SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The safety driver behind the wheel of a self-driving Uber car in Tempe, Arizona, was streaming a television show on her phone until about the time of a fatal crash, according to a police report that deemed the March 18 incident “entirely avoidable.”

A report by the Tempe Police Department said the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, repeatedly looked down and not at the road, glancing up a half second before the car hit Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was crossing the street at night.

The report said police concluded the crash, which has dealt Uber Technologies Inc a major setback in its efforts to develop self-driving cars, would have been “entirely avoidable” if Vasquez had been paying attention.

Vasquez could face charges of vehicular manslaughter, according to the report, which was released late on Thursday in response to a public records request.

She could not immediately be reached for comment and Reuters could not locate her attorney.

Police obtained records from Hulu, an online service for streaming TV shows and movies, which showed Vasquez’s account was playing the TV talent show “The Voice” for about 42 minutes on the night of the crash, ending at 9:59 p.m., which “coincides with the approximate time of the collision,” the report said.

Police submitted their findings to local prosecutors, who will make a determination on whether to file criminal charges. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office referred the case to the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office because of a conflict.

A spokeswoman for the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office said on Friday that “the matter is still pending review. We do not have a projected timeline for a decision.”

The Uber car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash, but the company, like other self-driving car developers, requires a back-up driver inside to intervene when the autonomous system fails or a tricky driving situation occurs.

Vasquez looked up just 0.5 seconds before the crash, after keeping her head down for 5.3 seconds, the Tempe police report said. Uber’s self-driving Volvo SUV was traveling at just under 44 miles (71 km) per hour.

“We continue to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations while conducting our own internal safety review,” an Uber spokeswoman said. “We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles. We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon.”

Last month, the Uber spokeswoman said the company was undergoing a “top-to-bottom safety review,” and had brought on a former U.S. federal transportation official to help improve its safety culture.

‘VERY SERIOUS CASE’

Police said a review of video from inside the Volvo showed Vasquez was looking down during the trip, and her face “appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down.” The report found that Vasquez “was distracted and looking down” for close to seven of the nearly 22 minutes prior to the collision.

Tempe Police Detective Michael McCormick asked Hulu for help in the investigation, writing in a May 10 email to the company that “this is a very serious case where the charges of vehicle manslaughter may be charged, so correctly interpreting the information provided to us is crucial.” Hulu turned over the records on May 31.

According to a report last month by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is also investigating the crash, Vasquez told federal investigators she had been monitoring the self-driving interface in the car and that neither her personal nor business phones were in use until after the crash. That report showed Uber had disabled the emergency braking system in the Volvo, and Vasquez began braking less than a second after hitting Herzberg.

Herzberg, who was homeless, was walking her bicycle across the street, outside of a crosswalk on a four-lane road, when she was struck by the front right side of the Volvo.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators examine a self-driving Uber vehicle involved in a fatal accident in Tempe, Arizona, U.S., March 20, 2018. A women was struck and killed by the vehicle on March 18, 2018. National Transportation Safety Board/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

The police report faulted Herzberg for “unlawfully crossing the road at a location other than a marked crosswalk.”

In addition to the report, police released a slew of audio files of 911 calls made by Vasquez, who waited at the scene for police, and bystanders; photographs of Herzberg’s damaged bicycle and the Uber car; and videos from police officers’ body cameras that capture the minutes after the crash, including harrowing screams in the background.

Uber shuttered its autonomous car testing program in Arizona after the incident, and says it plans to begin testing elsewhere this summer, although in some cities it will have to first win over increasingly wary regulators.</s>The police in Tempe, Arizona, say evidence shows the "safety" driver behind the wheel of a self-driving Uber was distracted and streaming a television show on her phone right up until about the time of a fatal accident in March, deeming the crash that rocked the nascent industry "entirely avoidable."

A 318-page report from the Tempe Police Department, released late Thursday in response to a public-records request, said the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, repeatedly looked down and not at the road, glancing up just a half second before the car hit Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was crossing the street at night.

According to the report, Vasquez could face charges of vehicle manslaughter. The police said that, based on testing, the crash was "deemed entirely avoidable" if Vasquez had been paying attention.

The police obtained records from Hulu, the online service for streaming television shows and movies, which showed Vasquez's account was playing the television talent show "The Voice" the night of the crash for about 42 minutes, ending at 9:59 p.m., which "coincides with the approximate time of the collision," the report says.

