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Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

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Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#221

Post by seattle_spring »

uptown wrote: post #115
freditup wrote: post #18

I'm curious what degree of "cultural context" is built into automated cars - I feel that there has to be a lot of locale-specific techniques for driving. For example, in NYC, there's nothing at all uncommon about a pedestrian beginning to cross the street in front of you and approaching the area of your lane where you will shortly be. Pedestrians typically then stop about a foot away from your lane, let you drive pas…

NPR had a story about how self-driving cars in Pittsburgh wouldn't be adhering to the "Pittsburgh-left": "Even harder for autonomous cars to master are local quirks; things like "the Pittsburgh left." That's a custom unique to the city that allows the first driver trying to make a left turn to do so before oncoming cars pass through an intersection. It's one thing that Emily Duff Bartel says Uber's fleet of self-driv…

Pretty sure that's just an asshole thing, not a "local quirk." It's like saying not using your turn signal is a funny quirk of BMW drivers, or going 55 in a 70 in the left lane in a Prius.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#222

Post by stevenwoo »

wilburTheDog wrote: post #194
Symmetry wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't the case at all for this collision. As the article says, the sensors had detected the woman but the information had been disregarded. And the moving object thing is exclusive to radar, vision systems don't suffer from it though vision systems have their own problems.

The article linked mentioned "B was the problem", meaning it ignored the sensor input. Another article(1) about it mentions that Uber had reduced the number of LIDAR sensors from five to just one rooftop sensor. The president of the company that builds the sensors even said you would need side sensors to see pedestrians, especially at night. But LIDAR is expensive. So it seems that, like Tesla, they were trying to re…

I thought people were saying in previous comment threads that Teslas ignore stationary objects because too many false positives from roadside objects that are not in the road. The combination of software and sensors on Teslas is not enough to be able to distinguish stationary objects in the path versus stationary objects not in the path.

Based on the slim evidence of the Chinese accident video and the LA post accident photo, it looks like that's correct - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4tes8u

https://cdn.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/tesla-c...

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#223

Post by throwaway057 »

assblaster wrote: post #7

The question I want to know is: Did Uber doctor the camera video to make the road seem darker than it actually was? If you recall, there was initially a doubt that Uber was at fault because the streets appeared extremely dark, but I think they were buying time to delay the outage at incompetent Uber. The police initially didn't fault Uber based on this video.

I drive that stretch of road almost every single day, at night.

Yeah, the video looked different than what my eyes see because my eyes have better low light sensitivity than most cameras.

However (if this makes sense): the video released was an accurate representation of what you see driving on that road. A few weeks ago, I had somebody almost walk into my car out of the shadows (this person was paying attention though, and stopped in the empty lane next to me). It turns out it's REALLY difficult to see people in the streetlight shadows.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#224

Post by drcode »

lhorie wrote: post #219
drcode wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so I don't see how doctoring the dashcam video would fit into the narrative. Well, at the end of the day this is all involves a strong element of PR & perceptions, so regardless of the quality of other data, it would be very much in Uber's interest to have a super dark video be in the initial stories about this accident.

> it would be very much in Uber's interest to have a super dark video Why? As soon as the video came out, the first thing people (correctly) pointed out was that the dynamic range of the dashcam was crap. Besides, everyone knows that self-driving cars are essentially giant self-telemetry collection machines, so one would have to be either extremely short-sighted or incredibly stupid to think they would be able to get…

I agree with this, Occam's Razor suggests your description of events is more likely.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#225

Post by oldgradstudent »

kolinko wrote: post #190
ams6110 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Autonomous cars have an advantage here compared to even the best human drivers - a persistent 360 degree awareness of the surrounding. If an object appears on the road, the autonomous vehicle can easily calculate whether it's safe to steer left, or right, or hit the breaks. A human will make a roughly random choice.

> Autonomous cars have an advantage here compared to even the best human drivers - a persistent 360 degree awareness of the surrounding.

Autonomous cars don't have an advantage because they don't exist. They may have an advantage one day when they are finally ready (but that may always be 5 years away)

> If an object appears on the road, the autonomous vehicle can easily calculate whether it's safe to steer left, or right, or hit the breaks. A human will make a roughly random choice.

Even with a 360 degree view, it still has to recognize the object, classify it correctly and make a decision. All tasks which are difficult for a computer to perform reliably enough to be allowed on a public road.

The Uber car had a 360 degree view but it still ran over Elaine Hertzberg, and as far as we know didn't even stop after it hit her. The Tesla Autopilot has 360 degree view but still tends to crash into barriers, tractor trailers, street sweeping trucks and fire trucks.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#226

Post by oldgradstudent »

mrep wrote: post #160
0x00000000 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stakes are much lower though. A standard car drifting into the oncoming lane is basically death. If it can't handle city driving, the methods are probably too immature to put people's lives against.

