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Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

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Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#101

Post by jey »

atonse wrote: post #25

How did LIDAR and IR not catch that? That seems like a pretty serious problem. It's clear from the video that a human driver actually would've had more trouble since the pedestrian showed up in the field of view right before the collision, yet that's in the visible spectrum. When I argue for automated driving (as a casual observer), I tell people about exactly this sort of stuff (a computer can look in 20 places at t…

> Yet this crash proves that all the equipment in the world didn't catch a very obvious obstruction.

Seems more likely that it's a software problem. Especially given the rest of Uber's behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if they're aggressively shipping incomplete/buggy software in the name of catching up to more careful competitors like Waymo.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#102

Post by duiker101 »

Shouldn't the card have been driving with its brights on? I mean... she was already crossing so she didn't come out of a corner or something and I have a feeling that with brights on she could have been seen. Also, there doesn't seem to be other cars in the opposite direction or anything for which the car shouldn't have had its brights on.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#103

Post by dawnerd »

ryduh wrote: post #47
dogweather wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I love our 2017 Outback w/ EyeSight. Luckily, we haven't had to test the auto braking system at high speeds but the lane assist and assisted cruise control are wonderful.

Not a suburu but my passat engaged emergency breaking once. It's was kinda spooky to go for the break and realize its already depressed. Definitely prevented an accident. I was paying attention too, but someone jumped into my lane and slammed their breaks on for who knows why, there wasn't anything in the road...

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#104

Post by eyeing_see »

darkerside wrote: post #59
ahelwer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't at all clear from the video. Video cameras of this quality vastly underperform human vision in low-light conditions.

Like parent said, it's low-light in the visible spectrum, but I'd totally expect these vehicles to scatter tons of light in non-visible spectrums, making these conditions well-lit in those spectrums. Like a bat using echolocation.

I think the point GP was making is that an attentive human driver may have been able to see the pedestrian much earlier than when she becomes visible on the video.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#105

Post by maxerickson »

chrsstrm wrote: post #16

The description given before the video was released painted a picture in my mind that the woman was on the median and "suddenly" entered the roadway in front of the vehicle. I pictured someone darting across the road directly in front of the car, with no way to stop in time. This video shows a completely different scenario. The woman started on the median, but the vehicle was in the #2 lane. She wasn't visible to the…

I think this seems like exactly the scenario that autonomous driving vehicles are intended to prevent. may be optimistic.

Lots of people are hoping they will prevent such scenarios, the motivation for fielding them is more related to making lots of money.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#106

Post by mirimir »

atonse wrote: post #25

How did LIDAR and IR not catch that? That seems like a pretty serious problem. It's clear from the video that a human driver actually would've had more trouble since the pedestrian showed up in the field of view right before the collision, yet that's in the visible spectrum. When I argue for automated driving (as a casual observer), I tell people about exactly this sort of stuff (a computer can look in 20 places at t…

Indeed! To LIDAR, she was basically standing in the lane, with a bulky bicycle. To visible light, including the driver, who was apparently half asleep or watching the dashboard, she was in shadow until just before the collision.

So yes, LIDAR should have caught this. Easily. So something was clearly misconfigured. And even if the driver had been carefully watching the road, he probably wouldn't have seen her in time.

But I wonder, is there a LIDAR view on the dashboard?

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#107

Post by osrec »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #53

There was almost a second where the woman was clearly visible and yet the car did not attempt to emergency break. I would not expect the vehicle to safely stop, but it could have definitely slowed down and reduce the energy of the collision. This is not criticism against self-driving tech, I would not expect alert human driver to avoid collision either due to limited reaction time. With technology however, we should…

I think it could have stopped safely. Assuming it has quicker reactions than a human, stopping distance should be around 18 meters. I think it just completely missed her.

Edit: critical typo

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#108

Post by danso »

Anyone here have expertise on the current state of law governing autonomous vehicles? I know AZ is supposed to be lax compared to California, so I wonder if there is any situation in which Uber could be at fault (besides a civil suit from victim's family)? Let's say that the car's LIDAR was indeed dysfunctional, or obviously inferior compared to the industry standard. It could be a hardware problem, or the software attached -- e.g. the Uber AV classified the victim as a large paper bag. What legal framework is there to assign fault to company/manufacturer in an accident like this, other than design/planning that is obviously malicious or grossly negligent?

In other words, is there any situation where Uber (or Waymo, etc) could be found legally at fault in a state like Arizona, no matter how badly their vehicle performs in an accident?

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#109

Post by soperj »

danso wrote: post #14

Wow, I had thought it impossible for the Uber AV to be in the right lane, and for the victim to be crossing left-to-right, for the police to claim that the victim couldn't be seen until it was too late. But I didn't expect the road to be so dark, given what we saw in the accident photos (which might have been over-exposed?) and Google Maps, which showed a lot of street/sidewalk lighting. In the moment that we can ful…

It's a video.. it was likely not as dark as portrayed.
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