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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

#431

Post by freyir »

kwillets wrote: post #411
freyir wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Franci…

I agree but one nitpick: merging into the bike lane before a right turn is the correct maneuver.

"Rather than merging into bike lanes early to make right-hand turns, as per California state law, the Uber vehicle reportedly pulled across the bike lanes at the last second, risking collisions with oncoming cyclists"

https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/20/14020720/uber-self-drivi...

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

#432

Post by TomMckenny »

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…

I believe there a multiple layers involved:

a bizarre decisions about median divider design that attracts jay walking.

a governor with a stake in this subject.

an inexplicable disinterest in even minimal government oversight of the tests.

a company with a history of bad behavior.

a possibly reckless race to get a new technology market where trade secrets outweigh sharing safety results.

Clearly the data was not closely reviewed before issuing the statement. But I doubt the data retrieval is done by a police officer. More likely by an Uber employee; yet another potential issue.

The police report could easily be perfectly normal. Or perhaps there was call from the Governor. Or perhaps the police saw the data Uber wanted them to see. Perhaps the city doesn't want to be sued about it's median divider. I honestly have no idea what is going in in such a complex and invisible system but I sure am curious.

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

#433

Post by DoTheNeedful »

Balgair wrote: post #422
sol_remmy wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if the speed limit is 35, you need to drive 35. You can't drive 25 just to be more "defensive", that will get you a ticket.

Typically, no. There are some municipalities and areas of road where there is a minimum speed limit, but in the US, those are very rare. Granted, a law enforcement officer has wide jurisdiction to determine if you are 'safe' to drive and a low speed may become unsafe. But they are unlikely to ticket you and are more likely to try to help you out. Driving under the speed limit may be annoying, but it is nearly-univers…

> Typically, no.

Typically it will get you pulled over. Obstructing the flow of traffic is a thing.

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

#434

Post by lhorie »

cpncrunch wrote: post #427
lhorie wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not my problem if others get irate It's not like in kindergarten where kids point at each other yelling it was the other who started it. If someone does something dangerous around me, it absolutely concerns my family's safety, regardless of what triggered the dangerous situation. Thinking two steps ahead to prevent these situations from occurring in the first place is at the core of defensive driving philosoph…

I disagree that going at the posted speed limit when someone behind me is going faster is dangerous, or that the person going at the speed limit is at fault. If anyone in this scenario is creating danger it is the person speeding. Generally it is not "everyone" who is speeding, only a percentage. If everyone is going over the limit and it creates a dangerous situation if someone drives at the limit, then there is som…

> It's unhelpful and silly to suggest that people must break the law to be safe, and it completely defeats the point of speed limits and the rule of law

The law doesn't necessarily codify what's safe. You could go at 40km/h on a highway and be technically entirely within the law, but that's certainly not a safe thing to do. Similarly, you could go at exactly the posted speed limit on a snowstorm when everyone is driving slower and you would be entirely within the law, but you're probably going to get yourself killed.

Maybe if I always drive in the rightmost lane, being pedantic about posted limits is probably safe for a variety of reasons, but if I'm on the left lane of a 100km/h 3-lane highway, I wouldn't exactly feel comfortable going at 100 if everyone else is going at 125 (including cops).

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

#435

Post by hndamien »

jakeogh wrote: post #310
hndamien wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think this is a fairly trainable attribute. Given that Tesla does this kind of detection for objects and classification and records many miles of human drivers - it wouldn't be surprising that this may be a learned trait.

It's the corner cases... like Halloween, or body posture, or crossing behind a semi-transparent asymmetric object.

Fair point. This is far less likely.

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

#436

Post by CamperBob2 »

chopin wrote: post #381
URSpider94 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, sorry for the downvotes. This link -> http://www.lsp.org/pdf/troopc85thSpeed.pdf doesn't include any references, unfortunately, but the statements are that: -- 55% of drivers regularly exceed the speed limit, meaning that the speed limit represents the 45th percentile speed -- driving between the 50th and 90th percentile speeds is the safest Taken together, driving at the speed limit is significantly unsafe.

As far as I understand your comment, driving at the speed limit is unsafe because everybody is speeding. Sounds like a self-fulfilling thing. Maybe it would be even safer if the majority would obey the speed limit?

And the idea that the speed limit itself is the problem... is there any room in your worldview for that possibility?

Why not lower it to 5 MPH on a nationwide basis? Think of all the lives that would save!

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

#437

Post by CamperBob2 »

URSpider94 wrote: post #318
CamperBob2 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? The range between 1-10 MPH over the speed limit is statistically the safest. (Yes, I know, good luck finding a citation for a study I read 20 years ago...) It's hard to argue against the notion that you're safest when you keep up with prevailing traffic. That means that self-driving cars shouldn't be programmed to go slower. Speed limits are usually too low. Often they have nothing to do with engineering or…

Man, sorry for the downvotes. This link -> http://www.lsp.org/pdf/troopc85thSpeed.pdf doesn't include any references, unfortunately, but the statements are that: -- 55% of drivers regularly exceed the speed limit, meaning that the speed limit represents the 45th percentile speed -- driving between the 50th and 90th percentile speeds is the safest Taken together, driving at the speed limit is significantly unsafe.

Man, sorry for the downvotes.

You have to remember that many people on here probably don't own a car, or necessarily even hold a driver's license. They most likely either live at home or at school, or take a bus to work (NTTAWWT).

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

#438

Post by blhack »

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…

There is no walkway in that center median. Source: I live a few blocks from there and drive on that road to my office every day.

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

#439

Post by CamperBob2 »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #430
URSpider94 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the link I posted? Theres lots of empirical data out there that says that drivers drive the same speed on a road, regardless of the posted limit. That speed is based on their judgment of the road - sight lines, shoulder width, sharpness of curves, etc.

People speed because of poor road design and poor enforcement of speed limits.

Just curious (and not trying to challenge or be confrontational), how long have you held a driver's license?

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

#440

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

archi42 wrote: post #403
Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is due to the limited ability of humans to asses all those conditions instantly in a sudden unpredictable situation. The machines should in theory be much better at that.

Grab some introduction to ethics book and think how you would implement what's written in there - and how you choose which one is the right ethical theory for the situation you're in. We had a lecture on that (lecturer had MSc in C.S. and was doing a PhD in philosophy), and many problems are very hard to reason about. Even if you don't plan to build such software, I can really recommend any computer scientist to get…

My comment was largely about a situation where there there is no ethical choice involved.

For example: something comes in front of a car and a decision needs to be made, whether to turn left into the opposite lane, or whether that is dangerous and only brakes should be applied. Humans have a hard time making this decision, because it's hard to asses situation quickly.

The decision to only apply brakes (a common advice to people) - is only safe in the sense that in most cases it will be the safe thing. There will be cases where it will not be safe - but they will be in minority.

A machine will be better equipped at assessing whether driving onto the opposite lane is dangerous in that specific situation. If it is not dangerous for anyone - the machine will be expected to do that, instead of applying brakes, because in that specific situation it will be the safest thing.

The choice here is not an ethical one, it's purely computational one. There are situations where there is no one in the opposite lane, and it is simply safe to turn there. But humans are generally not trusted with being able to make that choice - because of poor computational ability (in such restricted timeframes).

Of course there are ethical considerations for other situations.

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