Investigators are re-creating the deadly self-driving Uber crash

The self-driving Uber car that hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona Sunday night was back at the scene Thursday night, this time with investigators using it to recreate the conditions of the fatal accident.

Officials from the Tempe, Arizona, police department, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the National Highway Administration took the self-driving Volvo to the road in Tempe where Elaine Herzberg was crossing her bike and tested how quickly the car could stop. The fatal accident was believed to be the first involving a self-driving vehicle, and the case will be the first to address this kind of liability.

Accelerating up to 40 mph — the same speed the car was going when it struck Herzberg — they slammed the brakes as they approached an obstacle in their path: the bike she was wheeling at the time. The tests appeared to be geared more toward testing the ability of the vehicle to stop than of the self-driving tech, as the car wasn’t in self-driving mode during the test, according to the local CBS affiliate. Police told local news they were testing the car’s brakes and visibility.

Herzberg’s daughter has lawyered up, according to Reuters, hoping to get some retribution for her death. The case opens up, for the first time, about who’s liable in the event of an accident involving a self-driving car. (There was a person behind the wheel of the Uber vehicle, who was not looking at the road when the accident occurred.)

Still, the crash was pretty straightforwardly the type of crash that Uber’s Lidar sensors — supposedly capable of seeing in the dark and detecting objects in their path — were meant to avoid. Why the car didn’t brake or swerve to avoid Herzberg, we still don’t know.

In the wake of the accident, Uber took its fleet of self-driving cars offline in Pittsburg, Phoenix, Tempe, San Francisco, and Toronto. The ride-hailing company, under new leadership as of last September, has been testing the waters of the self-driving industry. New CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has been preoccupied since taking the helm at Uber with figuring out whether self-driving cars are worth the investment, according to Bloomberg.