A Self-drive Car

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This week,a self-driving vehicle struck and killed
a woman in the American state of Arizona. The deathis believed to be the first involving a fully autonomous （自主的）car on US public roads.
The vehicle was operating in self-driving mode
when it hit a 49-year-old woman crossing the street nearthe city of Phoenix. Police say Elaine Herzberg waswalking with her bicycle outside the road’s crosswalk
when she was struck. The Volvo SUV-belonging to
the ride-sharing company Uber-was traveling at about
65 kilometers an hour. A driver was sitting in the
vehicle’s seat even though the car was set to drive by
itself.
After the crash, Uber announced it would halt all
its road testing programs-while the incident is
investigated. Local and federal officials are taking part
in the investigation.
Some transportation experts believe the deadly
crash could slow the development of self-driving
technology. They argue that US lawmakers and the
public may resist(抗拒）the technology if they believe
self-driving cars will repeatedly make deadly mistakes.
Nicholas Evans is a professor of philosophy at the
University of Massachusetts in Lowell, Massachusetts.He thinks Uber made the right decision to end its self- driving tests while the crash is investigated. But he says future accidents could change public opinion about the
technology.
Evans says companies test self-driving vehicles indifferent ways. “At the moment,companies like Tesla and Uber are taking a kind of open-ended approach to their testing. They’re just putting their cars out there and seeing what happens. “On the other hand, Evans says Waymo-Google’s self-driving vehicle company-is carrying out its testing more scientifically,closer to the way medical tests are done. For example, Waymo is choosing areas in the country with different environmental conditions to test its vehicles.