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

bloomberg.com

291–300 of 402 posts

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

#291

Bloomberg title: >> Uber Victim Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Car First line of the first paragraph in the article (my underlining): >> Police say a video from the Uber self-driving car that struck and killed a woman on Sunday shows her moving in front of it suddenly And the title on this thread: >> Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber Both titles are very misleading. The Bloom…

Yes. Maybe it's time we quit obsessing over headlines, and realized that actually reading the article might be necessary.

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

#292

Oh it's her fault she was jay walking and the robots now take precedence. No need to ticket jay walkers! Uber's fleet will take care of these law breakers! Ridiculous and this company after all it's done is still around and now it's killing people!

I assure you that if you jump in front of a moving train you will be killed. How is this different?

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's very hard to imagine a scenario in which a 49-year-old woman walking her bike manages to cross 3 lanes of traffic so quickly that the Uber AV, moving at 40 mph, had no time to react, in a location with good street lighting and with clear weather. I would think most humans would be able to at least hit the brakes, if not completely avoid a collision." Imagining an approximate version of the scenario and thinking…

The parent didn't say that he is imagining anything. Read the post again. They are saying that based on the information in the NYT article it does not seem credible that the woman came out of nowhere, that there was no time to react, and that the first thing the driver noticed was the sound of hitting the woman before even seeing her. The driver is a party in this story and may well be at fault for causing her death.

> It's very hard to imagine a scenario in which a 49-year-old woman walking her bike manages to cross 3 lanes of traffic so quickly that the Uber AV, moving at 40 mph, had no time to react, in a location with good street lighting and with clear weather

Explaining the imagining, is the salient issue.

> The parent didn't say that he is imagining anything

Splitting hairs over the phrasing is not compelling. The poster was proposing a scenario as the most reasonable interpretation while couching it to minimize criticism (the equivalent of the "just sayin" trope).

The premise is flawed. It never sounded reasonable to assume the pedestrian did not see the vehicle at all. I can imagine a perfectly reasonable scenario where the pedestrian tried (and failed) to clear the vehicular path before being struck on the attempted destination side of the road.

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

#294
post #292

Oh it's her fault she was jay walking and the robots now take precedence. No need to ticket jay walkers! Uber's fleet will take care of these law breakers! Ridiculous and this company after all it's done is still around and now it's killing people!

I assure you that if you jump in front of a moving train you will be killed. How is this different?

cars are not trains, for one.

road usage is shared among cars, motorcycles and scooters, trucks, pedestrians, bicycles, mobility scooters, and other things.

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

#295
post #291

Bloomberg title: >> Uber Victim Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Car First line of the first paragraph in the article (my underlining): >> Police say a video from the Uber self-driving car that struck and killed a woman on Sunday shows her moving in front of it suddenly And the title on this thread: >> Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber Both titles are very misleading. The Bloom…

Yes. Maybe it's time we quit obsessing over headlines, and realized that actually reading the article might be necessary.

I was confused when I clicked on the article and could not find a video. The title is misleading, and while it would be nice if we always had the time to carefully read every article we come across, the reality is that I (and probably many others here) will skim through multiple titles and only click on the most interesting ones. Something as definitive as "Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly..." can easily leave a false impression in people's minds.

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

#296

Bloomberg title: >> Uber Victim Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Car First line of the first paragraph in the article (my underlining): >> Police say a video from the Uber self-driving car that struck and killed a woman on Sunday shows her moving in front of it suddenly And the title on this thread: >> Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber Both titles are very misleading. The Bloom…

The article credits three journalists in the byline, with four other individuals credited as contributors.

Given that this was published a day after the SF Chronicle piece, I think there's a good chance the article has deeper sourcing or corroboration, and that the headline is deliberate.

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

#297
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…

"The problem is fooling ourselves into being more certain than we can be. "

I want to thank you for saying something I have been having trouble putting into words. I'm not sure if it is me or whether something has changed recently with discourse on the internet but I am coming across more and more people speaking as thought they are an Authority of a subject, while simultaneously posting complete incorrect information.

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

#298
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent didn't say that he is imagining anything. Read the post again. They are saying that based on the information in the NYT article it does not seem credible that the woman came out of nowhere, that there was no time to react, and that the first thing the driver noticed was the sound of hitting the woman before even seeing her. The driver is a party in this story and may well be at fault for causing her death.

> It's very hard to imagine a scenario in which a 49-year-old woman walking her bike manages to cross 3 lanes of traffic so quickly that the Uber AV, moving at 40 mph, had no time to react, in a location with good street lighting and with clear weather Explaining the imagining, is the salient issue. > The parent didn't say that he is imagining anything Splitting hairs over the phrasing is not compelling. The poster w…

I'm not splitting hairs. The person I replied to, and you, are splitting hairs.

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

#299
post #291

Bloomberg title: >> Uber Victim Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Car First line of the first paragraph in the article (my underlining): >> Police say a video from the Uber self-driving car that struck and killed a woman on Sunday shows her moving in front of it suddenly And the title on this thread: >> Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber Both titles are very misleading. The Bloom…

Yes. Maybe it's time we quit obsessing over headlines, and realized that actually reading the article might be necessary.

Maybe you are unemployed or something and have tons of free time, but the rest of us are too busy to read every single article that arrives at the front page. That is why headlines should be accurate summaries or descriptions of the submissions.

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

"The problem is fooling ourselves into being more certain than we can be. " I want to thank you for saying something I have been having trouble putting into words. I'm not sure if it is me or whether something has changed recently with discourse on the internet but I am coming across more and more people speaking as thought they are an Authority of a subject, while simultaneously posting complete incorrect informatio…

I can barely even stand to read threads here anymore, if the topic is something I'm very knowledgeable about. So many intermediate-level folks making way overconfident assertions that are way off base, or completely unaware of the state of the art. And it's virtually guaranteed that if I was foolish enough to spend time replying with corrections, they'd try to waste my whole afternoon arguing with me. I wish some of these overconfident statement-makers understood they and this community would be better off if they asked questions instead.
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