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One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

spiegel.de

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Re: One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

#12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving car crashed into old lady. Old lady crashed into another car. That other car's driver died.

According to the articke, autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment) hit car A (old lady), car A subsequently hit car B, car B went of the road, hit a tree and caught fire. After hitting car A, the autonomous car hit car C head on (I assume that's what you see in the picture), driver of car C died (no surpise whej looking at the picture). Pretty fucked up,…

The logo on the center of the front wheel rim is unmistakably BMW's logo.

Edit: Also, car B caught fire and its driver died, the BMW crashed head on into car C but the article says the BMW and car C's occupants were seriously injured.

Re: One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

#13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the articke, autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment) hit car A (old lady), car A subsequently hit car B, car B went of the road, hit a tree and caught fire. After hitting car A, the autonomous car hit car C head on (I assume that's what you see in the picture), driver of car C died (no surpise whej looking at the picture). Pretty fucked up,…

The logo on the center of the front wheel rim is unmistakably BMW's logo. Edit: Also, car B caught fire and its driver died, the BMW crashed head on into car C but the article says the BMW and car C's occupants were seriously injured.

Wasn't sure on mobile.

Re: One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

#14
fun headline if it's not even clear if the driver was driving or not.

> Whether the vehicle was driven by the 43-year-old driver or not is the subject of the investigation and is currently unknown, a police spokesperson said on Tuesday. The cause of the accident remains unclear.

Re: One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

#15

BMW says it wasn't a self-driving car: https://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/b28-im-kreis-reutlingen-s...

Though censored in some news reports, the vehicle has stickers with the text www.bmw.com/autonomousdriving. Apparently an autonomous driving test vehicle, although it is unclear whether autonomous driving was active at the time.

https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441

Re: One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

#16
> autonom fahrenden E-Testfahrzeug

This was a test car (driven by a 43yo)

> In einer Kurve kam das Auto aus bislang unklaren Gründen auf die Gegenfahrbahn und streifte dort ein entgegenkommendes Auto

For unknown reasons the test car changed lanes in a curve, driving towards (into?) an incoming car.

> Die 70 Jahre alte Fahrerin stieß in der Folge mit ihrem Wagen frontal in das Auto eines 32-Jährigen.

The aforementioned incoming car (driven y a 70yo woman) hit another car frontally (driven by a 32yo)

> Das Auto des Mannes kam von der Fahrbahn ab und fing Feuer.

That later car went offroad and burst into flames.

> Im weiteren Verlauf prallte der E-Testwagen zudem frontal in ein weiteres Auto

The test car then ran into yet another car frontally.

Re: One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

#17
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving car crashed into old lady. Old lady crashed into another car. That other car's driver died.

According to the articke, autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment) hit car A (old lady), car A subsequently hit car B, car B went of the road, hit a tree and caught fire. After hitting car A, the autonomous car hit car C head on (I assume that's what you see in the picture), driver of car C died (no surpise whej looking at the picture). Pretty fucked up,…

>autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment)

More evidence that testing this stuff on the public roads, backup driver or not, is dangerous.

Re: One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

#18
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the articke, autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment) hit car A (old lady), car A subsequently hit car B, car B went of the road, hit a tree and caught fire. After hitting car A, the autonomous car hit car C head on (I assume that's what you see in the picture), driver of car C died (no surpise whej looking at the picture). Pretty fucked up,…

> autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment) More evidence that testing this stuff on the public roads, backup driver or not, is dangerous.

I do agree with that. We should wait until we have the details to make up our minds about this.

One of the problems I have with self driving is, that everyone on the road can judge, to a degree, how the others will behave given certain circumstances. Just what self driving cars will do is everyones guess. And self driving's track record so far is underwhelming, to put it mildly.

Re: One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

#19
Serious question: will we demand perfection from autonomous cars before we allow them out of “test” status?

How many autonomous miles without an accident will be sufficient to prove safety?

I am not diminishing this tragedy; I can only imagine the grief of the families involved and my heart goes out to them.

I am also NOT making the “have to break a few eggs to make an omelette“ argument; clearly something went wrong and I look forward to understanding what led to this accident so we can avoid it in the future. The article left out lots of facts like whether the car was truly autonomous; whether it was in autonomous mode; whether it had been approved for that; whether the driver failed to supervise it appropriately, etc.

Note that the Concorde had a perfect safety record and was the safest (statistically) commercial airframe until it’s one and only accident, after which is was the least safe airframe [1] by passenger deaths per air mile.

I own a Tesla and love it but the autopilot function is not even close to ready for autonomous driving, in my opinion. I love autopilot and use it every time I drive but it has trouble with even simple problems like two lanes merging down into one and the center line disappearing. I don’t have direct experience with other autonomous cars and am aware of the criticisms of Tesla’s non LIDAR approach.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/07/30/w...

Re: One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

#20
post #15

BMW says it wasn't a self-driving car: https://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/b28-im-kreis-reutlingen-s...

Though censored in some news reports, the vehicle has stickers with the text www.bmw.com/autonomousdriving. Apparently an autonomous driving test vehicle, although it is unclear whether autonomous driving was active at the time. https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441

One BMW spokesperson said: "We are currently investigating the exact circumstances. Naturally, we are in close contact with the authorities. One thing is already clear: The BMW vehicle involved was not an autonomous driving vehicle."

Maybe it was a vehicle with additional equipment for collection data/imagery that was still completely driven by a human driver. That would explain the stickers.

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