It is not clear whether Vasquez will be charged, and the police submitted their findings to county prosecutors, who will make the determination. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office referred the case to the Yavapai County Attorney's Office because of a conflict, and that office could not be reached late Thursday.

Vasquez could not immediately be reached for comment, and Reuters could not locate her attorney.

The Uber car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash, but Uber, like others developing self-driving cars, requires a driver in the car to intervene when the autonomous system fails or a tricky driving situation occurs.

Vasquez looked up just 0.5 seconds before the crash, after keeping her head down for 5.3 seconds, the Tempe Police report said. Uber's self-driving Volvo SUV was traveling at just under 44 mph.

Last month, an Uber spokeswoman said the company was undergoing a "top-to-bottom safety review" and had brought on a former federal transportation official to help improve the company's safety culture. The company prohibits the use of any mobile device by safety drivers while the self-driving cars are on a public road, and drivers are told they can be fired for violating this rule.

The police said a review of video from inside the car showed Vasquez was looking down during the trip, and her face "appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down." The report found that Vasquez "was distracted and looking down" for close to seven of the nearly 22 minutes before the collision.

Michael McCormick, a Tempe police detective, asked Hulu for help in the investigation, writing in a May 10 email to the company that "this is a very serious case where the charges of vehicle manslaughter may be charged, so correctly interpreting the information provided to us is crucial." Hulu turned over the records on May 31.

According to a report last month by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is also investigating the crash, Vasquez told federal investigators she had been monitoring the self-driving interface in the car and that neither her personal nor business phones were in use until after the crash. That report showed that Uber had disabled the emergency braking system in the Volvo and that Vasquez began braking less than a second after hitting Herzberg.

Herzberg, who was homeless, was walking her bicycle across the street, outside a crosswalk on a four-lane road, the night of March 18 when she was struck by the front right side of the Volvo.

The police report faulted Herzberg for "unlawfully crossing the road at a location other than a marked crosswalk."

In addition to the report, the police on Thursday released a slew of audio files of 911 calls made by Vasquez, who waited at the scene for the police, and bystanders the night of the crash; photographs of Herzberg's damaged bicycle and the Uber car; and videos from police officers' body cameras that capture the minutes after the crash, including harrowing screams in the background.

The crash dealt Uber a major setback in its efforts to develop self-driving cars, and the company shuttered its autonomous-car-testing program in Arizona after the incident. It says it plans to begin testing elsewhere this summer, though in some cities it will have to first win over increasingly wary regulators.</s>Police in Tempe, Arizona, said Thursday that the test driver in a self-driving Uber prototype vehicle was streaming the TV show "The Voice" on Hulu on her cell phone in the moments leading up to a fatal crash that killed a pedestrian in March.

The Tempe Police Department's report released to Reuters builds on a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report filed May 24. In the government's report, backup driver Rafaela Vasquez confirmed she was looking away from the road but told federal investigators that she was monitoring the vehicle's experimental self-driving functions.

Piecing together the NTSB's timeline with data released by Hulu reveals that Vasquez had been streaming Hulu for all but three minutes of her 45-minute drive in a Volvo XC90 crossover SUV fitted with Uber's prototype self-driving car technology.

The Tempe police report said that during the drive, Vasquez “appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down.”

According to Tempe police, Detective Michael McCormick reached out to Hulu in an email on May 10 but the online streaming service didn't turn over its records until May 31.

Hulu records showed that Vasquez had been watching "The Voice" for about 42 minutes. Her phone stopped streaming the show at 9:59 p.m., which is about when the XC90 struck pedestrian Elaine Herzberg as she was walking a bicycle across a dark road in Tempe. Herzberg was not walking in a designated crosswalk.

The NTSB report says that Uber's radar and lidar systems spotted Herzberg "about 6 seconds before impact" and that the self-driving system determined 1.3 seconds before the impact that an emergency braking maneuver was necessary. Less than a second before impact, the vehicle's data recorder showed that Vasquez turned the Volvo's steering wheel but that she didn't apply the brakes until after Herzberg was struck.

A camera inside the vehicle pointed at the driver indicated that she didn't look up until half a second before impact. The vehicle was traveling at about 44 mph.

