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

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

#371

Post by brynjolf »

oliwarner wrote: post #348
TomMckenny wrote: post #303

Odd the damage should be on the passenger side if she darted from the center median. Odd they see the need to add the conjecture that she may have been homeless. Curious too is that the center divider where she likely was has has a nice walkway on it with a street lamp[2] I'm suddenly quite curious about what is going on. Accident site: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4369934,-111.9429875,3a,75y,... from https://imgu…

You appear to be suggesting that multiple levels of police watched the videos, GPS tracking, lidar scene, all recorded by the on-board systems and have deliberately suppressed what really happened. I can believe an Uber employee being paid to cover this up but whatever your views of the police, I don't believe they would suppress something that could so obviously be a major public health issue. And it's common in pol…

Because historically money has had massive influence over the decisions made in the states. I side with the human over the faceless multi billion company.

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

#372

Post by cthalupa »

playworker wrote: post #357
cthalupa wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Oh, and they speed. 3mph variance is perfectly normal even on modern cruise control. And even on most modern cards, what you see on the speedometer is often off by ~1 mph at low speeds, and even more at higher speeds. (This is the reason you will often see people talk about 'GPS verified' speeds when it comes to talking about the top speed they have achieved in a car). Federal law in the US only requires they be acc…

I think there's something off about your arguments, human drivers speed, but they don't do it because of properties of the speedometer or the cruise control, or air resistance, or potholes - they do it because they don't care much about the speed limit. It's completely possible to stay below the speed limit in a car, a lot of people just don't bother. Cruise control won't apply the brakes (at least in older cars) if…

>they do it because they don't care much about the speed limit.

Oh, certainly, and I apologize if my argument came across as "It's not possible for people to not speed" or "People only speed because of the properties of speedometers or cruise control"

My point is that speed within a few mph is already inaccurate, and that 3mph is pretty much within the current margin of error.

>speedos universally over-read in my experience

I don't know that there's a common leaning one way or the other in actual variance due to speedometer construction, but over-reading is the most common occurrence due to tire pressure being low causing it, and a huge amount of people drive with low tire pressure. Overinflated tires, or moving to larger tires in general, will result in under-reads.

>I would expect a fully autonomous vehicle to be able to accurately obey the speed limit and I suspect the reason it wasn't/doesn't is because that behaviour has been programmed in or developed.

I don't agree. lagadu covers this plenty well in his comment, however.

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

#373

Post by portofcall »

viraptor wrote: post #302
portofcall wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3.2 fatalities per billion km driven by humans. So far 1 fatalities per 4 million miles by automated vehicles, which when you do the conversions... isn’t better. It’s not a lot to work with, but for the people speaking in stats, the actual stats don’t support them. A lot people in this thread seem to be cashing in a human life against future hypothetical gains which have in no way been demonstrated. I sincerely hope…

Not sure it's that clear. Using data from Wikipedia, I got 11 deaths per billion km. The 4 million miles are just from Weymo, not all autonomous cars in total. (6 million+ https://medium.com/self-driving-cars/miles-driven-677bda21b0... ) And the confidence level on the 1 event over 6+ million miles is not great either.

Again, I’m responding to people touting the safety of autonomous vehicles based on a tiny sample. Live by the sword, die by the sword. At this point the truth is that we’re surrounded by unknowns, and yet post after post features people claiming inhuman safety records for a nascent technology.

The data, such as it is, does not support that.

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

#374

Post by [deleted] »

cthalupa wrote: post #367
Tepix wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 mph is almost 5km/h. If their technology is unable to stay within 3mph of a certain speed (which is laughable), they should drive 3mph slower than the speed limit.

I would be very surprised if your cruise control kept within 3mph of the set speed at all times in all conditions. My car certainly doesn't, and it's a 2017 model with a sophisticated adaptive cruise control. I'll ignore ACC for a moment and talk about the modern implementation of regular cruise control, however. You'll have your target speed stored in a control unit, which cares about 3 to 4 things: your set speed,…

[deleted]

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

#375

Post by avs733 »

oska wrote: post #249
avs733 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently my stored links on this topic are dead but two worhtwhile pieces of information on that point 1) drivers who consistently drive below the average speed of other drivers on a road (i.e., who religiously drive the speed limit) are more likely to be involved in crashes 2) More accidents are caused by speed differential than by speed by itself.

Your assertion (true or not) is irrelevant to this case. This was a car impacting a pedestrian, not another car on the road. In any impact between a car and a pedestrian the speed of the car is critical in determining whether the pedestrian will be killed.

