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

bloomberg.com

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

#221

Post by ThrustVectoring »

swyx wrote: post #201
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #121

There's at least two other trends that are, IMO, more to blame. SUVs in general for one, and the proliferation of particular mixed-use road antipattern. SUVs is an easy one. When an SUV hits a bicyclist, motorcyclist, or pedestrian, the unfortunate person tends to go through rather than the over they'd be subjected to by a sedan. Motorcycle accident stats bear this out - the overall accident rate has gone down as peo…

how are SUVs even remotely related here? makes the rest of your argument difficult to take seriously

The self-driving car involved in the accident is a SUV.

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

#222

Post by danso »

pharrington wrote: post #220
danso wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally every discussion of note involves reading more into the original article, so yes, I guess you have me there, I am speculating. I didn't realize that was against the rules of HN discussion to bring in evidence external to the OP and state our premises? Is it speculation to point out that the police and OP misidentified the gender and name of the driver (it's Rafaela Vasquez, not Rafael)? Or that newer articl…

"If you want to speculate that the Uber driver and police are covering up negligence, that's fine" - the conclusion of the comment you're replying to. My beef is with 'Please don't accuse me or other commenters of spreading "rumors and speculations", without evidence or logical arguments.' The problem is fooling ourselves into being more certain than we can be. While this is common human behavior, especially in emoti…

That's fair. I interpreted the other commenter as saying that what I linked to was just rumors and speculation. I don't see the NYT graphic (even with its caveats) as being just rumors, but yes, I'm clearly engaged in speculation and should be called out when I'm out of line. I only disagreed that my speculation was based on rumor (e.g. "Tempe Police have a history of mistreating and oppressing homeless people, so it's likely they are overstating factors favorable to Uber")

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

#223

Post by lhorie »

danso wrote: post #192
eddieplan9 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop spreading rumors and speculations. The graphic is an illustration and does not necessarily place the car in the actual lane. It clearly contradicts with the police chief’s statement that the victim walks right into traffic from center medium. It even contradicts with the left arrow pointing to the impact location in the same picture.

Please don't accuse me or other commenters of spreading "rumors and speculations", without evidence or logical arguments. I didn't state a bunch of claims, I linked to a NYT published article. If it turns out that the NYT depicted the incorrect lane, then I expect we'll see a correction. But they published this graphic staked on their reputation for accuracy, not on just "rumors". Moreover, it does not contradict wha…

News articles frequently post artistic renditions of far-away star systems but it would obviously be foolish to try draw any scientific conclusions from those graphics.

As far as I know, there hasn't been any official acknowledgement that the accident occurred in the right lane (or any specific lane for that matter). In fact, IIRC, there was a mention of the accident happening at around 100 yards from a crosswalk, whereas the stretch of road depicted in the picture is around 200ft away. The graphic also uses weasel words like "somewhere in this area". I mean, somewhere where? 100ft south? 10ft to the left? Only someone who has seen the actual video would be able to make an informed comment, and so far the police has not released it to the public.

I'm not convinced this picture can be reliably used for armchair forensics.

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

#224

Post by ceejayoz »

branchan wrote: post #50
dzdt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the human wasn't paying close attention. That is the problem with level 3-4 automated vehicles: a human who is not in primary control of the vehicle has trouble paying attention and is unable to take over control quickly if it is needed.

Wait, are you now blaming level 3-4 automated vehicles for the inattention of the human?

I think he's blaming the folks who put level 3-4 vehicles on the road presumably knowing full well that said human inattention would put people at serious risk of injury and death in the car's edge cases.

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

#225

Post by ceejayoz »

notatoad wrote: post #203
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we really need is for all of the logs from a company like Uber or Google to get streamed to some third party. All of the logs are encrypted (with different keys), and only when an issue occurs, the company who owns the data gives the key for that particular car at that particular hour for decryption. Basically a data-escrow. This way we know the logs are not being tampered with, and we keep the data hidden from…

These are test vehicles. If you don't let the engineers have access to the results of their testing except in the event of an accident, then we will never have autonomous cars. Of course, maybe thats what you're arguing for. But either way, I think it's a bad idea.

No reason you couldn't do both.

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

#226

Post by ThrustVectoring »

freehunter wrote: post #208
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #121

There's at least two other trends that are, IMO, more to blame. SUVs in general for one, and the proliferation of particular mixed-use road antipattern. SUVs is an easy one. When an SUV hits a bicyclist, motorcyclist, or pedestrian, the unfortunate person tends to go through rather than the over they'd be subjected to by a sedan. Motorcycle accident stats bear this out - the overall accident rate has gone down as peo…

Why do people blame SUVs when pickup trucks are some of the the highest selling vehicles in America and vans/minivans have existed since forever and are still popular? And they’re both the same size as SUVs?

If you have five children, you're likely buying a car with seven seats. If you regularly transport thousands of pounds of stuff, you're getting a pickup truck. SUVs, on the other hand, often get purchased in lieu of a sedan; pickup trucks and minivans have use-value that often justify their place on the road.

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

#227

Post by notananthem »

Sorry for the dumb question, but is there already any conclusion on how driverless cars will be handled for accidents, collisions, fatalities, etc?

In the short term it sounds like poor Vasquez is boned as the driver considering the media is profiling his previous conviction. There's no profiling a "driverless car" though, how inherently risky it can be.

I'm all for the future and driverless cars I've just always thought this was an idiotic idea that will turn people into Idiocracy characters.

This woman was killed by a very expensive robotic car with a human being that could have prevented it, but wasn't permitted to, because the future of driverless cars is being tested.

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

#228

Post by dragonwriter »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #219
ksk wrote: post #75

Self-driving cars are still a fantasy. I don't want the AI to be comparable to an average driver (who collectively get into 6 million accidents) . I want the AI to meet/exceed the skills of the best driver. There is no way anyone would trust an "average" driver to pickup their kids, more than themselves.

Well...except everyone who trusts anyone to pick up their kids. On average... Unless they're picking up their kids from lake wobegong elementary or something...

It's possible (though unlikely) for everyone who picks up kids on behalf of parents to be an above-average driver, since the people doing that are a small share of all drivers.

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

#229

Post by prawn »

GhostVII wrote: post #9
DanBC wrote: post #8

> "It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode,” But it's made harder if you're speeding.

It was going 3mph over the speed limit, a perfectly reasonable speed that is still probably lower than almost everyone else on the road.

The sign (from Streetview imagery in July 2017) shows 45mph.

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

#230

Post by coding123 »

philwelch wrote: post #169
qplex wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There definitely exists a sort of pre-cognitive human quality to traffic. Sometimes you just slow down on a subconscious hunch without any information on that particular situation. Or you might be very conscious not to slow down if you're driving a motorcycle in Asia in heavy traffic trying to make a turn with a huge truck barreling behind you. There are massive differences in road cultures between countries, and it…

That’s just human intuition, which is trained over time through experience. Which is also how machine learning works, so it’s not quite clear that humans have a sustainable advantage here.

Well actually we have not proven that ML works the same way, or proven that our ML has the same input parameters as a human yet have we?
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