There was a person at the wheel.
That person wasn't paying full attention to the road. From the video of the crash, it looks like the woman at the wheel was looking at their phone.
Why is no one acknowledging that this woman was responsible for taking over the wheel if necessary for any reason. When I have cruise control on, I take my feet off of the pedals and rest them on the floor. But if, say, a homeless person with a bicycle walks out into the middle of the road at night with a black sweatshirt on in front of my car, then I step on the brakes.
And why is no one acknowledging that a homeless person walked out into the middle of the street at night in a black sweatshirt. I definitely don't know whether I, even if I wasn't on my phone like the car operator was, would've seen the person in the road with enough time to slam on the brakes. I might've killed that person walking across the road by mistake, too.
Like millions of other people on the road every single day, the car operator was on their smartphone while they were at the wheel. And like 3-5 million other people a year, the homeless person walking across the street was killed in a car accident.
The woman walking across the street and the woman at the wheel of the car broke the law. Uber didn't break any laws as far as I can tell. They were as responsible as any other company building self-driving cars as far as I can tell, too. I don't think it's fair to put the fault on Uber here.