Arizona suspends Uber autonomous car testing indefinitely

Following the recent fatality caused by a self-driving vehicle being tested by Uber in Arizona, the state Governor has suspended his permission to do that sort of thing.

Governor Doug Ducey has a fair bit of political capital on the line over this, having rolled out the red carpet to autonomous vehicle testing in 2016. The Associated Press seems to have been the first to report on Ducey’s decision but 12 News managed to get hold of his letter to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, which you can see below.

This seems to be a simple piece of damage limitation, in which a politician that had previously positioned himself as pro-technology is now wary of being associated with a negative turn of events.

The more interesting development may be a more general distrust of autonomous vehicles seeping into the broader technological and regulatory environments. Intel, for example, immediately moved to blog about how important to sort this stuff out and many AV stakeholders will be keen to limit the reputational damage to their industry.