of Arizona and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In California, the company refused to get a permit for testing its autonomous vehicles, arguing that these rules did not apply. One of the autonomous vehicles, carrying passengers was seen crossing red light. While Uber blamed human error and later, the New York Times reported that the company’s internal documents reported that the cars were failing to recognise red light at traffic signals.
This is not the first time for self-driving cars being involved in accidents. Last year, Google’s self-driving car brushed with a schoolbus.
A driver in Tesla Model S in autopilot mode was killed in a collision after it hit a truck in Florida, last year.
The incident has reportedly forced the company to stop the self-driving trials for a while, as the company is already facing several issues. Recently, the company’s president Jeff Jones resigned from his position.
In February this year, Waymo, Google’s self-driving car project filed lawsuit against Uber for allegedly using its stolen technology.
