bottom line was that the person hit was crossing in the middle of the street (jay walking), so they are to blame for the accident not the car. while the technology _should have_ seen them, i don't blame it. this is essentially the same as someone breaking into your house, getting hurt and you getting sued. the person is breaking the law, yet you're to blame... that wouldn't be fair to you, so it isn't fair to blame the car in this incident.
Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
871–880 of 1001 posts
Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
#872This seems like a simple case. I would have expected the driver assist in my 2017 Subaru to have reacted to something in the road. I'm surprised that the much more sophisticated self driving system did not.
You would think that a reasonable project plan would attack the human safety/emergency situations first, and then move on to anything else. I guess having a car that avoids accidents but doesn't drive across the country on its own does not make for interesting headlines. This is the consequence of headlines-driven AI... "lets solve something hokey and grabs attention so management will be pleased instead of doing the more meaningful/long term r&d."
Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
#873Someone 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?
Despite the fact that the driver was clearly playing with his mobile (which makes him indefensible), I have some sympathy for the driver not reacting early enough. Even if the driver spotted the obstacle, the car is only going to apply the brakes when it gets closer to the obstacle, not half a kilometer before. So how much time would the driver have had to 1. assess that there is a danger, 2. realise that the self driving car is not reacting to that danger, 3. apply the brakes.
Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
#874You can see the human driver taking her eyes off the phone and immediately recognize the situation.
Yet I see no hard deceleration. This would have to be immediately visible as it would jerk the driver forward from her seating position, yet you can't see this happening.
I understand that once the pedestrian came into the light cone, the computer should have reacted almost instantly to a very obvious threat situation, yet I see nothing.
Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
#875Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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."…
"If you're forced to choose between getting
rear-ended and hitting a small animal — hit
the animal."
Stopping distances people! And the rule of thumb is double them for rain, ten times for ice. And if someone is tailgating you, let them pass you. They are in the wrong but there is no point saving a few seconds keeping in front of them.
/rant
Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
#876Not to say there isn‘t a problem here... But walking across the street in dark clothes, without any light or reflectors, at a random spot does not seem like the best idea to me.
If I have a picknick on the train tracks and get hit by a train, maybe you should consider my stupid decision as well when evaluating the security of trains.
Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
#877Why are safety drivers not:
- working in pairs, so there is social pressure, conversation, and two pairs of eyes to increase alertness and safety?
- doing shifts of 30 - 45 minutes at most [1] (although they could potentially swap back and forth with a co-driver)
- issued a dumb-phone for emergencies and searched for entertainment devices (it's good enough for Amazon warehouse staff)
- being monitored by the driver-facing camera, with training and termination for drivers who can't hack it
- monitored automatically for attention using eye tracking or other methods, with the car safely stopping if lack of attention is detected
- required to take over on a random, regular basis for a short period to keep them engaged and attentive (and obviously, the car keeps driving if they don't take over, but they are marked down)
Due to the boredom, it is an extremely demanding job, but the way it is being done is clearly not good enough.
[1] I can't find anything published about how long the shifts are, but I'm guessing they are longer.
Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
#878I currently work full-time in the self-driving vehicle industry. I am part of a team that builds perception algorithms for autonomous navigation. I have been working exclusively with LiDAR systems for over 1.5 years. Like a lot of folks here, my first question was: "How did the LiDAR not spot this?". I have been extremely interested in this and kept observing images and videos from Uber to understand what could be th…
I'm assuming LiDAR is not the only sensor installed in self-driving cars. Isn't that the case? And in this scenario, the software didn't have a lot to process. Road was empty, pedestrian was walking bike in hand perpendicular to road traffic... Even if the detection box changed in size, it should have detected something . Tall or short, wide or narrow, static or moving... at least it should apply brakes to avoid coll…
I'm really surprised that we're even talking about the pedestrian's clothes or lighting or even the driver. Isn't the entire point of sensors like LiDAR to detect things human beings can't? The engineering is clearly off.
Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
#879Someone 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?
Makes the Police video seem suspect to me.
The police were on the scene of the accident. They presumably would take photos of the scene. So they had other shareable evidence that would show the conditions more clearly.
Yet they choose to tweet out this very low quality video that basically absolves Uber. Plus they have a motive to spin the story after local government invited uber there to run these tests. Seems very CYA-ish.
Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
#880I don't trust Uber. Thats it.