Though the XC90 was fitted with Volvo's own automatic emergency braking software, neither report implicates the automaker because Uber's systems turned off the factory-installed safety gear.

Additionally, the NTSB report said that Uber intentionally disabled automatic braking while the vehicle was under its system's control "to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior." Instead, Uber relied on its drivers "to intervene and take action" even though its system doesn't sound a visual or audible alert.

Uber has since halted self-driving car testing in Arizona and has faced a rocky re-start to its testing in Pittsburgh.</s>Passenger in self-driving Uber was watching The Voice before fatal crash in Phoenix, Arizona

Arizona police say the woman riding inside a self-driving Uber that crashed and killed a pedestrian in Arizona earlier this year was watching The Voice on her phone at the time.

That might seem like a reasonable thing to do inside an autonomous car, but police say the crash could have been avoided if she had not been distracted, and are looking at a vehicular manslaughter charge.

Here's the evidence they've presented in a new report and what it could mean for the case.

Police say the woman was streaming The Voice for 43 minutes before the crash

Rafaela Vasquez was the rider inside the Uber when it crashed into Elaine Herzberg as she crossed a darkened road outside the lines of a pedestrian crossing in Phoenix on March 18.

Video taken from inside the vehicle shows Ms Vasquez looked down 204 times during the 1.6-kilometre journey, and only looked up about half-a-second before the Volvo, travelling at 70 kilometres an hour, hit Ms Herzberg.

Ms Vasquez told police Ms Herzberg "came out of nowhere" and that she didn't see her prior to the collision.

But in their report, police said if she had been paying attention she could have reacted 43 metres before impact and brought the SUV to a stop about 12 metres before hitting Ms Herzberg.

But shouldn't the Uber have stopped automatically?

According to a separate report released by the National Transportation Safety Board last month, the autonomous driving system on Uber's Volvo XC-90 SUV spotted Ms Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her.

However, it didn't stop because the system used to automatically apply the brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled.

The report said the system was usually disabled while the cars are under computer control, "to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behaviour".

Instead, Uber relies on the human back-up driver to intervene. But the system is not designed to alert the driver in such situations.

So you can't use your phone in a self-driving Uber?

An Uber spokeswoman said in a prepared statement on Friday morning that it was strictly prohibited.

But it also said it was conducting an internal safety review and planned to "share more on the changes we'll make to our program soon".

Uber pulled its self-driving vehicles out of Arizona following the crash and suspended testing in multiple cities.

Who is to blame?

According to University of South Carolina law professor Bryant Walker Smith, who closely follows autonomous vehicles, both Ms Vasquez and Uber could face civil liability in the case.

He said Ms Vasquez could be charged criminally, and if there's evidence that Uber or its employees acted recklessly, then charges against them are possible.

But charges against the company are not likely, he added.



"This should not have happened in so many ways and on so many levels," he said.

"This report, if true, makes things worse. And obviously it would not look good to a jury."

An affidavit filed the day after the crash said Tempe police were looking at a vehicular manslaughter charge in the crash.</s>The human backup driver in an autonomous Uber SUV was streaming the television show “The Voice” on her phone and looking downward just before fatally striking a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix, according to a police report.

PHOENIX — The human backup driver in an autonomous Uber SUV was streaming the television show “The Voice” on her phone and looking downward just before fatally striking a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix, according to a police report.

The 300-page report released Thursday night by police in Tempe revealed that driver Rafaela Vasquez had been streaming the musical talent show via Hulu in the 43 minutes before the March 18 crash that killed Elaine Herzberg as she crossed a darkened road outside the lines of a crosswalk. The report said the crash, which marks the first fatality involving a self-driving vehicle, wouldn’t have happened had the driver not been distracted.

Dash camera video shows Vasquez was looking down near her right knee for four or five seconds before the crash. She looked up a half second before striking Herzberg as the Volvo was traveling about 44 miles per hour. Vasquez told police Herzberg “came out of nowhere” and that she didn’t see her prior to the collision. But officers calculated that had Vasquez been paying attention, she could have reacted 143 feet before impact and brought the SUV to a stop about 42.6 feet before hitting Herzberg.

“This crash would not have occurred if Vasquez would have been monitoring the vehicle and roadway conditions and was not distracted,” the report stated.

