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Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

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Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#181

Post by stevenwoo »

phyzome wrote: post #120
danso wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a pretty clear fail. And yet the police were so quick to say that camera footage indicates that Uber was likely not at fault. It was so quick that it makes me inclined to think it's pretty obvious. However, after the SF Chronicle published its exclusive interview with the Tempe's chief of police, the Tempe Police PR person had to issue a statement that, "Tempe Police Department does not determine fault in ve…

I mean... the police just make shit up all the time. And Arizona was very happy to attract Uber with their regulation-free state law. The fact that they came out with a statement instead of saying "we don't comment on ongoing investigations" makes it even more shady.

The first bombing victim in Austin was one of the first suspects of the police in his own bombing.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#182

Post by IncRnd »

drdrey wrote: post #174
antoineMoPa wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and they thought it was a good idea to make cars go at 38mph in a 30mph zone. Edit: The limit seems to be 35mph sorry, thank all of you for pointing that out. (38 is still over the limit, why allow a robot to do that?)

"The vehicle was doing about 40 miles per hour on a street with a 45 m.p.h. speed limit when it struck Ms. Herzberg, who was walking her bicycle across the street, according to the Tempe police"

> "The vehicle was doing about 40 miles per hour on a street with a 45 m.p.h. speed limit when it struck Ms. Herzberg, who was walking her bicycle across the street, according to the Tempe police"

According to the article page that you are commenting, "The speed limit where the accident occurred is 35 mph, police spokeswoman Lily Duran said."

Even so, defensive driving is more than simply driving the speed limit. Also from this article, "... the lack of braking or swerving whatsoever is alarming and suggests that the system never anticipated the collision."

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#183

Post by prawn »

to3m wrote: post #180
danso wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how "ped" is necessarily an offensive abbreviation (though it's one that normally isn't used), so I don't think you're justified in believing that the commenter is trying to dehumanize the victim.

If they want to abbreviate "pedestrian", why not "person"? I've never seen anybody use the term "ped" anything other than disparagingly! How should we respond to this attitude? I know what I think, that's for sure: it's crap, and people in charge of operating motorised vehicles should take more care over how they think about people on foot, to ensure that they never behave too carelessly in the heat of the moment. An…

There are "PED XING" signs in the US for pedestrian crossings. I don't think it's considered disparaging.

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=ped+xing&source=lnms&tbm=...

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#184

Post by lojack »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #145
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird scenarios that can't be predicted are important to consider. Waymo presentations like talking about a situation they ran into where the car needed to stop because it encountered an old woman in a wheelchair with a broom chasing a turkey. As I understand it, most of these companies sensibly say "unknown weird thing in/near road means stop the car." ooo, there's video of the turkey wheelchair broom chase: https:/…

A person pushing a bike is far, far from a "weird scenario", though.

To a computer that’s never encountered this scenario before it might be.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#185

Post by hughes »

jaweb wrote: post #60

It's interesting how high profile this post-crash analysis is - name another time you read so much commentary about the details that caused a car crash? It seems to me that this is exposing a few gaps in how we think about driverless cars currently: - A framework for how cars should be making "moral" decisions (the trolley problem [0]) - A defined process for post car crash investigations - akin to the process in air…

I really don't see how the trolley problem is relevant to this situation. The car didn't decide that killing a person was better than some less-moral alternative.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#186

Post by to3m »

prawn wrote: post #183
to3m wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want to abbreviate "pedestrian", why not "person"? I've never seen anybody use the term "ped" anything other than disparagingly! How should we respond to this attitude? I know what I think, that's for sure: it's crap, and people in charge of operating motorised vehicles should take more care over how they think about people on foot, to ensure that they never behave too carelessly in the heat of the moment. An…

There are "PED XING" signs in the US for pedestrian crossings. I don't think it's considered disparaging. https://www.google.com.au/search?q=ped+xing&source=lnms&tbm=...

Right - and in America you're not even allowed to cross the road! To the extent that when a self-driving car runs somebody over, "but but they were in the road" is somehow an adequate defence!

If you want to consider this a cultural misunderstanding, fine. What can I do about that? Nothing. But please, before I go, because I can tell I'm not making much of an impact here, let me say it again: drive carefully, and for fuck's sake don't kill anybody.

(and please tell the robots too!)

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#187

Post by stevenwoo »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #145
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird scenarios that can't be predicted are important to consider. Waymo presentations like talking about a situation they ran into where the car needed to stop because it encountered an old woman in a wheelchair with a broom chasing a turkey. As I understand it, most of these companies sensibly say "unknown weird thing in/near road means stop the car." ooo, there's video of the turkey wheelchair broom chase: https:/…

A person pushing a bike is far, far from a "weird scenario", though.

It may depend if the test cars are used on routes with lots of homeless people or not, for the Mountain View test center I know of a handful of regularly seen homeless people on loaded bikes nearby in downtown Los Altos/Mountain View but it's not close to the level of San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland/Los Angeles/Anaheim/San Diego.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#188

Post by vonmoltke »

mirimir wrote: post #173
cesarb wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The pedestrian becoming visible" would be to the video cameras. If the vehicle has other sensors (LIDAR, RADAR, etc), how sooner/later would the pedestrian be visible to these sensors? Would it be possible to judge that by looking solely at the dashcam? Would the sensors ignore the pedestrian as a false positive in these circumstances?

That's what I wonder. Yes, it has LIDAR etc. But there was this comment yesterday by arbie:[0] > Sensor Fusion typically merges LiDAR with stereoscopic camera feeds, the latter requiring ambient light. So might LIDAR data get de-emphasized when there's too little light for the cameras? 0) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16619917

I don't understand that comment. "Sensor fusion" is the integration of data from two or more different sensors. It doesn't matter what those sensors are. They don't even have to be different types of sensors.

It may well be that the Uber cars only have LIDAR and optical, but that doesn't have anything to do with sensor fusion.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#189

Post by bmelton »

xbmcuser wrote: post #159
danso wrote: post #44

The NYT just published a graphic that purports to show the location of the vehicle and the victim: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/20/us/self-drivi... This is the first report I've seen that indicates the Uber AV was in the right lane. Remember that the victim was crossing from left to right, and that all of the visible damage on the AV is on the right-side bumper. It's very hard to imagine a scenario in…

The police are comparing what would have happened if the driver was human. But Ai cars are supposed to have larger range of view. I personally feel waymo car would have probably noted and avoided the woman. And with lidar it's being dark is actually no excuse as it wouldn't matter.

I mean, there was a human in the car too, and the human's statement was that the first sign that there might be a collision was after the collision occurred.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#190

Post by prawn »

antoineMoPa wrote: post #143
IncRnd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the words "defensive driving" in any of the articles about this incident.

Yes, and they thought it was a good idea to make cars go at 38mph in a 30mph zone. Edit: The limit seems to be 35mph sorry, thank all of you for pointing that out. (38 is still over the limit, why allow a robot to do that?)

This article said 35mph. Other articles have suggested it was a 45mph zone.

On Google Streetview, you can see that the road changes from 35mph to 45mph at the underpass before the site of the accident.

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