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Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

fortune.com

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Re: Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

#191

Post by scythe »

noobermin wrote: post #169
vadimberman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember early reports about self-driving experiments saying that some of the issues where because the cars were driving at the speed limit, which is usually not the case in the US with the human drivers. Maybe they decided to change it.

If they just track human driver habits then we're no more safer! What's the point left about self-driving cars then? Free up drivers of even more responsibility when they kill people?

The #1 cause of collisions is inattention, which ought to be impossible with automated cars.

Re: Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

#192

Post by Jordrok »

userbinator wrote: post #171
halflings wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If somebody jumped in front of the car at the last second, it would be physically impossible to break in time. I assume what people mean by "stopping in a flash" is closer to taking the right actions faster (e.g 40ms vs 800ms) when there's still a chance of changing the outcome.

If somebody jumped in front of the car at the last second, it would be physically impossible to break in time. ...and if somehow the car was able to stop that quickly, its occupants would likely be the ones fatally injured if they weren't solidly strapped in.

If only there were some sort of safety harness system installed in the car to prevent that sort of thing...

(Yeah, I get what you're trying to say, but I couldn't resist.)

Re: Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

#193

Post by helthanatos »

in_cahoots wrote: post #158
franciscop wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What speed would you drive? Would you take close corners at 120km/h? People (on average) drive at the speed their actually very well tuned survival instinct tells them to.

I don’t think that’s true at all (though I only have my own experience to go off of). I tend to use the speed limit as a point of reference, and then drive a little above it. Prior experience has told me that going the speed limit plus some percentage ‘feels’ safe. If there were no speed limit I’d actually have to pay more attention to the road and surrounding environment to determine what a safe speed is. Right now…

I would like the speed limit on my interstates and highways to go up to 70(they're all straight. 55 is just the only speed limit around here). Driving at 65-70 feels safe in normal conditions. Driving above 70 feels a bit too fast. Speed limits should be more variable depending upon car size and braking power though. I hate having to fear that I might be pulled over for going a bit above the speed limit when there are so many more threats than just speed. I don't believe speed limits should be anything more than a suggestion with dangerous driving being the focus.

Re: Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

#194

Post by supergarfield »

noobermin wrote: post #169
vadimberman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember early reports about self-driving experiments saying that some of the issues where because the cars were driving at the speed limit, which is usually not the case in the US with the human drivers. Maybe they decided to change it.

If they just track human driver habits then we're no more safer! What's the point left about self-driving cars then? Free up drivers of even more responsibility when they kill people?

> Free up drivers of even more responsibility when they kill people?

That's a strange way to put it. Surely if someone is not driving their car, they can't be responsible if the car kills people (assuming of course the car was well-maintained and the model was legal). I don't see how that's a bad thing, since they have zero control over the situation.

Do you mean that it could make car users feel less responsible for deaths, even though cars will presumably still kill people?

Re: Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

#195

Post by to3m »

CydeWeys wrote: post #168
freehunter wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be programmed to speed per se, but if you’ve ever had cruise control turned on you’ll know it doesn’t keep you exactly at 55mpg. It might be 54 with the throttle applied to speed up, or it might be 57 which doesn’t trigger the brakes yet but is coasting to a slower speed. Imagine the car in front of you cycling rapidly between the gas and brake pedal to keep the speed exactly at 55mph. One, that’s complete…

There is no brake involved with cruise control. What you are describing is bad drivers who do not use cruise control. It's actually extremely pleasant and predictable to be following a driver who is using cruise control. Following a well-regulated self-driving car would be similar.

My car has cruise control with brake functionality. Not sure if I've ever seen it actually do it - I only really use cruise control on the motorway, where I expect wind resistance is a major factor - but apparently it will apply the brakes to maintain the set speed when necessary.

At town speeds I would expect it to use the brakes a lot more readily. At 30mph in 3rd (2000rpm) or 4th (1500rpm) there's not really all that much engine braking, and wind resistance won't slow it much either.

(Mine is a 2010 model, but I think this stuff was introduced in 2004-6, something like that... it's not exactly new technology.)

Re: Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

#196

Post by stevenwoo »

halflings wrote: post #19
blakesterz wrote: post #13

> “The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.” I don't know if that is supposed to make anyone feel better about this, if anything it makes it seem worse. I thought one of the big benefits of these systems was they were supposed to be better at exactly these kinds of situations? More like "autonomous cars a…

If somebody jumped in front of the car at the last second, it would be physically impossible to break in time. I assume what people mean by "stopping in a flash" is closer to taking the right actions faster (e.g 40ms vs 800ms) when there's still a chance of changing the outcome.

She was walking a bicycle and had several bags of stuff on the bicycle or her person, probably wasn't darting in and out of traffic, but don't need to move that far from a median to get struck by a car.

Re: Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

#197

Post by seanmcdirmid »

akira2501 wrote: post #190
CydeWeys wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are not anything close to exceptionally safe. Indeed, they are the exact opposite: They are the most dangeorus thing that most people encounter on a daily basis. There are many age and other cohorts of the population for which the leading cause of death is vehicles. And compare against commercial aviation, which has a per-mile death rate three orders of magnitude less than driving.

> They are the most dangeorus thing that most people encounter on a daily basis. It's actually yourself, and it's worse when you're at work. Deaths due to vehicles: 36k per year. Deaths due to suicides: 44k per year. Deaths due to accidents: 190k per year. > There are many age and other cohorts of the population for which the leading cause of death is vehicles. This is not true for any cohort. [1] And yes, I'm aware…

If we are considering deaths-per-journey, then cars look even worse when compared to planes: most people take many more journeys by car in comparison to planes. Let's say we take 500 journeys by car for every one journey we take by plane (not that outlandish), then cars are 1500 times worse than planes.

Edit: it seems like it is the other way around. Planes are 3 times as worse than cars per journey, so flip that number around a bit (3 times better, but 500 more trips, so cars are only 166 times more dangerous than planes).

Re: Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

#200

Post by akamaka »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #58
akamaka wrote: post #45

I don’t think that the opinion of the police is at all relevant here, since they have no tools for investigating how self-driving cars react in accidents. The sensors and reaction time of a self-driving car are entirely different from a human, so it’s possible that a crash for which a human is not at fault could be averted by properly programmed self-driving car software.

You don't think the opinion of the police is relevant in a homicide? The opinion of people who have investigated hundreds if not thousands of similar accidents? Who meets your criteria for expertise on saying whether the car could have stopped or not? Uber?

The police investigators have no way of knowing if a fault exists in the software. I hope the raw sensor data will be released to experts who can simulate how different versions of software would have handled the situation.
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