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Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

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Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#821

Post by edelans »

jeffmould wrote: post #135
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…

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 vi…

also note that pushing the brakes was not the only option : steering the wheel to avoid collision was another, maybe more efficient. Still, I feel the same as you do : I cannot guarantee I would have avoided this.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#822

Post by Tepix »

crocowhile wrote: post #807
denkmoon wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the real important question. Why didn't the sensor package detect this? Humans not paying attention can never be solved, but hopefully we can get to the bottom of this failure and then fix it systemically. Unfortunately given how shady Uber are, we will never be able to trust their technical analysis in the event one is ever released.

I have the very strong suspicion that the driver has turned autonomous drive mode off, perhaps to be able to watch tv or something. She seems extremely distracted by the dashboard and there is no way that sensors could not alert her of that presence. Also, apparently the car was driving at 38mph in an area where the speed limit was 35mph. Would the autonomous mode allow that?

If autonomous drive had been off then Uber would be the first to say so and not be blamed for this death.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#823

Post by adam-_- »

cbg0 wrote: post #802
Balgair wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wow, that self driving car is total crap if it can't pick up that obstacle. Not to nit-pick too much but 'that obstacle' is a person. A person that died because engineering hubris. I think we should be careful in our language in this situation, as it may get away from us. She was not 'an obstacle' or a 'thing to avoid' or 'hobo', she was a living person.

> A person that died because engineering hubris. While the system should have reacted better, I'd definitely say she died because she crossed the road in a very unsafe manner. I wouldn't attempt to make that crossing without a reflective vest, front and tail light, and even then I'd still be very anxious.

It has to be the driver (or computers') responsibility to spot and react in situations like this as it is the dangerous machinery that can cause injury and death.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#824

Post by gkya »

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…

> If there is something that isn't going to help the public perception of autonomous cars

If there is something now that's going to help with the public perception of this cars that people claim to be autonomous, it's people like you just quitting trying to defend this and care about the deceased ATM. The software and hardware was sub-par, and the driver of a fucking TEST DRIVE was not looking at the road, let aside having hands ready on the steering wheel. The driver's feet were probably wandering around relaxing besides the pedals. TBH I don't give a flying fuck to the public image of autonomous (!) vehicles ATM.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#825

Post by JohannesH »

In my mind this accident is on Uber no matter how you interpret the video.

Scenario 1: Lets say the pedestrian was visible to the naked eye and sensors. The model and safety operator still didn't "see" her and act in time. Who to blame? Uber.

Scenario 2: The lighting and environment was in a condition where neither the model nor the safety operator could see the road more than 10 feet in front of the car, yet neither thought it to be irresponsible to go at full speed. Who to blame? Uber.

I believe that:

1. The sensors should have detected the pedestrian from far away even if the lighting was bad at the time. I mean that's sort of the point with autonomous vehicles, that they are better at perceiving their surroundings and can make better decisions on how to act quicker than any human could.

2. The safety operators are not engaged enough in their tasks to be effective. I think people underestimate how boring it must have a job where 99% of the time you should do absolutely nothing other than stare straight ahead and be ready for a situation like this. This problem is hard to solve. Maybe we should be training the model on closed tracks and only release on the real roads when it passes some sort of test where it is put through various scenarios. Like a driving instructor for AIs.

For those of you who think the pedestrian is to blame. I agree that the pedestrian might have made a bad decision by expecting the cars to brake, however these situations occur all the time. She didn't dart across the road or jump in front of the car suddenly. Yesterday I helped an elderly guy across 4 lanes of traffic which took about 1 minute. All you can do in that situation is to hope you are visible to the drivers and that they will stop before running you over.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#826

Post by JohannesH »

Keats wrote: post #818

Someone on Reddit posted a comparison of the same spot at night but with a good camera: https://m.imgur.com/a/PM7uu from a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XOVxSCG8u0 That paints the whole accident in a very different light from the video from Twitter. Would any human not notice someone crossing in the good camera screenshot?

Thanks

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#827

Post by jonathanstrange »

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…

The human driver appears to be reading. I know that's a pretty hefty accusation, but I can't shake off the impression.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#828

Post by wnkrshm »

iancarroll wrote: post #22
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…

LiDAR is not affected by the amount of visible (sun) light. I'm very curious to see the data returned from the LiDAR, because this should've been a very clear human frame, albeit with a bike behind it.

LIDAR still has a signal to noise ratio that limits it though, especially with materials that reflect little with the wavelength used (usually NIR, somewhere around 980nm, the military uses 1500 because it's more eye-safe).

But even then, this impacts the maximal detection range only. Even if the obstacle suddenly popped up at 20m it should have been enough to drastically reduce the collision speed.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#829

Post by Piskvorrr »

manmal wrote: post #803
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…

Regarding how the LIDAR did not catch that, there are 4 possibilities I can think of: 1. A software bug failed to recognize the obstacles, or misclassified them, or it fell below some probability threshold. 2. LIDAR didn’t work at the time, and the car did not shutdown. 3. The victim‘s clothing absorbs the LIDAR‘s wavelength pretty much completely, such that it appeared as a „black hole“ and was ignored by the algori…

For years, I've been told by AV technooptimists that these are all "never happens" scenarios. I have a feeling we have a Therac-class failure here.
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