Dashcam footage captures moment female pedestrian was killed walking across a poorly-lit road in Arizona by self-driving Uber car which doesn't appear to brake ... so WAS it avoidable?

Police have release dashcam video from a crash involving an Uber self-driving car that killed a mum.

Elaine Herzberg, 49, was walking her bike across a four-lane road in Phoenix, Arizona, when she was struck by the vehicle.

A 'safety driver' Rafaela Vasquez, 44, was behind the wheel at the time and was employed to take control if anything went wrong.

The car was doing 40mph in a 45mph zone at the time.

Vasquez has told police Herzberg, who is believed to have been homeless and battling a drug problem, stepped out into the poorly-lit road straight into the path of the car giving her no time to swerve out of the way.

Police said investigations so far support her version of events and agreed to release footage to the public on Wednesday.

Vasquez  has two felony convictions from over a decade ago.

The victim, Elaine Herzberg, 49, was homeless and had a string of drugs convictions when she was killed on Sunday night

It has since emerged Vasquez has two serious criminal convictions, but was given a job by Uber as part of a policy to give reformed prisoners "a fair chance".

In 2001, she was jailed for attempting to rob a Blockbuster with an imitation firearm.

She also admitted a charge that dated back to 1999 of making a false statement to a public official.

Vasquez was known as Rafael at the time and identified as male.

Friends of Herzberg have hit out at Uber in the wake of the fatal crash.

Deniel Klapthor told The Guardian : "Uber should be shut down for it.

"There has to be a bigger punishment than not allowing them to drive it on the street."

Carole Kimmerle added: "This shouldn’t have ever happened.

"I think this should be a negligent homicide... and the government should also be held accountable.

"The world lost a good person."

Uber has suspended all testing of self-driving cars in Arizona, Pittsburgh and Toronto in the wake of the tragic accident.

Experts claim the new technology will drastically cut down on motor vehicle fatalities in the future.

But Monday’s fatal crash has sparked fresh debate about whether self-driving cars can be trusted.

"This tragic accident underscores why we need to be exceptionally cautious when testing and deploying autonomous vehicle technologies on public roads," said Democratic Senator Edward Markey, a member of the transportation committee, in a statement.

Volvo, the Swedish car brand owned by China’s Geely, confirmed its vehicle was involved in the crash but said the software controlling the SUV was not its own.

U.S. federal safety regulators were sending teams to investigate the crash.

Canada’s transportation ministry in Ontario, where Uber conducts testing, also said it was reviewing the accident.

Uber and Waymo on Friday urged Congress to pass sweeping legislation to speed the introduction of self-driving cars into the United States.

Some congressional Democrats have blocked the legislation over safety concerns, and Monday’s fatality could hamper passage of the bill, congressional aides said Monday.

Safety advocates called for a national moratorium on all robot car testing on public roads.

"Arizona has been the wild west of robot car testing with virtually no regulations in place," said Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit consumer advocacy group, in a statement.

"That’s why Uber and Waymo test there. When there’s no sheriff in town, people get killed."

Arizona has opened its arms to companies testing self-driving vehicles as a means to economic growth and jobs.

Republican Governor Doug Ducey reached out to Uber in 2016 after California regulators cracked down on the company over its failure to obtain testing permits.

Self-driving cars being tested routinely get into minor accidents with other vehicles.

Last week, a self-driving Uber crashed with another vehicle in Pittsburgh, local news reported. There were no injuries.

A year ago, Uber temporarily grounded its self-driving cars for a few days following a crash with another car in Tempe.

The company has been the subject of a number of complaints about its autonomous vehicles, but the company has said the cars were being driven by a human driver at the time of the incidents.

Uber has said its ability to build autonomous cars is essential to its success in the rapidly changing transportation industry.

The company envisions a network of autonomous cars that would be summoned through the Uber app that would supplement - and eventually replace - human-driven cars.