I didn't mean to suggest that it was relevant in this case. I was merely providing some context for the parent post's observation about an automous car exceeding the speed limit

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

#376

Post by loceng »

cthalupa wrote: post #344
r_klancer wrote: post #225

My takeaway from the comments in this thread: self-driving Ubers don't drive defensively, almost surely can't "read" pedestrian behavior, and even with lidar may never have seen Elaine Herzberg. Oh, and they speed. This sounds like straight out of the "hell" scenario for driverless cars: "we cannot accept responsibility for what happens to pedestrians and cyclists foolish enough to stray out of their designated safe…

>Oh, and they speed. 3mph variance is perfectly normal even on modern cruise control. And even on most modern cards, what you see on the speedometer is often off by ~1 mph at low speeds, and even more at higher speeds. (This is the reason you will often see people talk about 'GPS verified' speeds when it comes to talking about the top speed they have achieved in a car). Federal law in the US only requires they be acc…

Speed isn't the issue, reasonable speed is the issue. As a human driver, if there are a lot of pedestrians - or I notice pedestrians stumbling/fumbling or seemingly not too conscious of where they're walking, I slow down.

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

#377

Post by Tepix »

cthalupa wrote: post #367
Tepix wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 mph is almost 5km/h. If their technology is unable to stay within 3mph of a certain speed (which is laughable), they should drive 3mph slower than the speed limit.

I would be very surprised if your cruise control kept within 3mph of the set speed at all times in all conditions. My car certainly doesn't, and it's a 2017 model with a sophisticated adaptive cruise control. I'll ignore ACC for a moment and talk about the modern implementation of regular cruise control, however. You'll have your target speed stored in a control unit, which cares about 3 to 4 things: your set speed,…

That's a lot of text for explaining why a car might go to 3mph too fast. There is a big difference between a cruise control and an autonomous car. In Germany you can get a ticket for going more than 3km/h (1.875 mph) too fast. It's not acceptable for a self driving car to go so fast that you can get a ticket. If that means going up to 6mph too slow, I guess that's the way it is. Also, going 5km/h means you will need an extra 5m of braking distance or so in case of emergency braking. With electric cars, regulating the speed smoothly will be even easier.

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

#378

Post by IncRnd »

brokenmachine wrote: post #255
IncRnd wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legally, the driver may not have been at fault. Even so, I was taught as a child learning to drive that when I see a person in the median, watch them. They may walk out in front of you. They might even fall into the road. So, be prepared maybe even by changing lanes before that point in order to get out of harm's way. Apparently, this driver wasn't watching, choosing to let the car drive itself.

> Apparently, this driver wasn't watching, choosing to let the car drive itself. And here I was, stupidly thinking that was the whole point of a self-driving car... What's the benefit of a self-driving car that can't be trusted to drive itself again?

There are plenty of benefits, but you can also ask the dead person in AZ about the downside of defending a product that isn't ready. A self-driving car that drives itself without the most basic of defensive driving habits simply isn't ready. Ask yourself, why do the reports show that brakes weren't applied?

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

#379

Post by freyir »

isaachier wrote: post #234
r_klancer wrote: post #225

My takeaway from the comments in this thread: self-driving Ubers don't drive defensively, almost surely can't "read" pedestrian behavior, and even with lidar may never have seen Elaine Herzberg. Oh, and they speed. This sounds like straight out of the "hell" scenario for driverless cars: "we cannot accept responsibility for what happens to pedestrians and cyclists foolish enough to stray out of their designated safe…

I think you might be confusing "defensively" with perfectly. There are situations even defensive driving cannot prevent. For example, any car going 35 mph will need a few feet to brake if something jumps directly in front of it. Defensive driving just accounts for one's surroundings and likely outcomes. Seeing as the cars have been on the road in Arizona for a while, and this is the first we are hearing about a pedes…

> any car going 35 mph will need a few feet to brake if something jumps directly in front of it.

It seems like you're working pretty hard to justify this woman's death.

She was apparently walking her bicycle through an intersection. Did she grab her bike and jump directly in front of the car? Maybe, but let's not jump to assumptions.

> it seems the algorithm is pretty safe

It ran at least six red lights in San Francisco and would apparently swerve into the bike lane when making turns, now it's killed a pedestrian. It just doesn't seem that good. How many similar incidents have you heard about with Waymo? They've driven more than twice as many miles in city streets.

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

#380

Post by dingo_bat »

Casseres wrote: post #327
CydeWeys wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission). With cruise control enabled, going downhill, it will actually change the effective gear ratio and "downshift" automatically. (Once or twice when going downhill without cruise control, just using the brake pedal, it "downshifted" automatically while I had the brake pedal pressed. CVTs are computer controled and better than manual/standard for gas mileage, but with…

> but with the downaide that you can't tow heavy loads.)

And the frustrating rubber-banding.

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