Tempe police are looking at a vehicular manslaughter charge in the crash, according to a March 19 affidavit filed to get a search warrant for audio, video and data stored in the Uber SUV.

The detective seeking the warrant, identified as J. Barutha, wrote that based on information from the vehicular homicide unit, “it is believed that the crime of vehicular manslaughter has occurred and that evidence of this offense is currently located in a 2017 Grey Volvo XC-90.”

A previously released video of the crash showed Vasquez looking down just before the crash. She had a startled look on her face about the time of the impact.

The National Transportation Safety Board, in a preliminary report issued last month, said the autonomous driving system on Uber’s Volvo XC-90 SUV spotted Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her, but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled.

The system is disabled while Uber’s cars are under computer control, “to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior,” the NTSB report said. Instead of the system, Uber relies on the human backup driver to intervene, the report stated. But the system is not designed to alert the driver.

Uber pulled its self-driving cars out of Arizona the day before the NTSB report was released, eliminating the jobs of about 300 people who served as backup drivers and performed other jobs connected to the vehicles. The company had suspended testing of its self-driving vehicles in Arizona, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto while regulators investigated the cause of the crash. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey prohibited Uber from continuing its tests of self-driving cars after Herzberg was run over.

Police initially determined that Vasquez was not impaired after giving her a field test.

Analysis of video taken from the vehicle shows Vasquez looked downward 204 times in the 11.8 miles traveled before the crash. While the SUV was in motion, Vasquez averted her eyes away from the roadway nearly a third of the time, according to the report.

“Sometimes, her face appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down,” the report said. “Her hands are not visible in the frame of the video during these times.”

Attempts by The Associated Press to contact Vasquez through email and phone numbers on Friday weren’t successful.

Cristina Perez Hesano, a lawyer for Herzberg’s daughter and husband, and Pat McGroder, an attorney representing Herzberg’s mother, father and son, declined to comment on the police report.

An Uber spokeswoman said in a prepared statement Friday morning that the company is cooperating with investigations while it does an internal safety review. “We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles. We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon,” the statement said.

Use of a mobile device while an autonomous vehicle is moving is a fireable offense, and “this is emphasized on an ongoing basis,” the statement said.

After the crash, the ride-hailing company said it did a top-to-bottom safety evaluation, reviewing internal processes and safety culture. Uber also said it brought in former transportation safety board chairman Christopher Hart to advise the company on safety.

Both Vasquez and Uber could still face civil liability in the case, Uber for potentially negligent hiring, training and supervision, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who closely follows autonomous vehicles.

Vasquez could be charged criminally, and if there’s evidence that Uber or its employees acted recklessly, then charges against them are possible, Smith said. But charges against the company are not likely, he added.

“This should not have happened in so many ways and on so many levels,” Smith said. “This report, if true, makes things worse. And obviously it would not look good to a jury.”

Uber settled quickly with some of Herzberg’s family members but others have retained legal counsel.

The Yavapai County Attorney’s Office hasn’t set a deadline for deciding whether to bring charges, said Penny Cramer, assistant to County Attorney Sheila Polk. The prosecutorial agency declined to comment on the police report.

The case was handed to Polk’s office after the prosecutor’s office in metro Phoenix passed on the case, citing a potential conflict of interest. The agency in Phoenix had previously participated in a public-safety campaign with Uber.

On a body camera video the night of the crash, police gathered at the scene quickly realized that they were dealing with a big story because an autonomous vehicle was involved.

An officer who identifies himself as supervisor of the unit that investigates fatal crashes is seen asking a man who appears to be an Uber supervisor about getting video from the SUV and whether Uber’s lawyers have been contacted.

“You guys know as well as I know that this is going to be an international story,” the police supervisor says. “We want to make sure that we’re doing not only what we normally do and not doing anything different, but also making sure that everything’s above board and everything’s out in the open.”

The supervisor goes on to say that he’s going to communicate as honestly as he can. “I hope that you guys do the same because we’re going to be working together throughout this whole process from now, probably for months from now.”</s>TEMPE, Ariz. (CBSNewYork/AP) — New information has been released about the fatal self-driving Uber crash back in March.

A new police report claims the safety driver behind the wheel when a self-driving Uber killed a woman was watching Hulu on her phone.

Tempe, Arizona police say records from Hulu show Rafaela Vasquez was streaming “The Voice” moments before the car struck and killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg.

