Uber to resume self-driving car programme in Arizona, Pittsburgh

Uber said it was resuming its self-driving car programme in Arizona and Pittsburgh after briefly suspending it following a crash over the weekend. Uber also grounded self-driving cars in San Francisco over the weekend, but resumed operations earlier yesterday. (See: Uber suspends AV testing programme after accident)

The difference between the California programme and those in Arizona and Pennsylvania was that California barred passengers from riding in the vehicles.

Uber said yesterday that the operations had been paused over the weekend in order to better understand what had happened in Arizona, but now felt confident of returning the cars to the road.

No serious injuries had been reported in the Tempe, Arizona accident on Friday night.

According to the police, the self-driving Uber SUV was obeying the law, while the human driver of the other car was cited for a "moving violation". A moving violation is a breach of traffic laws, which occurred when the driver's vehicle was in motion.

According to Uber, the incident was under investigation and there were no passengers in the back seat of the self-driving car.

Uber grounded all of its self-driving cars following the Tempe incident.

The taxi app company had taken its fleet of self-driving cars off the roads in three cities until the completion of the investigation.

Uber had shifted testing operations to Arizona last year, after a dispute with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which required companies operating self-driving cars to report on their operations.

Arizona did not have rules specific to self-driving cars. The company confirmed yesterday that it had been transporting customers with self-driving cars in the state.

The vehicles used a combination of cameras, lidar and other sensors to guide them, though all self-driving cars operating in Arizona today had test drivers behind the wheel to take control if required.

According commentators, there were indications that Uber had been left behind by rival Waymo in the development of driver-less cars.