Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

Post by dsg42 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 12:14 AM UTC

ajross wrote: post #92

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…

Do we know the vehicle didn't brake? There's no audio to tell us anything, and a car takes "almost a second" to rock forward on its suspension when reacting to brake input too. FWIW, I think I might see the nose bobbing a bit just before the collision, but honestly can't tell. I certainly don't think you can say "did not attempt to brake" based on the evidence at hand, basically.

Post by ashelmire » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #122

kodis wrote: post #33

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.

An autonomous vehicle obviously shouldn't exceed a speed where it's stopping distance exceeds it's vision capabilities, since next time it might as well be a tree trunk. That's sometimes difficult for humans to gauge, but then we want autonomous cars so they can make these calculations (and they are much better equipped to).

Post by ghaff » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

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.

Post by perennate » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

dogweather wrote: post #64

An alert human driver would still have had a bad crash, but might not have killed the pedestrian. In a two-lane road, you cannot simply swerve to the other lane w/out checking. I (and many other?) drivers would have just slammed on the brakes. But at that road's speed limit, I believe the brakes wouldn't have stopped in time, and a collision would still have occurred. The pedestrian+bicycle was a direct obstacle, not…

Post by thetrb » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 12:15 AM UTC

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…