Last week, the ride-share giant laid off approximately 100 autonomous-vehicle operators in the aftermath of an accident in March in which an Uber self-driving car fatally struck a pedestrian in Tempe, Ariz.
Uber paused testing of its experimental vehicles on public roads.
While most of the operators are based in Pittsburgh, some are based in the Bay Area, Uber said. The company said it is hiring 55 mission specialists and will prioritize the laid-off employees. Uber also plans to resume its self-driving-car operations in Pittsburgh later this summer.
Soon after the fatal car accident on March 18, Uber paused all of its self-driving car operations in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Tempe and Toronto.
In May, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its preliminary report on the accident. It found that the Uber vehicle that struck and killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg was “operating normally at the time of the crash, and there were no faults or diagnostic messages.” The report also said Uber previously disabled the vehicle’s automatic emergency braking system to prevent erratic driving.
A separate report in June from the Tempe Police Department on the crash said that the autonomous vehicle operator behind the wheel had been streaming an episode of "The Voice" on her cellphone and that the operator could have braked the car to stop the accident from happening.
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