Video from inside the car shows Vasquez looking down just before striking the woman.

It was the first fatal crash involving a self-driving vehicle.

Prosecutors are considering charges against Vasquez.

The National Transportation Safety Board, in a preliminary report issued last month, said the autonomous driving system on Uber’s Volvo XC-90 SUV spotted Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her, but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled.

The system is disabled while Uber’s autonomous cars are under computer control, “to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior,” the NTSB report said. Instead of the system, Uber relies on the human backup driver to intervene, the report stated. But the system is not designed to alert the driver.

After the crash, the ride-hailing company said it did a top-to-bottom safety evaluation, reviewing internal processes and safety culture. Uber also said it brought in former transportation safety board chairman Christopher Hart to advise the company on safety.</s>The “safety” driver behind the wheel of a self-driving Uber that hit and killed a pedestrian was streaming the television show The Voice on her phone at the time of the crash, police have said.

The collision that killed Elaine Herzberg, 49, who was crossing the road at night in Tempe, Arizona, was “entirely avoidable”, a police report said, if Rafaela Vasquez had been paying attention.

Instead she repeatedly looked down at her phone, glancing up just a half second before the car hit Herzberg. Police said she could faces charges of vehicle manslaughter, but it would be for prosecutors to decide.

The Uber car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash, but Uber, like other self-driving car developers, requires a back-up driver in the car to intervene when the autonomous system fails or a tricky driving situation occurs.

Vasquez looked up just 0.5 seconds before the crash, after keeping her head down for 5.3 seconds, the police report said. Uber’s self-driving Volvo SUV was travelling at just under 44mph.

Police obtained records from Hulu, an online streaming service, which showed Vasquez’s account was playing the television talent show The Voice the night of the crash for about 42 minutes, ending at 9.59pm, which “coincides with the approximate time of the collision”, the report says.



Vasquez could not immediately be reached for comment and Reuters could not locate her attorney.



The crash dealt Uber a major setback in its efforts to develop self-driving cars, and the company ended its autonomous car testing programme in Arizona after the incident.

Uber declined to comment on the police report. The company prohibits the use of any mobile device by safety drivers while the self-driving cars are on a public road, and drivers are told they can be fired for violating this rule.



A spokeswoman last month said the company was undergoing a “top-to-bottom safety review”. 



Police said video from inside the car showed Vasquez was looking down during the trip, and her face “appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down”.

The report found that Vasquez “was distracted and looking down” for close to seven of the nearly 22 minutes prior to the collision.

According to a report last month by the US National Transportation Safety Board, which is also investigating the crash, Vasquez told federal investigators she had been monitoring the self-driving interface in the car and that neither her personal nor business phones were in use until after the crash.

That report showed Uber had disabled the emergency braking system in the Volvo, and Vasquez began braking less than a second after hitting Herzberg.



Herzberg, who was homeless, was walking her bicycle across the street, outside a crossing on a four-lane road, on the night of 18 March when she was struck by the front right side of the Volvo.

The police report faulted Herzberg for “unlawfully crossing the road at a location other than a marked crosswalk”.</s>New details from the police report on the “entirely avoidable” death of a pedestrian struck and killed by an autonomous Uber vehicle in Arizona suggest the safety driver behind the wheel may have been distracted by her smartphone.

Tempe police checked Rafaela Vasquez’s phone after the crash, as camera footage recorded inside the self-driving vehicle showed her to be looking down at something away from the road multiple times, according the report, first obtained by Reuters yesterday (June 21).

“She appears to be looking down at the area near her right knee at various points in the video,” the report said. “Sometimes, her face appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down. Her hands are not visible in the frame of the video during these times.”

Police obtained a warrant and recovered two LG smartphones owned by Vasquez. They found no signs that she’d been texting, or talking with anyone, but they did notice three video apps one on of her phones that could’ve been drawing her attention—Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu. Analysis from Netflix and Google (YouTube’s parent company) showed that Vasquez was not watching anything on their services prior to the crash. Hulu, after first mistakenly providing police with data on someone else’s account, found Vasquez was watching an episode of the popular NBC talent show The Voice around a minute before the crash, and for much of the preceding hour. “The end time of 21:59:00 hours coincides with the approximate time of the collision,” the report added.

