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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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.
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.