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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

#261

Post by brokenmachine »

francisofascii wrote: post #86
jdoliner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second paragraph: > Chief of Police Sylvia Moir told the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday that video footage taken from cameras equipped to the autonomous Volvo SUV potentially shift the blame to the victim herself, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, rather than the vehicle. How is that unclear?

Well, was she already walking in road where the car should have had time to stop or did she walk in front of the vehicle at the last second? Did the car make an effort to evade?

Who knows? But one thing we can be sure of is that the video nobody has seen will potentially shift the blame to the homeless lady.

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

#262

Post by noobermin »

manfredo wrote: post #247
noobermin wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you meant it, but you essentially answered my question with a "yes." It's to absolve individuals of responsibility in killing people. If that's the case then I'm not sure how it is a benefit to society.

Responsibility isn't being absolved, it's being shifted to the one that actually operates the vehicle - probably either the car vendor (who either manufactured or licensed the self-driving car software), or the fleet operator depending on what kind of sales and operations model self-driving cars adopt. When human escalator operators were replaced with automatic escalators, was there are problem with shifting responsi…

So I think you have a great analogy, and I generally like your perspective. The problem is that I think this accident clearly demonstrates that the suggestion that AV's would be safer than human drivers is now suspect. A post elsewhere compared the deaths per mile for human drivers to that of this pilots' and it's worse by orders of magnitude.[0]

That's my point. I 100% agree, if self-driving cars did make things better, than the safety aspect is a good thing.

I think the freeing up people's time is okay too but only if all of society has access to AV's. However, like many innovations of the past, advancements which are not accessible to all people just free up the time of some people while offsetting burdens onto others (ie., those who can't afford AV's). BUT, that is a separate issue.

[0] It is just one data point, but it's a bad sign to be so quick to kill a pedestrian so soon out of the gate.

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

#263

Post by MrLeap »

franciscop wrote: post #130
naveen99 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What speed would you drive if there was no speed limit ?

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.

Without a speed limit, I'd take i-70 from KC to STL at about (160~mph) 250km/h for 95% of it. I'd make day trips just to get white castle at white knuckle speeds.

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

#264

Post by omarforgotpwd »

danso wrote: post #151
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course a self driving car should be able to speed. My understanding is that speed limits are set by measuring the speed people are driving on the road and then determining a speed at which roughly 15% of the drivers are exceeding that limit. There is an expectation that people will speed, but by setting the speed limit a little bit lower almost all traffic will fall under safe bounds. Driving 38 in a 35 zone is co…

Talking about a future in which AVs are allowed to go as fast as physically possible seems irrelevant when we're talking about current policy and infrastructure, in which AVs have to live in a world with majority manually-operated vehicles, driven by people who do speed, but are also punished for going over the speed limit.

An autonomous vehicle should also be pulled over and ticketed for operating unsafely. At this point in time the driver is still liable for the actions of the car and is required to monitor the autonomous system and takeover if necessary. However like a human it should have some discretion in interpreting the law. Should it go 120 in a 60 zone... definitely not but if it thinks it can do 38 in a 35? That sounds fine.

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

#265

Post by joquarky »

oska wrote: post #259

I think it's worth referencing Sweden's Vision Zero [1] here, a project which aims to reduce all fatalities from automobiles to zero. They have a system of maximum traffic speeds for different zones depending on what impact risks there are in those zones. For the zone where there are possible conflicts between pedestrians and cars the maximum speed is 19mph. The rationale for this is that below that speed the risk of…

I wonder if it is not a coincidence that the speed at which it starts to become fatal is around the maximum speed that humans can run.

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

#266

Post by freddie_mercury »

omarforgotpwd wrote: post #114
danso wrote: post #52

> According to the Chronicle, the preliminary investigation found the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone and did not attempt to brake. Herzberg is said to have abruptly walked from a center median into a lane with traffic. Police believe she may have been homeless. I know this isn't the most pertinent issue here, but I'm surprised the self-driving AI is allowed to speed , though with further research, th…

Of course a self driving car should be able to speed. My understanding is that speed limits are set by measuring the speed people are driving on the road and then determining a speed at which roughly 15% of the drivers are exceeding that limit. There is an expectation that people will speed, but by setting the speed limit a little bit lower almost all traffic will fall under safe bounds. Driving 38 in a 35 zone is co…

> My understanding is that speed limits are set by measuring the speed people are driving on the road and then determining a speed at which roughly 15% of the drivers are exceeding that limit.

That is not how all speed limits are set; it just one possible technique: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa12004/

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

#267

Post by tejasmanohar »

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…

Self-driving cars are supposed to be a better driver than you on average, not primarily on the rare cases. There are lots of accidents that are due to carelessness with manual driving.

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

#268

Post by cpncrunch »

jamie_ca wrote: post #238
danso wrote: post #52

> According to the Chronicle, the preliminary investigation found the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone and did not attempt to brake. Herzberg is said to have abruptly walked from a center median into a lane with traffic. Police believe she may have been homeless. I know this isn't the most pertinent issue here, but I'm surprised the self-driving AI is allowed to speed , though with further research, th…

As another driver on the road, I'd far rather that autonomous vehicles maintain speed with the flow of traffic around them, in lieu of strictly sticking to the posted limit.

There is no traffic "around" them, just the car behind. And if the car behind is speeding it's up to them to slow down if the car in front is obeying the speed limit.

This kind of argument is just used to justify speeding.

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

#269

Post by majormajor »

franciscop wrote: post #130
naveen99 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What speed would you drive if there was no speed limit ?

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 disagree that the average driver has well-tuned instincts. Accidents are rare enough events that you can drive poorly for a long time and still not end up in a seriously bad situation, especially in areas where inclement conditions are also rare.

The first time you lose control of your car might be in icy conditions, and might be not just losing control, but spinning out of control in traffic. The line between in control and not in control can be very thin, and so hard to know how close you are to it.

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

#270

Post by majormajor »

bichiliad wrote: post #117
danso wrote: post #52

> According to the Chronicle, the preliminary investigation found the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone and did not attempt to brake. Herzberg is said to have abruptly walked from a center median into a lane with traffic. Police believe she may have been homeless. I know this isn't the most pertinent issue here, but I'm surprised the self-driving AI is allowed to speed , though with further research, th…

This is probably less the case with self-driving cars, as I imagine they're using pretty new or well-maintained vehicles, but there's usually a 5mph leeway with speed limits due to slightly mis-calibrated speedometers. I anecdotally remember hearing this being the reason for speed limits that end in "5" rather than being multiples of 10. https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/40113/do-any-stat...

Nowdays its much more electronic than it used to be, so speedometers are much more consistent than they used to be.

The way speedometers used to work is pretty interesting: http://www.explainthatstuff.com/how-speedometer-works.html

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