Arizona Governor suspends Uber self-driving cars after fatal crash

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Arizona Governor Doug Ducey on Monday suspended the self-driving cars of Uber after a fatal crash last week killed a pedestrian. Ducey sent a letter to the Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi saying that he was suspending the ride-sharing company's tests of self-driving cars on Arizona roads.

"Improving public safety has always been the emphasis of Arizona's approach to autonomous vehicle testing, and my expectation is that public safety is also the top priority for all who operate this technology in the state of Arizona," Ducey said in his letter to Khosrowshahi. "The incident that took place on March 18 is an unquestionable failure to comply with this expectation," the letter added.

In 2015, Ducey first welcomed Uber when he stopped Arizona from cracking down on the ride-share business for insurance issues. Later that year, Ducey issued an executive order welcoming self-driving car companies to the state without any special oversight, USA Today reported.

The Arizona governor has directed the country's transportation department to suspend Uber's ability to test and operate autonomous vehicles. The accident that took place last week appeared to be the first known death of a pedestrian struck by an autonomous vehicle on public roads. Meanwhile, Uber said that it had suspended testing of its self-driving cars in the cities of Tempe, Pittsburgh, San Francisco in the US and Toronto in Canada.

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