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Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

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Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#131

Post by F2 »

alva wrote: post #29

On the one hand, the cyclist became visible in the footage at a very late stage. If that is how the drivers eye saw it they would have very little time to react, however they may have been able to do a sharp swerve. On the other, the operator was clearly distracted regardless of if they would have been able to avoid this.

"however they may have been able to do a sharp swerve."

As someone that enjoys racing cars and other types of high performance driving I feel like I can pretty confidently say this isn't even remotely a realistic statement.

You're grossly overestimating human response times. Even if we're ignoring response time and imagining the driver instantly turning the steering wheel, large SUVs like the XC90 simply can't generate the lateral acceleration required to move the vehicle clear of the pedestrian in the time and space shown in that video.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#132

Post by booleandilemma »

The Uber Safety Driver behind the wheel when the incident occurred:

Rafaela Vasquez, 44

She has convictions for attempted armed robbery after a plot with her Blockbuster video store co-worker to seize their own shop’s takings at gunpoint in 2001.

Vasquez was convicted under her first name Rafael but she now identifies as a woman.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/934713/uber-self-drivin...

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#133

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

stefan_ wrote: post #31

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 fr…

Uber is more than welcome to release their video(s) themselves if this one represents an inaccurate view.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#134

Post by lobster_johnson »

csomar wrote: post #62

Is it me or the street lighting is beyond mediocre? It is weak and alternate between a "lighted" portion and a literally black portion. But even then, the driver was busy with his cellphone. The accident might have happened nevertheless due to bad lighting. But this could have been avoided was the driver on alert.

Coming from Europe, I've been surprised as how many places in the US that don't have streetlights at all. Driving between Maryland and Virginia, there are 4-lane highways that are completely dark for long stretches at a time. I'm assuming this is a money-saving concern, since the US has such a huge amount of area to cover.

Back in many native, smaller habitat, I've only rarely encountered this kind of darkness, and it's usually on small, isolated country roads. When I got my license, my instructor's company had a special spot, an hour outside the city, where they always went to for dark driving lessons, because almost all of the road network is (exceedingly well) illuminated.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#135

Post by jeffmould »

jackpirate wrote: post #78
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…

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. That's not at all clear to me. I don't know too much about cameras, but it looks to me like the camera is making the scene appear much darker than it actually is. In the video, you can see many street lights projecting down…

I have to agree. Just like a normal camera has issues in low-light, it is clear that this camera is diminishing exactly how light the road ahead was. While I can't say confidently that I would have been able to stop to prevent hitting them, watching the video in full screen does lead me to believe that I would have seen them and been able to apply the brakes at least enough to reduce the impact. Also, watching the video of the interior it is clear the driver was looking at his phone or doing something else just prior to the impact. This alone leaves me skeptical to just how much could have been done to prevent this accident.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#136

Post by pdonis »

jackpirate wrote: post #78
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…

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. That's not at all clear to me. I don't know too much about cameras, but it looks to me like the camera is making the scene appear much darker than it actually is. In the video, you can see many street lights projecting down…

> The gap between street lights (and hence the person) was in the field of view of the camera the entire time

But the gap between street lights is going to be very hard to see into.

> I'm confident my eyes are good enough that I would have been able to see this person at night in these lighting conditions.

I think you're overconfident. Human low light vision is very good if there is low light everywhere. But it is not good at seeing into low light regions when brightly lit regions are nearby.

That said, I agree that a visible light video camera is likely to be even worse that human vision under the given circumstances. But as others have commented elsewhere in this thread, the car is not just supposed to be using a visible light video camera. It has LIDAR and IR sensors, which should have clearly shown the pedestrian well before visible light did.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#137

Post by hcknwscommenter »

jackpirate wrote: post #78
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…

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. That's not at all clear to me. I don't know too much about cameras, but it looks to me like the camera is making the scene appear much darker than it actually is. In the video, you can see many street lights projecting down…

Exactly. The dynamic range of the human eye is vastly better than a visible spectrum camera.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#140

Post by david-gpu »

titanix2 wrote: post #38

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…

He may have been watching a sensor display. Waymo's older videos show a big screen where the driver can see the data coming from lidar, radar, etc.
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