Hulu provided detectives with Vasquez’s “subscription ID, IP Address, Source ID, Device and Internet Service Provider that was streaming the videos,” according to the report, suggesting it would know where the device was when it was streaming The Voice, although this information is redacted in the version of the report obtained by Quartz.

The report says that “Vasquez was distracted and looking down for 31% of the 21 minutes and 48 seconds prior to the collision,” and that she was “distracted and looking down for 5.2 seconds of the 5.7 seconds prior to impact.” Vasquez looked up just a half-second before impact. Investigators said “the crash was deemed entirely avoidable,” had she been paying attention.

“We continue to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations while conducting our own internal safety review,” an Uber spokesperson told Quartz. “We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles. We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon.”</s>Tempe, AZ (KPNX) - According to a report released by the Tempe Police Department, the fatal self-driving Uber crash in Tempe back in March was avoidable. The safety driver sitting in the front seat at the time of the crash was distracted.

The car, being monitored by backup driver Rafaela Vasquez, slammed into Elaine Herzberg and killed her. Herzberg was walking her bike across Mill Avenue outside of a crosswalk.

Shortly after the crash, police body camera video shows Vasquez telling officers what she saw, which wasn't much. She claims she didn't see Herzberg until impact.

According to the report, Vasquez initially gave officers a bad address. Once they tracked her down, investigators obtained search warrants for her two cell phones. Police say Vasquez did not make any calls or texts in the moments leading up to the crash.

However, they did observe apps, like Hulu and Netflix on Vasquez's phone. They reached out to the streaming companies for data.

According to the spreadsheet of watch data from Hulu, Vasquez was streaming television episodes for approximately three hours the night of the crash. She was watching "The Voice" from 9:16 p.m. until 9:59 p.m. Police believe the crash happened while she was streaming that show.

In their report, Tempe Police say Vasquez was responsible for taking control of the vehicle in the event of an emergency. They added had she been paying attention to the road, they think she could have stopped the car 42 feet before the fatal crash.

In their conclusion, police say Vasquez's "inattention to the roadway" and "disregard for her assigned job function" ultimately resulted in the death of Herzberg.

This case is now in the hands of the Yavapai County Attorney's Office for review. It will bring forward any charges.

12 News reached out to Uber for comment, a spokesperson released this statement:

"We continue to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations while conducting our own internal safety review. We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles. We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon."

Uber has shut down its self-driving operation in Arizona.

MORE: Photos of self-driving Uber crash aftermath from Tempe police report</s>The operator of a self-driving Uber in Tempe, Arizona was watching an episode of "The Voice" via a streaming service in the moments before her SUV struck and killed a pedestrian walking her bicycle across the street, according to a police report.

The incident in March raised alarms about the ability of autonomous technology to react to unexpected human behaviors and led to Uber temporarily shutting down its self-driving car operations nationwide. The company has since resumed its operations in San Fransisco and Pittsburgh.

The report released Thursday details the death of 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg the nation's first fatal crash involving a pedestrian and a self-driving vehicle.

The operator of the Volvo SC90, Rafaela Vasquez, 44, passed a field sobriety test after the crash, according to police, but records obtained from Hulu indicate Vasquez's phone was playing an episode of The Voice and the stream ended at 9:59 p.m.

The crash occurred at 10 p.m., according to police records.

During the 22 minutes and 11.8 miles leading up to the moment of impact, Vasquez's eyes were off the road for 6 minutes and 47 seconds, according to a police analysis of video inside the vehicle.

“She appears to be looking down at the area near her right knee at various points in the video," the police report says. "Sometimes, her face appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down. Her hands are not visible in the frame of the video during these times."

"The car was in auto-drive," Rafaela Vasquez, 44, is heard telling police on an officer's body camera.

"The car didn't see it, I couldn't see it," she says. "I know I hit her."

Attempts to reach Vasquez for comment were unsuccessful.

Uber told ABC News in a statement on Friday morning the company has "a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles." The spokesperson added the policy is made clear in training and violation is a fireable offense.

A previous National Transportation Safety Board report said Herzberg had methamphetamine and marijuana in her system. Former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart is currently a safety consultant for Uber.

Police have referred the case to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for possible charges.
Police say the safety driver of an Uber self-driving car that fatally struck a pedestrian in Arizona was distracted by watching a TV show on her phone.