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Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

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Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#471

Post by IndrekR »

sitkack wrote: post #417
fudged71 wrote: post #251

I do wonder if perhaps Uber made the video darker before releasing. Or used a camera that is not the main sensing camera. Because I would hope the cars are smart enough to increase ISO to get more detail at night time.

1) It does NOT show what the LIDAR sees. 2) They should be using a dark adapted / night vision camera and probably are, the video feed presented is just that, the best one that "presents". 3) They should be using thermal infrared to spot living things 4) They were severely over driving their headlights if what we are seeing is "reality" as seen by the onboard computer. I want to know how much access to the hardware U…

> 3) They should be using thermal infrared to spot living things

To my knowledge the fast frame rate (>9 Hz) thermal sensors are still ITAR-restricted, seriously limiting their application in autonomous vehicles among the other things.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#472

Post by URSpider94 »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #137
jackpirate wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not exactly. The dynamic range of the eye in a single scene is around 12-14 stops, about the same as a high-end digital sensor, like the one in the Canon EOS 5D or Sony Alpha. https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/cameras-vs-human...

The eye can gain a lot more stops through adaptation (irising, low-light rod-only vision), but those mechanisms dont come into play when viewing a single scene -- and cameras can also make adjustments, e.g. shutter speed and aperture - to gain as much, if not more, range.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#473

Post by djsumdog »

sitkack wrote: post #417
fudged71 wrote: post #251

I do wonder if perhaps Uber made the video darker before releasing. Or used a camera that is not the main sensing camera. Because I would hope the cars are smart enough to increase ISO to get more detail at night time.

1) It does NOT show what the LIDAR sees. 2) They should be using a dark adapted / night vision camera and probably are, the video feed presented is just that, the best one that "presents". 3) They should be using thermal infrared to spot living things 4) They were severely over driving their headlights if what we are seeing is "reality" as seen by the onboard computer. I want to know how much access to the hardware U…

Hopefully the NTSB has direct access to all the other telemetry and will release it as well. It would be greatly beneficial to the public if we could see the LIDAR and thermal logs as well.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#474

Post by jaccarmac »

dylan-m wrote: post #387

This is such a blatant attempt to manipulate public opinion before the actual data appears. Even if Uber's software is ridiculously using visible light for its decision-making, it should definitely be taking into account what it doesn't know. A system like this should not be guessing. There is a giant swath of black in the video; the camera doesn't know what's there. So, the car should be moving so it has a short eno…

Some of the comments in this thread are ridiculous, and your comment throws them into sharp relief. Even if the video is a perfectly faithful reproduction of the scene and the dark parts are that dark, why in the world would the software assume a space it has next to no information about is safe to drive into at the current speed?

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#475

Post by user5994461 »

sgc wrote: post #366
dschuler wrote: post #260

I've noticed that pedestrians in the US tend not to look at cars coming their way when they cross intersections - I'm not sure if it's an attitude of "you're supposed to stop for me" and and they're willing to bet on that happening every time, or if they're really unaware of the danger of a few tons of steel coming at them. This always struck me as very strange as someone from Europe - they teach kids in elementary s…

I'll bite! According to https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/sites/roadsafety/... , there are 6000-6500 pedestrian deaths per year in the EU (the data is only in graph form). EDIT: here is the raw data: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/sites/roadsafety/... As someone who has spent a fair amount of time in both places, I can say that the US pedestrian feels more entitled due to an almost universal pede…

There is also a pedestrian right of way in Europe, at least in the countries I know of.

I think that European drivers are convicted when they hurt a pedestrian. I don't think that Americans get convicted as often or as long. That could explain why they don't drive as carefully.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#476

Post by make3 »

ysleepy wrote: post #73

Why is the resolution so low? Why is the FPS so low? Why don't we see the IR/LIDAR footage? Was the brightness adjusted after the fact to look favourably? Why didn't the vehicle issue a full stop once the woman was clearly visible? I feel PR handled.

Yeah, with the massive amounts of money involved, and with Uber's well known less than perfect ethics, I'd be extremely skeptical of the video

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#477

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Tossrock wrote: post #210
gok wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In pitch darkness, IR cameras can only see more than a visual light camera if you somehow had IR headlights that were more powerful than the visual headlights (they probably don't; that would blind other AVs just like high beams blind other drivers). It doesn't grant you the ability to see in the dark with infinite range. Lidar can sense shapes with more range, but at the cost of dramatically worse resolution and lat…

Humans radiate in IR. A midrange FLIR can pick out a human against a cold background from miles away.

This is Arizona, however. The nights do cool down, but the concrete will still store a lot to heat.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#478

Post by eric_h »

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 whole reason many people on here have been advocating for self driving cars is that they can see obstructions more or less perfectly in the dark with LIDAR. I am much more interested in what that sensor said.

I'm reluctant to infer exactly what a human eye would have seen in that situation. I have absolutely driven down streets in suburbia where the gap between street lights was large enough to make them quite dark, and that video was an example of exactly what I was afraid of happening whenever I drove down those streets (though admittedly my fear was hitting a white tailed deer).

I think it might also be fair to argue that the car's high beams were not on (but again, that shouldn't matter because of LIDAR, right?).

I'm not confident even an above average human driver would be able to avoid that accident, even if good eyesight gave you an extra half second to respond. Dark clothing and no reflectors means that person was definitely invisible to both the camera and the driver for some time after they would have been visible in daylight.

I've had a couple of situations where someone appeared close to my line of travel with low visibility clothing (at night) that scared the living shit out of me, and they weren't trying to cross the street.

To be clear, I am not blaming the victim here, but do wear high visibility clothing when you're a pedestrian near high speed roads at night.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#479

Post by newman8r »

ineedasername wrote: post #292
jerf wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The driver specially selected and trained for exactly this job, does not look at the road!" Humans gonna human. Our brains are trained by millions of years to not pay attention to things not directly important. It's hard enough sometimes to keep our attention on the road when we're doing the driving and the driving is too easy, like being alone on a highway at night. Expecting humans to passively observe driving whi…

Yeah, there's that videogame about driving a bus constantly, on an empty road, for hours and hours. It occasionally veers off, so you have to pay attention, but that's all. That game should be a minimum "driving" test for safety drivers. (Not really, but something like that)

Desert Bus. That's not a terrible idea.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#480

Post by djsumdog »

lhorie wrote: post #435
fudged71 wrote: post #251

I do wonder if perhaps Uber made the video darker before releasing. Or used a camera that is not the main sensing camera. Because I would hope the cars are smart enough to increase ISO to get more detail at night time.

> I do wonder if perhaps Uber made the video darker before releasing This video was released by the police department. Are you suggesting someone from Uber drove down to the scene at 10pm, somehow managed to grab the SD card from the dashcam with all the police there, ran back to their car, uploaded it to their laptop, fired up Premiere, edited the brightness, downloaded the modified video back into the SD, ran back…

I'm hoping the police and NTSB have guards on the impounded car and they have a strict chain of custody on anything Uber accesses.

To be fair though, Uber can probably extract, and potentially even change this data, remotely. Given their track record, that's not outside the realm of possibility at all. They'd be stupid to attempt it with the world staring at them, but this is also the company that had Greyball, the hell map, blatantly disregarded laws in many countries and had to hire Eric Holder's company to run damage control.

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