Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said the three-year probation sentence imposed on the backup driver of a self-driving Uber vehicle that struck and killed a woman in Tempe was “appropriate” based on all of the  factors involved.

Rafaela Vasquez, 49, pleaded guilting to endangerment in the March 2028 death of Elaine Herzberg and was sentenced Friday to three years of supervised probation by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Garbarino. The charge will be designated a misdemeanor upon Vasquez completing her sentence.

“The defendant in this matter was responsible for the operation of a vehicle on our city streets that ended with a woman being killed,” Mitchell said.

“Determining an appropriate plea in this case involved considering a multitude of factors. We believe the judge ordered an appropriate sentence based on the mitigating and aggravating factors.”

Vasquez told police that Herzberg “came out of nowhere” and that she didn’t see her before the collision on a darkened Tempe street.

Vasquez had been charged with negligent homicide, a felony. She pleaded guilty to an undesignated felony, meaning it could be reclassified as a misdemeanor if she completes probation.

Authorities said Vasquez was streaming a TV show on a phone and looking down in the moments before Uber’s Volvo XC-90 SUV struck Herzberg, who was crossing with her bicycle.

Vasquez’s attorneys said she was was looking at a messaging program used by Uber employees on a work cellphone that was on her right knee. They said the TV show was playing on her personal cellphone, which was on the passenger seat.

Defense attorney Albert Jaynes Morrison told Garbarino that Uber should share some blame for the collision as he asked the judge to sentence Vasquez to six months of unsupervised probation.

"There were steps that Uber failed to take,” he said. By putting Vasquez in the vehicle without a second employee, he said,  “it was not a question of if but when it was going to happen.”

Prosecutors previously declined to file criminal charges against Uber, as a corporation. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded Vasquez’s failure to monitor the road was the main cause of the crash.

“The defendant had one job and one job only,” prosecutor Tiffany Brady told the judge. “And that was to keep her eyes in the road.”

The contributing factors cited by the NTSB included Uber’s inadequate safety procedures and ineffective oversight of its drivers, Herzberg’s decision to cross the street outside of a crosswalk and the Arizona Department of Transportation’s insufficient oversight of autonomous vehicle testing.

The board also concluded Uber’s deactivation of its automatic emergency braking system increased the risks associated with testing automated vehicles on public roads. Instead of the system, Uber relied on the human backup driver to intervene.

“Getting behind the wheel of a car is a serious responsibility,” Mitchell said. “Regardless of whatever technology might be available to drivers, safety for everyone on the street and in the vehicle must always be a driver’s first priority.”