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Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#231

Post by chrismcb »

danso wrote: post #80
fabian2k wrote: post #19

> Waymo, formerly the self-driving car project of Google, said that in tests on roads in California last year, its cars went an average of nearly 5,600 miles before the driver had to take control from the computer to steer out of trouble. As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona There can certainly be arguments about whether the kind of miles driven are equivalent…

> As of March, Uber was struggling to meet its target of 13 miles per “intervention” in Arizona To be fair, Uber is not necessarily acting badly -- especially since AZ doesn't appear to care either way -- having the safety driver is ostensibly supposed to make the AV at least as safe as if it were a regular human-driven car. I hope during the investigation we find out whether Uber made it clear to its human drivers t…

It is pretty much impossible to be "at least as alert as if they were driving..." When you aren't actually driving. And yes Uber is acting badly. Just because Arizona let them do it, didn't mean they have to do it. Of course, I believe Arizona also acted poorly.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#232

Post by chrismcb »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #47
dbt00 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would help if you actually state the country in question, so we can properly judge your statement's applicability. In the USA laws vary by state -- in California it is typically almost always incumbent on the driver to avoid pedestrians. I've also traveled to countries like Jordan where the driver is always at fault, and fatally striking a pedestrian would have lifelong consequences for a driver.

The country is Romania and the law is very precise: if the pedestrian is not on a crosswalkk, any accident is the fault of the pedestrian. Funny, I lived in Jordan as my parents were expats there. Never heard about a case where a pedestrian hit by a car outside of a city had any consequences for the driver.

In Arizona it is legal to cross the road, outside of a crosswalk. Given that this was actually near an intersection, it probably wasn't legal in this case. But that isn't the issue. The issue is a self driving car, which is supposed to be better than a human driver, hit the person. A person died because a company was testing their product. A product that want ready to be used in real world conditions.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#233

Post by cozzyd »

sokoloff wrote: post #217
acranox wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The slow driver isn’t creating the danger though. It’s all the drivers going over that actually create the danger you describe. If everyone just followed the laws, the danger you describe would no longer exist. Normalization if traffic violations is compounding the problem of the danger we face on the roads. So many problems could be solved and so many lives saved if people just followed the laws. The fact that every…

> The fact that everyone isn’t following the laws doesn’t need to be accepted as status quo. It literally is the status quo. If I were still working on autonomous cars, I'd be much more inclined to work into the true status quo rather than imagine the status quo ought to be different and build towards that.

The status quo is also that people don't pay attention and are rude to pedestrians/cyclists/each other and ignore rules all the time (ever try waiting at an unsignalled crosswalk on a busy 4 lane road?). The one thing that I can't wait for is traffic enforcement by autonomous vehicles.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#234

Post by Retric »

tetromino_ wrote: post #230
Retric wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have stopped at 45MPH to a black dude crossing the street in dark blue clothing viable only in my headlights. Night vision degrades with age, but it's simply unsafe to out-speed your headlights and if you can't see you need to slow down. Now, some mostly older cars have terrible headlights, but that's another story. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/51/3/1 Note Uber hit someone in bluejeans and a pin…

Here's the Finnish road safety council infographic about pedestrian reflectors (required by law in Finland): https://www.liikenneturva.fi/en/road-safety/reflector They claim a pedestrian without reflectors can be seen from 50 m with low beams. Other source I've seen break it down by the color of clothing; white might be seen from 50 m (160 feet), yellow from 37 m (120 feet), and darker colors even worse, down to blac…

Good lowbeams don't blind other cars. They create a curtain of light that's fairly uniform as bright spots hurt night vision.

At 45 MPH you should stop in under 50 meters in good road conditions. 50 MPH is around 53 meters +/- depending on the vehicle and road conditions.

