Uber manager warned top brass of safety problems days before fatal accident

The project's head was warned of 'poor behavior' among drivers and accidents 'nearly every other day.'

The apparent safety lapses that contributed to Uber's fatal self-driving accident were brought to light just days before the crash when a manager emailed a lengthy criticism to the project's leadership.

Autonomous operations manager Robbie Miller's prescient message raised concerns over "poor behavior" of the company's safety drivers, some of whom appeared to be not properly trained or vetted, according to details of the email posted by The Information. He also offered a solution: return a co-driver to each vehicle, as the company only recently began allowing a single safety driver to operate alone.

Just a few days later, one of the self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian who was crossing the street outside of a crosswalk. Uber's safety driver was watching Hulu video on her phone until a split second before impact.

Most initial media reports focused on how to split the blame between Uber's self-driving car, the inattentive driver and the jaywalking victim. Investigations began to uncover evidence of poor decision making within the company, however, and Miller claimed that the cars had already been "hitting things" every 15,000 miles and coming back from testing with damage "nearly every other day" in the month before the pedestrian was struck.

In the fatal accident, the self-driving system detected and identified the pedestrian with seconds to spare but programming changes prevented the self-driving system from braking to avoid a collision. The team also disabled Volvo's own pedestrian-aware autobrake system, which could have intervened even if the experimental self-driving tech failed.

Miller's email and other recent reports suggest leaders of Uber's self-driving project may have dropped the two-driver rule in an effort to log more miles, creating an outward image of progress despite an alleged internal failure to effectively use the additional driving data to improve the technology.

Some former workers have also suggested the project's leaders wanted to give a smooth demonstration ride for Uber's new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, fearing that the unit could be shut down if the car braked erratically. Certain bugs, including braking for tree branch shadows, had not yet been effectively addressed. Whatever the actual reason for detuning brake intervention, the workaround apparently made the safety driver's constant attentiveness even more critical.

Miller's email was met with a promise to follow up. Many of his recommendations were implemented as the company resumed testing months after the accident. The project's leader during the turmoil, Eric Meyhofer, has retained his position at the company.

"The entire team is focused on safely and responsibly returning to the road in self-driving mode ... only when these improvements have been implemented and we have received authorization from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation," Uber said in a statement.