Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

Something about this doesn't make sense to me.

I take it for granted that the staff at Uber would do anything not to lose the license. I am sure that, for 17 months, they've been investing heavily in security systems, ID verification etc. They must have followed up on every complaint. If I were them, I would have just manually followed everything that the Cabs do till I had a technology in place.

It also seems that the city is making some effort to give them space to improve: 15 months, then 2 months.

So then why didn't the gap close in time? Is this because the technology platform was so massive that turning it just took more time? Or is there something about the details that I can't see?

Edit: I start with the assumption that both Uber and the City are trying to do their best, and don't ascribe nefarious intent to anyone.

You would think Uber Autonomous Vehicles group would do everything they can not to hit pedestrians. Yet according to the NTSB, previous to killing a pedestrian in Arizona Uber had a weak safety culture (https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/2019-HWY18MH010-B...).

Even worse, "Pedestrian outside crosswalk not assigned goal of crossing street", "Tracking history not considered when classification changes", "Predicted path depended on object’s goal".

Basically they configured it to run over people who crossed outside a sidewalk.

I would not assume Uber are doing their best. Or, insofar as they define "best", it's "what can we do as quickly as possible with no consideration to what is legal".

> "Pedestrian outside crosswalk not assigned goal of crossing street", "Tracking history not considered when classification changes", "Predicted path depended on object’s goal"

To be fair, I could see myself implementing these sort of heuristics to get a working prototype. On the other hand, I deliberately avoid working on life-critical software because of how easily it can go wrong.

I work in AV eng/research, and reading the details of the Uber crash was utterly shocking to me in terms of the corners cut. I can get reflexively frustrated at the slowing of progress and pushing changes induced by our safety constraints and testing, but I've always been pretty happy with the choices we've made. Uber made multiple obscenely negligent choices that I don't think are remotely defensible. There are plenty of hacky heuristics in the industry, but it's pretty central to industry practice to avoid hacks that make you _less_ safe.