Backup Driver Pleads Guilty to Endangerment in First Death by Fully Autonomous Car

Backup Driver Pleads Guilty to Endangerment in First Death by Fully Autonomous Car
Rafaela Vasquez pauses during a court hearing prior to accepting a plea agreement of three years of supervised probation for the Uber autonomous vehicle crash that killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, at Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix on July 28, 2023. Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo
The Associated Press
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PHOENIX—The backup Uber driver for a self-driving vehicle that killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018 pleaded guilty Friday to endangerment in the first fatal collision involving a fully autonomous car.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Garbarino, who accepted the plea agreement, sentenced Rafaela Vasquez, 49, to three years of supervised probation for the crash that killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. Ms. Vasquez told police that Herzberg “came out of nowhere” and that she didn’t see Herzberg before the March 18, 2018, collision on a darkened Tempe street.