In the first day their cars were caught running red lights on film. Either the cars are faulty, or cars and the human drivers for 'just in case' are faulty.
Oh, yeah, they've been turning across bike lanes illegally too, the kind of turn that causes most bike accidents with cars in California. They were told about this problem before launch and LAUNCHED ANYWAY. That's another thing they've asked their human drivers to take over for (you know, the ones who ran the light).
Honestly, if someone's job is to sit in an Uber for 6 hours and watch for the car to make a driving mistake... that's a lot of fatigue. They're going to get comfortable and miss A LOT of stuff.
Uber needs a huge slap for this whole thing. They're being very reckless.
Given that Uber is perceived as a symbol of 'Silicon Valley greed' to some politicians/constituents, a few high profile accidents would present a witch hunt opportunity for someone.
Not sure how much practical damage politicians could do but at a $50B-ish valuation there's little room for fatal error. Even a 1-2 year delay in getting self-drivers on the road would cost Uber billions.
But beta testing their cars on real streets could lead to disaster. Even from a non-legal PR risk perspective, it's dicey.
If one of these things runs over a cute kid, the attempt to skirt the law will backfire. That said challenging the law isn't necessarily skirting the law, but that's how techcrunch is portraying it. I'm too lazy to read the docket of the case.