[LogicalBorg]

I think it's incorrect to say that the woman was looking at her phone. She was looking down and to the right of the steering wheel, which is where Uber places a monitoring tablet (an iPad) in their self-driving vehicles (where the radio is).

Here's an article that shows the sort of thing she would be looking at, an animation of road conditions: http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-driverless-car-interior-...

If you actually examine her behavior, in the space of ten seconds, she manages to:

* Look down at the tablet and watch the animation

* Look up at the road

* Scan the lane to the left (she was in the right lane)

* Look forward again

* Look down at the tablet again

* Look up again just as the accident occurs

She is systematically scanning her environment and appears to be alert and engaged.

The problem is that there is only one test driver, who has to divide her attention between the tablet and the road. Often two drivers are used, and then one watches the tablet and the other watches the road.

I think it is unfair to accuse her of inattention when she appears to be doing the job exactly as it is designed.

The reason everyone says "she was looking at her phone!" is because they don't understand the setup of how Uber's self-driving car works. They are only familiar with being bored and looking at their phone while driving. They think the test driver's job is to just stare out of the window all day, which is not correct.

[tallanvor]

The tablet in that article is in the back seat, not up front, and the photos they show of the driver area doesn't suggest any screens that would require the driver to be looking down like the person was doing in the video.

I know that when I was taught to drive we were told to continually scan ahead of us, our side mirrors, and the rear view mirror and basically only take our eyes off the road to check our speed. --This is definitely NOT what the individual in the driver's seat was doing.

[LogicalBorg]

There are tablets in the front and back (https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Front-_-...).

You were taught to drive manually, not in an Uber self-driving car.

If you can find a video of an Uber driving who is driving as they were instructed to do, they would look exactly like her.