Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident • Hacker News Board

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#31

Post by stefan_ » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

If there is something that isn't going to help the public perception of autonomous cars at all, it's releasing a compressed to shit capture of another video showing a single camera angle from dozens.

I would say it's a deliberate attempt to manipulate if I didn't also strongly believe ignorance on part of the police department has lead them to believe that autonomous cars could even exit a parking lot without data from many more than this one camera, not to mention the vastly more useful LIDAR on top.

(That's before you consider the video angles shown here are just for dashcam purposes. The real cameras for the autonomous driving are in the sensor array on top of the roof)

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#32

Post by Treblemaker » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

The first question that comes to my mind watching this, is, why didn't the _pedestrian_ see the _car_? It looks as though she didn't even look up until the car was only a few feet away from here. I'm not just trying to "blame the victim". The car "should" have responded sooner. But see-and-avoid works both ways. If you're choosing to cross a road in the dark, you, too, have a responsibility to understand the drivers' limited visiblity and act accordingly. My point is that this is a teachable moment for not only SDV developers, but also for pedestrians.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#33

Post by kodis » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

I sure couldn't have reacted quickly enough to have prevented this collision. I'd expect the car to have better reflexes then I do, but given the little time from when the pedestrian first showed up on camera and the time when the collision occurred, I doubt that there was anything that the car could have done, regardless of the sophistication of its software.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#34

Post by arduinomancer » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

I feel like a human would've been able to at least brake a little or swerve in this situation?

Not avoiding the collision but perhaps lessening the damage?

It looks like the car doesn't even try to slow down.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#35

Post by dogweather » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

HankB99 wrote: post #27

This seems like a simple case. I would have expected the driver assist in my 2017 Subaru to have reacted to something in the road. I'm surprised that the much more sophisticated self driving system did not.

I didn't know that new Subaru's can come with driver assist. How does it work? What's your experience with it?

I've got a 2013, and am thinking about trading in.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#36

Post by jonknee » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:55 PM UTC

I suppose we'll need to wait for some standardization in the sensor department, but it would be great if autonomous car makers could share the sensor data for collisions so that everyone can learn from the mistakes. Test data is great, but there's nothing like real world problems.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#37

Post by aianus » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:55 PM UTC

However bad the car was or wasn't at detecting the victim, it's nothing compared to how bad the human victim was at detecting the car (which presumably had its lights on coming down an empty street at night).

Imagine if the victim was driving a car...

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#38

Post by titanix2 » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:55 PM UTC

Two obvious things from the footages: the pedestrian is invisible until the last moment, and the "driver" is focused on something else, probably a smartphone.

Given of how little time there was between the hitted woman became visible and the impact, a driver action may not have been able to avoid it, but what will be interesting is how his responsability will be engaged or not.

Anyway one advantage of automous car is the theoretical the ability to have faster than human reaction and extra-human sensors. It should have been able to catch the problem.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#39

Post by dfxm12 » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:55 PM UTC

SpikeDad wrote: post #23

I think this brings up an interesting philosophy for autonomous driving technology - is it feasible if it's "only as good as human driving"? I mean I've seen comments that a human might not have seen the pedestrian. Is that a "defense" of driving AI? That's it's about as good as human driving? Seems to me the public won't accept driverless cars unless there is significant evidence that it's much better than human dri…

I think experience is the best teacher. In a perfect world, Uber will look at the data, determine why this happened. The AI will learn and it won't happen again. That is compared to countless new human drivers entering the road every year. That's not a defense, or an excuse, but an explanation or reality.

I know we don't live in a perfect world, but regardless, we can't change what happened here, so it's best to learn something from it.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#40

Post by jedberg » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 11:55 PM UTC

While I'm surprised the sensors on the car didn't catch the cyclist, I pretty sure if I had been driving and paying full attention I would have hit the bike too.

Personally, given this video, I'd still be totally comfortable with a self driving car on the road with no safety driver (who clearly didn't make a difference here anyway, not that they could have).