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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

#301

Post by sagarm »

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

Because when an SUV hits someone, they get pushed under the wheels. When a sedan hits someone, they get pushed over the hood.

This is because a person's certain of gravity is above where a sedan's front would hit them.

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

#302

Post by [deleted] »

Someone wrote: post #27
branchan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the woman suddenly walked in front of the car at the last minute, I don't see how the situation could have been avoided, no matter how fast a computer is able to process the information from the sensors. There was also a driver behind the wheel, so it would suggest that humans are just as clueless.

”If the woman suddenly walked in front of the car at the last minute, I don't see how the situation could have been avoided” Likely, but not necessarily. Depending (hugely!) on what actually happened, it might be that the car should have started slowing down before the woman changed course. As an extreme example, if you’re driving at 50 mph and come up behind a kid cycling at the side of the road with a foot separati…

[deleted]

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

#303

Post by blendo »

A 4000 lb SUV, traveling nearly 40mph, at night, on a 4 lane divided highway, hits a pedestrian walking a bike.

The kinetic energy mismatch is the real problem, and at the very least, these companies should be testing at only 20-25mph, with _much_ lighter vehicles.

We'll have to wait for the NTSB to check in, but I'd be surprised if Uber isn't shut down(at least in Tempe) for a good long while.

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

#304

Post by mizay7 »

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…

I think the police are incorrect in saying that the woman walked out the median. If you look at the photo (in the NYT) with the bike and car, its shows (and is captioned as) the car damaged on the right side and the bike is on side walk. It seems most likely that the woman stepped out from behind the trees on the right side of the street.

If people are actually correct about the median thing then I cant imagine how this is not a colossal failure of software. But again it makes way more sense that she walked out from the right side of the road.

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

#306

Post by InternetOfStuff »

heyyyouu wrote: post #112
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…

This is a really great point. I wonder if at some point self driving cars will be taught with these regional anomalies in mind. And will they be activated/changed depending on where the car is shipped/activated (Asia vs. America)?

Apart from regional differences, there are a host of other, similar matters. Cruising through your city's bar district at 3am? I'm sure you'll drive more defensively and be prepared for erratic behaviour on the part of others.

However, one thing that I haven't seen discussed anywhere, but that strikes me as a hard problem: by having a non-human driver, you're literally taking out the human element of communication.

Everybody is taught about the importance of eye contact in driver's ed. What will we replace it with? I have no clue, and I doubt anyone else does. Yet it's a crucial technique we all use to negotiate traffic every day, regardless of our mode of transportation.

This is a hard problem, and it's less technical than cultural. It will be a bitch to solve.

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

#307

Post by dfee »

jdavis703 wrote: post #287
cle wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should your driving instructor also not be on the road?

Probably not. But I also failed my first driving test for going to slow (I was within the minimum and maximum speed range, but new drivers going slow I guess is a sign of an unconfident driver).

It’s been a while since I took a driving test, but I recall the test to be more than staying within the speed limit.

There was also staying in between the lines, following road signs, and integrating with traffic. Do you think you might have failed not because you weren’t pegged at the speed limit, but instead because you weren’t capable of driving safely?

I wasn’t there, so it could’ve been because you really were just driving too slowly. But maybe it was more than that.

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

#308

Post by UncleEntity »

dahdum wrote: post #147
gnicholas wrote: post #49

> The driver, Rafael Vasquez, 44, served time in prison for armed robbery and other charges in the early 2000s, according to Arizona prison and Maricopa County Superior Court records. Uber declined to comment on Vasquez’s criminal record. I didn't realize that people with criminal records like this could become Uber drivers. That is, these types of crimes are relevant to working as an Uber driver—more than things lik…

Wow...I didn't know Uber allows violent felony convictions, but looks like they ignore any convictions more than 7 years old. Including murder . Colorado fined them $8.9M last year for violating background check laws. https://www.denverpost.com/2017/11/20/uber-colorado-fine/ "The PUC said the drivers should have been disqualified. They had issues ranging from felony convictions to driving under the influence and reck…

In Arizona a few years back they make drug testing mandatory for Taxi/Livery/&etc drivers so I looked up the law after the owner of the company told us "look, the law says I have to drug test you guys but it doesn't say you have to pass so just bring it in and I won't even look at the results."

Nothing disqualifies you as long as they have documentation of a background check and drug test -- axe-murdering crack head with a penchant for buggering small animals, perfectly legal.

The governor got some flack for that one...

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

#309

Post by BurningFrog »

danso wrote: post #5
alistproducer2 wrote: post #3

Call me crazy but isn't a big part of the promise of these systems supposed to be they see things humans wouldn't or couldn't? If they're just as surprised as the human behind the wheel, that feels like a problem.

Yes, to me, this is the most relevant part of the posted article: > “It’s possible that Uber’s automated driving system did not detect the pedestrian, did not classify her as a pedestrian, or did not predict her departure from the median,” Smith said in an email. “I don’t know whether these steps occurred too late to prevent or lessen the collision or whether they never occurred at all, but the lack of braking or swe…

The most relevant part is from someone with zero knowledge of what happened?

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

#310

Post by ajross »

jdavis703 wrote: post #265

When I was getting my learners permit I was practicing on a curvy mountain road. I saw a person with a camera phone on the "drop off" side of the road, taking a picture of from what my angle would've been a boring cliff face. But I knew that a camera phone photographer was probably actually photographing a human, who would likely be on the other side of the blind corner. So I slowed down, despite my instructor chasti…

Your own story disproves your conclusion. Your driving instructor, like many (many) other drivers, didn't make the infererence that you did. People don't drive well. Cars are dangerous.

The criterion (really the only criterion) for whether or not automatic vehicles "should be on the road" is whether or not they are safer than the alternative. And that certainly doesn't include "being as good a driver as jdavis703 was in this particular anecdote".

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