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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

#361

Post by danso »

jack9 wrote: post #293
shanghaiaway wrote: post #290

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…

Sincere question: how did I couch it to minimize criticism? And I don't know exactly what the "just sayin" trope is, is it this one:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=just%20sayin...

Not sure how it applies. But anyway, in my defense, I didn't say that I was imagining scenarios. I said the exact opposite, that I could not (or, it was "very hard to") imagine a scenario in which someone crossing left-to-right is mostly unseen by a right-lane driver. By saying I can't imagine, I'm limiting myself to my own experience and observations.

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

#362

Post by amdavidson »

tremon wrote: post #346
leereeves wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SUVs have use value as well: driving in difficult conditions.

Which only means they have additional value off road, not on the road . The entire premise of having a road is to avoid difficult driving conditions.

Having lived in both places, commuting in northern New England this time of year often means that you're not driving on a surface a Silicon Valleyite would consider a "road"

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

#363

Post by psyc »

jamesrcole wrote: post #350
danso wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are an expert/outlier for a given topic, wouldn't you generally expect (in an open forum) that the majority of people speaking/opining on the topic will sound dumb/basic relative to what you know?

(I'm not the person you're replying to) It's not their level of knowledge, it's them having a high level of conviction when they have no grounds to have such a high level of conviction.

Exactly. Their confidence not only helps to spread misinformation, but also signals to me that if I offer corrections, they'll argue with me down to the last pedantic toe-hold they can win. No thank you.

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

#364

Post by jdavis703 »

dfee wrote: post #307
jdavis703 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

They tell you why you failed when the test is over. And it was because of that.

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

#365

Post by falcolas »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #317

Some of the commenters here think they can do a better job reconstructing the incident from newspaper cartoons than actual investigators who are working at the scene. You guys can just as well make up a story in which a murderous Uber robot chased a pedestrian off of the sidewalk and onto the road and then intentionally ran her over.

Why are we resorting to reconstructing a scene when Uber's Robot caught the whole thing on camera and LIDAR? The police statement seems quite premature, especially when the NTSB is running an investigation into the accident.

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

#366

Post by turtlebits »

blendo wrote: post #303

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.

Agreed. While I can understand it's much easier to strap sensors/equipment on a already available car, it makes more sense to me from a safety point of view to test with some lightweight shell of a vehicle to cause the least damage to other entities.

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

#367

Post by tripzilch »

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?

I think it's also social pressure to some extent. In the US, cars appear to be on average about 1.5x the size (in all dimensions) of cars in Europe. If you see one on the streets in Europe between other cars it often looks comically huge. I assume that if you drive a regularly sized car in the US (or a smaller one like a Toyota Aigo), it looks comically tiny between the rest of the giant traffic.

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

#368

Post by dmix »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #343
dmix wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact the woman was pushing a bike with tons of plastic bags late a night makes me think it wasn't. It sounds to me like a homeless person jaywalking in a dangerous fashion.

Yes, that's the obvious explanation. But I spent 5.7 years homeless and was often suicidal, in part because I was homeless and things seemed hopeless, in part because I have a history of being suicidal. I had no knife, no gun, no poison. My suicidal ideation typically involved ideas like hurling myself into some nearby body of water or "playing in traffic." I was often camped near a highway and just walking out into…

Good point, that's possible. I made the above assumption because it would be easier to commit suicide by putting the bike down first and then walking into traffic. But in the context of always engaging in risky/dangerous behaviour because you don't care about your life then this would make sense as a possible scenario.

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

#369

Post by freehunter »

amdavidson wrote: post #362
tremon wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which only means they have additional value off road, not on the road . The entire premise of having a road is to avoid difficult driving conditions.

Having lived in both places, commuting in northern New England this time of year often means that you're not driving on a surface a Silicon Valleyite would consider a "road"

Yeah, living in the Midwest I've actually encountered potholes where, if I drove my Fiat over them at any speed, would literally swallow the entire wheel and likely render the car undrivable without major repairs. Not only does an SUV/pickup have bigger tires, they're also made for driving over incredibly rough terrain. Solid axles and four-wheel drive mitigates a lot of those issues.

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

#370

Post by skellera »

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.

She had a bunch of shopping bags hanging off the front. I imagine that could change how it was identified.
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