Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#141

Post by lhorie » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:15 PM UTC

assblaster wrote: post #100

lhorie wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tempe police obtained the video from Uber If by "from Uber", you mean they popped the SD card from the Uber-owner car's dashcam, sure. > Uber could have easily altered it before handing it over See my comment from the last time someone had suggested the idea of doctored videos: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16644663

What's the timeframe on the video being handled, given to police, etc. Do the police have the authority to take any video files recorded by a vehicle involved in an auto accident? Is a warrant needed? It's more likely that the police opened an investigation, and as part of the investigation, handed over dashcam footage. We have no reason to believe the police simply confiscated the video files on the night of the acc…

IIRC the video was released by the police the next day

> We have no reason to believe the police simply confiscated the video files on the night of the accident.

From my own experience, the police will take dashcam video evidence the first chance they get because it's the best data they can get their hands on while on a scene. Source: I had interactions with the police on two separate occasions (once when my dashcam happened to record a car break-in taking place as I was driving into a parking lot, and once when some guy road raged me). On the second occasion, they were reviewing the video less than 15 minutes from the time of the incident and had the whole thing resolved within the hour.

Besides, as I said earlier, Uber itself is making a statement admitting it was at fault, and the NTSB investigation has way more forensic data than the crappy quality dashcam video police released, so I don't see how doctoring the dashcam video would fit into the narrative.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#142

Post by favorited » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:19 PM UTC

hazardmat wrote: post #137

jakelazaroff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a bad call on the part of the police. You're only allowed to drive as fast as conditions permit. If it's dark enough that you can't avoid an obstacle by the time your headlights illuminate it, you need to slow down .

That's not really true. Thousands of deer get killed on the road every year, because deer aren't smart enough not to be an obstacle when it's dark. Do we therefore change all the speed limits at night? No. It's a driving risk taken, just like any other.

The point isn't that speed limits need to change, it's that it is incumbent upon the driver to slow down if environmental conditions prevent them from traveling safely at the speed limit.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#143

Post by Animats » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #117

volkl48 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law as written and the law in practice, are different matters. NYC would not function with actual adherence to the law. There is never a break in pedestrians long enough for a car to turn in a fully legal fashion at most intersections, which is why human drivers wait for the largest mass of the built-up crowd to go and then inch their way through the stream of those just arriving at the intersection (with pedestr…

Imagine how much safer NYC would be if the cars and pedestrians were isolated. A dedicated car layer with an extra lane on each side (at current level) and a new pedestrian layer built above the cars with physical barriers preventing falling to the level beneath.

Final scene, General Motors Futurama, 1939 World's Fair.[1]

[1] https://youtu.be/1cRoaPLvQx0?t=1237

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#144

Post by skrause » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:23 PM UTC

splouk wrote: post #38

joncrane wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away. It's also possible that human/pedestrian behavior will adapt to the consistent behavior of driverless cars.

Or jaywalking will become more strictly enforced with policing or physical barriers. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/2/automated-vehic...

If stricter enforcement of jaywalking laws is required for self-driving cars to work, you can already forget about those cars in almost all other countries where jaywalking laws don't even exist and certainly won't be accepted in the future.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#145

Post by jethro_tell » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #109

Sangermaine wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This revolution should have started with mundane tasks, such as city street sweepers and perhaps garbage trucks. Vehicles that move slow on a predefined path in the night. Then advance to faster moving objects like taxis. No, you've got it backwards. The point of all of the above comments is that driving in cities and densely populated areas is a much more difficult challenge than driving down a straight open highwa…

Or when there's a random tire or mattress lying in your lane. I see that kind of stuff on the interstates all the time.

There's no way 'object in road' can even get close to the amount of variant situations you find yourself in during urban driving.

Freeway driving is pretty straight and forward. If you can't keep from running into a stationary object, you probably can't drive in the city either.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#146

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

splouk wrote: post #38

joncrane wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away. It's also possible that human/pedestrian behavior will adapt to the consistent behavior of driverless cars.

Or jaywalking will become more strictly enforced with policing or physical barriers. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/2/automated-vehic...

