The criminal justice system in the state of arizona has found that raphael vaskez should be the person that takes the blame for this entire thing. She had two phones in the car with her, a personal phone and her company phone. Her defence is that she was, you know, an overseer of a system, doing tasks associated with her employment at the time of this crash. This isn't just one woman and a lidar system, the lightar system, has a lot of human decisions behind it.
Paris Marx is joined by Lauren Smiley to discuss what we’ve learned about the Uber crash since in happened in March 2018, what that’s meant for the vehicle operator who’s been charged, and whether the justice system made the right call in blaming her instead of Uber.
Lauren Smiley is a WIRED contributor and freelance journalist based in San Francisco. Follow Laren on Twitter at @laurensmiley.
🎉 This month is the show’s second birthday. To celebrate, we want to get 100 new supporters at $5/month or above to bring on a producer to help make the show. Help us hit our goal by joining on Patreon. You can also follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.
Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.
Also mentioned in this episode:
- Lauren interviewed Rafaela Vasquez and dug into the substance of the past four years of information on the Uber crash for WIRED.
- Last summer, Vasquez’ legal team argued the grand jury hadn’t heard to full version of events before indicting her.
- In 2019, the NTSB’s final report placed primary blame on the operator, but secondary blame on Uber, the pedestrian, and the state.
- In 2015, Lauren wrote about the “shut-in economy” and social divides being entrenched by on-demand services.
Support the show