Pretty much all interstates have barriers between the directions to prevent head on collisions.

Hitting a barrier in highway speeds is quite dangerous, even without hitting a car in the oncoming lane.

As the recent Tesla crash showed, even on a divided highway there are plenty of opportunities to cause death and mayhem to the autonomous car and the surrounding vehicles.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#227

Post by wilburTheDog »

stevenwoo wrote: post #222
wilburTheDog wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article linked mentioned "B was the problem", meaning it ignored the sensor input. Another article(1) about it mentions that Uber had reduced the number of LIDAR sensors from five to just one rooftop sensor. The president of the company that builds the sensors even said you would need side sensors to see pedestrians, especially at night. But LIDAR is expensive. So it seems that, like Tesla, they were trying to re…

I thought people were saying in previous comment threads that Teslas ignore stationary objects because too many false positives from roadside objects that are not in the road. The combination of software and sensors on Teslas is not enough to be able to distinguish stationary objects in the path versus stationary objects not in the path. Based on the slim evidence of the Chinese accident video and the LA post acciden…

Wow. That Chinese accident video confirms my worst possible understanding of this. There are no special conditions. If a truck is parked in your lane you're going to hit it. More people should know about this. Maybe people don't want to believe it. I don't know. But I do know that I'm not going to trust any system that doesn't have multiple LIDAR sensors. Though it may take a while for the price on those to drop enough to make it affordable.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#228

Post by danaliv »

matte_black wrote: post #198
uptown wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR had a story about how self-driving cars in Pittsburgh wouldn't be adhering to the "Pittsburgh-left": "Even harder for autonomous cars to master are local quirks; things like "the Pittsburgh left." That's a custom unique to the city that allows the first driver trying to make a left turn to do so before oncoming cars pass through an intersection. It's one thing that Emily Duff Bartel says Uber's fleet of self-driv…

Is this the same as pulling straight into the middle of the intersection with live traffic swirling around you on both sides then making the left after the lights have reddened and traffic has cleared?

No, it's zipping left immediately when the light turns green and before oncoming traffic has a chance to accelerate.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#229

Post by hazardmat »

jacquesm wrote: post #158
hazardmat wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, in this scenario, the woman would have at least shared some of the blame. Second of all, what are the odds that a human who just killed a woman would admit even to themselves that they were the one to blame in such an accident? Practically zero. Cognitive dissonance won't allow it. In their minds, they weren't distracted, at least not enough to take any of the blame.

> First of all, in this scenario, the woman would have at least shared some of the blame. Possibly. But a distracted driver is definitely at fault, no matter what. Driving is a full time occupation. > Second of all, what are the odds that a human who just killed a woman would admit even to themselves that they were the one to blame in such an accident? Pretty good. Most people are honest, even in a bad situation. > P…

>> Possibly. But a distracted driver is definitely at fault, no matter what.

Both parties are at fault, I'm not denying that. That's not the point.

>> Pretty good. Most people are honest, even in a bad situation.

What gives you that idea? People are dishonest all the time, especially to themselves. It's a basic coping strategy.

>> Well, you probably have your reasons for writing this under a novelty account.

Yes, it's that I'm saying "controversial" things that inevitably collide with the ideas of all the "righteous" people around here.

>> But it's clear that when you are at fault it is best for everybody involved to recognize that fact, even if it means discomfort for you.

That's cute and all, it's just not how human psychology works. There are endless examples of this, from the pettiest thieves to the biggest mass murderers.

>> I get that in todays climate it's what you can get away with, but I don't think that strategy will hold in the longer term.

If you sincerely don't believe you are at fault (even if that is objectively wrong) and there is no evidence to prove otherwise, you'll get away with it. That's how the legal system works, if it works. In fact, if you were to get convicted despite believing to be innocent, that's (psychologically) the worst thing that could happen to you.

On the other hand, if you happen to be the odd one out that seeks atonement for their sins, getting convicted may help you out. That's probably a pathology in and of itself though.

>> But that's wrong on many levels and I refuse to subscribe to that view.

But... that's entirely irrelevant. Have you considered that maybe your moral ideals are distorting your view of physical reality? Some sort of magical thinking towards justice?

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#230

Post by WillPostForFood »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #213
vkou wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what you're describing sounds a hell of a lot safer. (It's also how people make left turns in Vancouver. The fact that it's illegal in Seattle infuriates me to no end.) The Pittsburgh left sounds like a recipe to get T-boned by an inattentive driver. Pulling into the intersection, and making a left turn when it is safe is a much better alternative.

What's illegal? Stopping in an intersection? Or exiting the intersection on red? The light would be red on exiting the intersection unless cars are illegally entering the intersection on yellow when they should be stopping because they weren't speeding and have time to stop.

Entering an intersection on yellow isn’t illegal in Washington, California, Texas, or any state that I am aware of.
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