Reflectors are very useful because they add cushion to that. And believe me that was heavy breaking situation. But, the Uber car did not even start to break.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#235

Post by doublerebel »

bnj wrote: post #77
hunter23 wrote: post #63

This is how I would deal with it if I was a regulator: * Revoke Uber's license to operate - While they might not be found at fault, they have shown gross negligence by having an operator that doesn't observe the road, computer vision that can't sense a pedestrian crossing several lanes even when their LIDAR manufacturer says they could, and an algorithm which encouraged the car to speed 3 mph over the limit when it w…

Out of curiosity, is anyone aware whether it might serve some use to do tests like this virtually? Drive a car around to gather a mass of raw sensor readings on a busy street, and then feed those readings to test cars as inputs? I guess that description doesn't make much sense, but it would be interesting to develop a virtual testing environment for testing the algorithm package even though that doesn't address hardw…

Yes, multiple of these virtual testing environments, with sensor simulation/playback exist. See Microsoft's Airsim, or carla-simulator.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#236

Post by TheCoelacanth »

swiley wrote: post #212
ojbyrne wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After nearly getting hit by a car while on a crosswalk in broad daylight today, I don't think "polar opposite" is correct. I actually made eye contact with the driver, and expected her to slow down (I was right in the middle of the street). Instead she sped up to get through the crosswalk ahead of me.

I don't know if that's better than what happened to me: she just screamed and threw her hands up while I jumped out of the way.

Neither is exactly confidence inducing, but I'm pretty sure the one who deliberately endangered another person's life to save a few seconds is worse.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#237

Post by dang »

Erlangolem wrote: post #161
spaceribs wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be morally bankrupt to rely entirely on a quantitative test for something that is qualitative, I don't know how much clearer with the previous comment I can get?

You’re being obtuse. It’s morally bankrupt to experiment on humans without their informed consent. At least, I hope you’re being obtuse, and not just utterly broken.

We've banned you for repeatedly violating the site guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#238

Post by sitkack »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #168
rgbrenner wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and yet those companies dont dominate the rental car market.. and plenty of other manufacturers sell cars to other rental companies. Proves my point. Having expertise in building cars, doesn't translate over into running a transportation company. They're two separate enterprises. Uber isn't going to go out of business just because someone else produces the cars.

"and yet those companies dont dominate the rental car market.." this is a fair point, however I feel there's more to rentals that stands in the way of that, such as real estate. There's only room for so many car rental places in a convenient location at an airport, for example. I'm not saying setting up and running a company like Uber is an easy task, and I acknowledge that not every company vertically integrates eve…

> convenient location

Uber and Lyft don't even have taxi stands, drivers have to come from a much larger distance than even cabs, yet their usage is some multiple of taxis even with the inconvenience.

With SDC, having access to monopoly power locations will be less of an issue. And with Mercedes and BMW already sprinkled throughout an area, cars are usually close.

I think there is merit in someone having learned all of the issues with running a transportation company, but it isn't a billion dollar lesson, it is a low tens of millions of dollar lesson.

But I don't think being first has much merit, I think the margins will quickly shrink to zero within 5 years of SDCs and we will see a couple major auto manufactures go bankrupt. Ironic if the self driving car of the future is a bipedal android that makes any car a self driving car. Turning a 15k Hyundai electric into an autonomous vehicle.

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#239

Post by [deleted] »

dbt00 wrote: post #188
AdrianB1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If you jump in front of a train, is the train driver's fault? Where is the pedestrian's responsibility?

In Arizona it is the driver's responsibility to yield to all pedestrians on the same side of the road. She somehow crossed 3 and a half lanes of traffic without the Uber SDV ever perceiving her. Their fault.

[deleted]

Re: Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

#240

Post by dbt00 »

dbt00 wrote: post #182
stickfigure wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is going to sound uncharitable and I acknowledge that any death is tragic but... This person carelessly crossed a busy road at night! The victim practically did commit suicide. She could have just as easily been killed by a human-driving car, just like thousands of pedestrians do every year. Why are we so quick to try to blame the car? At least the car was in the right place.

The car was not in the right place, or it would not have hit her. In the state of Arizona a pedestrian has right of way in front of any vehicle, and the driver must yield to any pedestrian on the same side of the road. Edited to add: We don't know anything about her physical or mental condition that might have made it difficult for her to perceive the car or the distance when she was crossing, so to assume that she h…

Coming back to this, I was wrong about the details of Arizona law. They require pedestrians to yield to drivers outside of crosswalks, marked or unmarked.

https://www.azleg.gov/ars/28/00793.htm

However, I still think Uber violated 28-794.1 and .3.

  Notwithstanding the provisions of this chapter every driver of a vehicle shall:
 
  1. Exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on any roadway.
  2. Give warning by sounding the horn when necessary.
  3. Exercise proper precaution on observing a child or a confused or incapacitated person on a roadway.
https://www.azleg.gov/ars/28/00794.htm
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