[deleted]

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#147

Post by dahart » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

0x00000000 wrote: post #134

dahart wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines can increase without hiring more people or buying more cars. Fines could be made proportional to income, at least one other country has already done that. Why would they need to make a net profit? That standard isn't applied to anything else the police do. We already have traffic enforcement as well as many other police services paid via taxes. The argument that it costs too much to increase enforcement in any…

>Fines can increase without hiring more people or buying more cars Fair point. >Why would they need to make a net profit? At the end of the day the resources either come from somewhere else or it costs more taxpayer money. Yes, I agree it would improve safety. >The argument that it costs too much to increase enforcement in any way doesn't really hold much water. It does though because it is the only solution and the…

> It does though because it is the only solution and the fact that is costs too much is the main reason it isn't done already.

More spending is not the only solution. And cost is not the only reason we're not doing more. Despite my suggestions to increase fines, the people making and enforcing traffic laws are not out to make a profit, and they are sensitive to the costs to drivers.

Where I live, the state lawmakers mandated raising speed limits in opposition to the Highway Patrol's safety recommendation for lower speed limits and increased enforcement. The speeding laws and their enforcement are lax here because of politicians, regardless of the known safety consequences, and not because of costs.

> That isn't my job and it isn't a pressing political issue in most places.

This is a thread about car safety that we both chose to participate in. I would hope that in doing so, all participants might be willing to offer constructive ideas and not just criticism.

@Rotdhizon offered an idea, as did I. Since you suggest mine won't work, it's fair game to ask you for alternatives, isn't it?

FWIW, in my mind some kinds of "increased enforcement" don't involve punitive measures. "NSC estimates traffic fatalities in New York fell 3 percent last year and have dropped 15 percent over the last two years. Safety advocates say the decline may be due to New York City's push to eliminate traffic deaths by lowering speed limits, adding bike lanes and more pedestrian shelters." https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/14/traffic-deaths-edge-lower-bu...

Establishing spaces for peds & bikes is something that factors into the existing costs, and doesn't necessarily mean any more spending at all. The increased safety means that the state gets back some money that was spent on emergency services. Lowering speed limits doesn't cost anything.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#148

Post by jacquesm » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

hazardmat wrote: post #128

jacquesm wrote: post #35

Anybody still want to defend the police's claim within a day of the accident putting the blame on the woman that got killed?

Yes. They said "preliminarily" the Uber driver was not at fault. Judging from the footage, that was reasonable. You can't put the blame off the woman, you can't just cross a road at night like that and expect to be noticed. Accidents like that happen all the time, it's only because of the self-driving car that this is newsworthy. Imagine if there wasn't any dashcam footage and this was a normal car with a distracted…

A distracted driver has the option to tell the police they were distracted. Or are you of the opinion that since the woman was dead it didn't matter anymore?

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#149

Post by vilhelm_s » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #109

Sangermaine wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This revolution should have started with mundane tasks, such as city street sweepers and perhaps garbage trucks. Vehicles that move slow on a predefined path in the night. Then advance to faster moving objects like taxis. No, you've got it backwards. The point of all of the above comments is that driving in cities and densely populated areas is a much more difficult challenge than driving down a straight open highwa…

Or when there's a random tire or mattress lying in your lane. I see that kind of stuff on the interstates all the time.

But as this accident shows, that's still an easier problem: if there an object in your lane on the freeway, you should pretty much always avoid it. On a city street, it's more difficult to decide which objects should or shouldn't be ignored.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#150

Post by hazardmat » Mon, May 07, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

favorited wrote: post #142

hazardmat wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true. Thousands of deer get killed on the road every year, because deer aren't smart enough not to be an obstacle when it's dark. Do we therefore change all the speed limits at night? No. It's a driving risk taken, just like any other.

The point isn't that speed limits need to change, it's that it is incumbent upon the driver to slow down if environmental conditions prevent them from traveling safely at the speed limit.

What is that supposed to mean? You can't have 100% safety at any speed. If it really is incumbent upon the driver to always drive at night in such a way that no collision can occur at all, then why not change the speed limit?

My whole point is that it's not the driver's responsibility to account for every possible scenario. It can't be.