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Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

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Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#831

Post by Piskvorrr »

cozzyd wrote: post #574
drawkbox wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arizona and Tempe especially have lots of darker roads. The LIDAR/computer vision tuning at night doesn't seem right. Maybe it was adjusting for the changing street light brightness but yes this is one situation and the vehicle had just come from the Mill bridge that has festive lights that are strung along the bridge [1]. This is a situation though where the LIDAR should have clearly been better than it was. Maybe i…

What the heck are those trails doing in the median if it's not a legal crosswalk?

There's a saying "a sign is not a wall." You can make dangerous things illegal all you want (such as "not overdriving your headlights," hint hint), but it won't stop people doing that. "But that person was not supposed to be there" is a rather weak excuse for manslaughter.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#832

Post by noobermin »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #345
jonathanyc wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pedestrian died, not the SDV developers. Calling this a “teachable moment ... also for pedestrians” is rather disrespectful.

The fact that the pedestrian died is precisely the point. As a frequent pedestrian, and as a person who likes people, and because people are often pedestrians, I would like to prevent pedestrian deaths. That happens by holding SDV developers to rigorous standards, but also by highlighting that crossing the street safely requires paying close attention and being careful, more so than many people do. I've seen several…

If a pedestrian has the right of way, why should the impetus be on them to be mindful? Why shouldn't the impetus be on drivers to slow down? Why should pedestrians live in constant fear of being killed when the law should protect them?

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#833

Post by wnkrshm »

cma wrote: post #665
jmharvey wrote: post #172

As presented, this looks like a pretty classic "overdriving your headlights" situation. Even though they're made of retroreflective material, only two lane divider dashes at a time can be seen in the video, indicating something like 50 feet of visibility. Stopping from 38 mph takes 70+ feet from the time the brakes are applied (and human reaction time adds quite a bit more). Things (people, animals, stopped cars, roa…

The car didn't slow down even after it hit her, I think there was a different problem.

Well... after the car hit her there's no obstacle anymore. If there is no provision to detect an accident and then cancel the route to drive it's natural that the car doesn't stop, since the obstacle is now behind it. It's a computer with wheels.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#834

Post by Piskvorrr »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #301
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 pretty clear to me (from the second half of the video) the driver was looking down at her phone and glancing up at the road periodically. IMO if she had been focusing on the road, she would have at least started braking before hitting the pedestrian. Or perhaps actually stopped before that happened.

This is only a fig-leaf of a driver (for catching legal flak by sitting in the front left seat), not actually operating the vehicle at all. This part was inevitable, given the unbounded technooptimism.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#835

Post by nanis »

madez wrote: post #429
nanis wrote: post #278

This is pure speculation, but it is my working theory: The car's so called "AI" thought the thing in front of it was a four legged animal (e.g., see " rel="nofollow">https://goo.gl/images/3qAmiM> ). In most states, braking for animals in a way that might endanger others on the road is illegal. So, it decided to go ahead and hit the thing in front of it on purpose. I am not sure if the people who program the firmware…

> In most states, braking for animals in a way that might endanger others on the road is illegal. If that is true, then that is a very bad law. If something appers in front of a car I'm driving, the first thing I do, before anything else, is braking. And so should you, and everbody else. First, you save precious reaction time by first braking, then thinking. Second, it might be a human and thus worth much more than a…

The intent behind such laws is simple: You must not endanger others to save an animal. These are good laws, even if those without actual driving experience may not understand them.

As the Globe and Mail puts it: "It doesn't matter why the chicken crossed the road — your responsibility is to the people around you."[1]

    "If you're forced to choose between getting
    rear-ended and hitting a small animal — hit
    the animal."

    "People end up in serious crashes with other
    cars because they let their emotions take over
    when they see a bunny, DiCicco says."

    "Drivers need to be prepared to make these
    tough decisions and not get in a 12 car pileup
    because they saw a baby deer and thought of
    Bambi," he says.
My unfounded speculation is that the RC car jockeys who programmed how the car should react under various conditions did not fully understand what such laws mean (probably having no real life driving experience in ambiguous conditions). And, the cars sensors saw the human with the bicycle, but thought it was an animal.

This is pure speculation, but it makes sense to me. My gut feelings are somewhat validated by every single comment here that tries to make this this poor woman's fault.

PS: You might correctly deduce that I do not think "self-driving cars" is a good idea. I think everyone needs to be reintroduced to Asimov.

[1]: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/culture/commutin...

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#836

Post by Piskvorrr »

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?

Google Street View seems to show 45 mph - if the imagery is current, that is.

https://www.google.cz/maps/@33.4350531,-111.941492,3a,75y,33...

OTOH, if the issue was "human thought computer was driving, computer was actually off", this might be a completely new class of errors in driving (although it does happen in aviation, where both pilots think the other one is PF: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/5091/how-are-co... )

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#837

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

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.

A human is not an "obstruction", dammit. I mean, literally- it's not like hitting a wall. The driver's life will never be in danger and the care may not even be significantly damaged. There's a very special reason why we want self-driving cars to avoid humans, that has nothing to do with the reason we want to avoid obstacles. And because this special reason is very, very special indeed, we need much better guarantees that self-driving vehicle AI is extremely good at avoiding collisions with humans, than we do for anything else.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#838

Post by Lewton »

I really hope Tempe has the balls to revoke Ubers AI driving license.

This is completely unacceptable. Their approach to AI driving has been terrible from the start. They don't have the data, nor the expertise to do this in a safe way.

This is not the first time they've fucked up royally

https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/25/14737374/uber-self-drivin...

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#839

Post by nanis »

cozzyd wrote: post #439
nanis wrote: post #278

This is pure speculation, but it is my working theory: The car's so called "AI" thought the thing in front of it was a four legged animal (e.g., see " rel="nofollow">https://goo.gl/images/3qAmiM> ). In most states, braking for animals in a way that might endanger others on the road is illegal. So, it decided to go ahead and hit the thing in front of it on purpose. I am not sure if the people who program the firmware…

Was there anybody behind the car? Surely the car could know if it was safe to brake.

Surely the car's computer had data about all sorts of things around it. The car does not and cannot know anything. It would have been up to some programmers to tell it what to do with the data.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#840

Post by arkades »

babesh wrote: post #628
eric_h wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 da…

A person with common sense and a developed understanding of the situation would drive more slowly in situations like this. The law says that you don't drive faster than you can see. A similar thing (no fatalities, just a shopping cart pushed by homeless people) happened to me. Ever since then, I have learned to be much more aware of situations like this (tunnel of light surrounded by darkness). This just shows that U…

> The law says that you don't drive faster than you can see.

Amusingly, the law also says that manufacturers have to produce headlights that cast light out far enough to leave you adequate stopping distance at 60mph. Almost no headlights on the market currently do that.

Not a counterpoint, just a tangent that I find sadly amusing.

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