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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

#291

Post by kcanini »

ubernostrum wrote: post #267
Ajedi32 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought we were talking about the Pittsburgh-left. That's not what you're describing. The Pittsburgh-left occurs immediately after the light turns green, when both the oncoming traffic and the person making the turn have a green light. My point was, why do you need to do that when you can just enter the intersection during the green light and complete your turn once the light turns red?

Whether you do it after the light goes red (illegal) or immediately on green (also illegal), it's the same underlying problem: the intersection needs a protected left turn in the signal sequence.

Which law is violated if you enter the intersection when the light is green and exit it when the light is red?

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#292

Post by telchar »

lhorie wrote: post #200
linker3000 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously!? The responsible position would be to retain the existing system in a passive standby mode, capable of overriding the active 'under test' one in the event certain safety/detection thresholds were exceeded.

IIRC someone had said that there are physical limitations to what one can actually do (namely, having to physically unplug the connector for one safety system in order to be able to add your own at all)

Sure, if you want to move fast and disrupt yada yada. They shouldn't be putting hack-job self-driving cars on public roads. Either do some engineering so that they keep the backup system in place or keep it on a test track. This is Chernobyl-like irresponsibility.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#293

Post by c22 »

tlrobinson wrote: post #252
ksenzee wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that people act like jerks behind the wheel, and come across as jerks even when they're not, because drivers have no way to apologize or ask please or do any other polite thing. All they can do is honk the horn, which is like yelling "HEY!!" If there were a communication mechanism for "excuse me, the light is green now" and "oops, so sorry, didn't see you there" driving would be easier and more pleasant.

Paradoxically, in some places horns are used much more liberally and if you spend much time there that's the feeling you start getting from a honk. Like a "hey just wanted to let you know I'm behind you".

When I travelled from India to Nepal I noticed that both places had liberal horn usage, but in Nepal almost all of the horns were musical. They felt much more pleasant than the same custom in New Delhi.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#294

Post by lhorie »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #249
lhorie wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, to go back to being NTSB chair, he would have to be re-appointed by the POTUS... One does not just hire this guy as if he was some sort of money-chasing sleazeball. I mean, just google the guy's bio

I may have abused the 'revolving door' term a bit, but I think you are missing the point of hiring former regulators. You are not hiring them for their bio, achievements or abilities. You are hiring them to signal existing and future regulators that being nice to you can be highly profitable.

You keep saying Uber hired him, but where did you read that? The statement in the article said "we have brought on former NTSB Chair Christopher Hart to advise us". Given how high profile Hart is, and given the focus of his career, I understood that to mean that he agreed to review safety practices and make safety policy recommendations, a topic in which he's an expert on. Unlike wording like "joining to lead a safety program", this arrangement doesn't really imply profit-driven motivation, IMHO.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#295

Post by ufmace »

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.

Maybe, but good luck ever getting that built.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#296

Post by telchar »

ajross wrote: post #182
mtgx wrote: post #9

> This puts the fault squarely on Uber’s doorstep, though there was never much reason to think it belonged anywhere else. Are you kidding me? At least 80% of the comments I saw online the following week were blaming the woman. It seems to me like Uber's self-driving system is absolute trash. But they were in a hurry to "go live" with it, because they need it so that the company can become profitable ASAP. And thanks…

It's still the biker's "fault" in some sense. That same video would have 100% exonerated a human driver. There's no way that was a safe crossing. The fact that there was a clear automation fault also doesn't change the fact that traffic safety is everyone's job, including but not exclusively the computers.

You mean the video that showed the safety driver staring at a cell phone for 6 full seconds right up until nearly the moment of impact? Maybe that would have exonerated the driver, but only to prove how perverse our driving laws are. But in my state the driver would have been convicted.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#297

Post by romwell »

hazardmat wrote: post #231
anonymouz wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, do you have a driver's license? Nobody said anything about 100% safety in some provable way. But certainly it is very much the driver's responsibility to pick a safe speed. Driver's Ed (at least in most? EU countries) teaches that the posted speed limit is just that, the maximum legally allowed speed. As a driver you -- and nobody else -- are responsible for picking a safe speed depending on the environmental con…

What is that supposed to mean ? What's prudent and what is safe? The reality is that driving at night isn't safe at all and that people often can't avoid collision from an obstacle suddenly appearing at night. Maybe if they drove at 15MPH at all times, it would be possible in 99% of cases, but in practice we don't expect that . Hence, we have collisions. Not because the drivers are always guilty of recklessness, but…

>The reality is that driving at night isn't safe at all

Where did you learn that? Sources, please!

Because the reality as I know it disagrees with this claim.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#298

Post by mantas »

zamber wrote: post #159
ksenzee wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that people act like jerks behind the wheel, and come across as jerks even when they're not, because drivers have no way to apologize or ask please or do any other polite thing. All they can do is honk the horn, which is like yelling "HEY!!" If there were a communication mechanism for "excuse me, the light is green now" and "oops, so sorry, didn't see you there" driving would be easier and more pleasant.

In Poland there's an unwritten custom of saying thanks by flashing emergency stop lights for two ticks. The most common use case is when someone lets you through when they don't have to. On freeways the same is used by cars coming from the opposite direction if there's a radar ahead. Still, in peak hours pretty much everyone is a dick, even usually chill Uber drivers. Edit: it's also used as a "sorry" signal too. Als…

Definitely not local. Pretty much a given in Lithuania too. If someone lets you in etc, it's just rude to not flash emergency lights. Even if somebody squeezed in like total dickhead during a rush hour

We use headlights to warn of friends waiting on the other side of the bush though.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#299

Post by PeterisP »

kcanini wrote: post #291
ubernostrum wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you do it after the light goes red (illegal) or immediately on green (also illegal), it's the same underlying problem: the intersection needs a protected left turn in the signal sequence.

Which law is violated if you enter the intersection when the light is green and exit it when the light is red?

In many places it's illegal to enter the intersection (even if the light is green) if you're unable to immediately leave it, mainly to ensure that intersections don't get blocked if there's a traffic jam in the direction you want to go; and this rule also prohibits (not everywhere) to enter the intersection for a left turn if you can't complete the turn right now because there's still oncoming traffic.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#300

Post by romwell »

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…

>It's much more plausible that the dashcam dynamic range was in fact crap and that the police officers at the scene were smart enough to figure out to just pop off the SD card off the dashcam.

..and Uber's lawyers figured that most people have no idea what "dynamic range" is and will eat up "it was dark" as a legitimate excuse for this manslaughter.

There likely was no need to manipulate that video. It was still quite dishonest to release it without clarifying that it was nothing like what either a human or Uber's sensors would see in BIG BOLD RED LETTERS. Most people don't really know better.

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