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Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

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Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#141

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

danso wrote: post #44

The NYT just published a graphic that purports to show the location of the vehicle and the victim: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/20/us/self-drivi... This is the first report I've seen that indicates the Uber AV was in the right lane. Remember that the victim was crossing from left to right, and that all of the visible damage on the AV is on the right-side bumper. It's very hard to imagine a scenario in…

The question that comes to my mind then is.... why didn't the human driver that was sitting behind the wheel react?

Could this be a demonstration of what people talk about with regards to partial autonomy being a detriment to human attention?

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#142

Post by antoineMoPa »

mirimir wrote: post #106
Someone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”If the woman suddenly walked in front of the car at the last minute, I don't see how the situation could have been avoided” Likely, but not necessarily. Depending (hugely!) on what actually happened, it might be that the car should have started slowing down before the woman changed course. As an extreme example, if you’re driving at 50 mph and come up behind a kid cycling at the side of the road with a foot separati…

I have had vehicles blow by me on a bicycle at 50 mph, on fairly narrow county roads.

Same here during my road biking years (I switched to Jogging and unicycle). Even though I disliked the risk, I enjoyed the wind as it allowed me to ride faster.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#143

Post by antoineMoPa »

IncRnd wrote: post #127
sjg007 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was driving a car and saw the pedestrian ahead of time walking or trying to cross I would have slowed down and changed lanes away fro them or at least moved far right if safe. Same thing when you pass bicycles. Change lanes away if possible or at the very least give more buffer. You can never tell what someone may do so you should anticipate the unexpected.

I haven't read the words "defensive driving" in any of the articles about this incident.

Yes, and they thought it was a good idea to make cars go at 38mph in a 30mph zone.

Edit: The limit seems to be 35mph sorry, thank all of you for pointing that out. (38 is still over the limit, why allow a robot to do that?)

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#144

Post by mschuster91 »

lsaferite wrote: post #135
mschuster91 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn't realize that people with criminal records like this could become Uber drivers. In a civilized society people should be able to get jobs when they get out of prison. It's called "time served" for a reason. Everything other is just paving the path to recidivism - when people can't make a living because no one will hire ex-cons, they don't have any other way of literally staying alive than living as hobos or…

My understanding is that in Europe a criminal record is hidden from all but LEOs after 7 years as well.

Depends on the country and the type of offense(s). I'm fine with justified accesses for employers - e.g. a trucking company might be allowed to ask the state "has XYZ committed a drunk/drugged or other driving offense in the last 3 years", but I see no valid reason to (involuntarily) disclosing to any new employer that someone has been sentenced for public urination or fare dodging. AFAIK, there is no such "filtering" option available anywhere... and especially with fare dodging, people get essentially criminalized for being poor.

The state should provide an interface for employers to input the personal data of the candidate and the job the candidate is applying for, and the interface should simply give a "OK", "not OK", "no way OK" (e.g. for pedophiles applying for childcare jobs) and "OK with conditions". That would be a safeguard for privacy while also providing employers with a check that they don't hire someone totally wrong for the job.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#145

Post by s73v3r_ »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #55
robotbikes wrote: post #34

I haven't seen anyone post this yet but I highly suspect the fact that she was pushing a bicycle impacted the machine learning driven AIs ability to determine she was a pedestrian. This reminds me of the kangaroos messing up the AV programs being tested in Australia. A human paying attention may have been wary of a person pushing a bike in the shadows but for all we know the algorithm thought that she was a bush or s…

Weird scenarios that can't be predicted are important to consider. Waymo presentations like talking about a situation they ran into where the car needed to stop because it encountered an old woman in a wheelchair with a broom chasing a turkey. As I understand it, most of these companies sensibly say "unknown weird thing in/near road means stop the car." ooo, there's video of the turkey wheelchair broom chase: https:/…

A person pushing a bike is far, far from a "weird scenario", though.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#146

Post by rconti »

TillE wrote: post #13
dzdt wrote: post #6

Yes, the report you'd hope to be hearing from Uber is along the lines of "0.2 seconds after the pedestrian entered the travel lane the automated system identified her as a hazard and initiated an avoidance maneuver. Despite braking and beginning to swerve away, the car impacted the pedestrian 1.2 seconds later." Thats the promise the automated vehicle people are selling. But in this case it seems the car was clueless…

I'm really skeptical about swerving as an evasive maneuver. It's complicated to get that right. But yes, if it didn't at least slam the brakes then something went badly wrong. Maybe you can't prevent an accident, but you can at least reduce momentum and demonstrate that your system was working correctly.

Swerving is a better way to avoid a collision, but braking would have at least reduced the severity.

Of course, this all presumes you can quickly analyze the situation and conclude that it is safe to swerve (which, in theory, the computer can do far faster than a human can).

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#147

Post by dahdum »

gnicholas wrote: post #49

> The driver, Rafael Vasquez, 44, served time in prison for armed robbery and other charges in the early 2000s, according to Arizona prison and Maricopa County Superior Court records. Uber declined to comment on Vasquez’s criminal record. I didn't realize that people with criminal records like this could become Uber drivers. That is, these types of crimes are relevant to working as an Uber driver—more than things lik…

Wow...I didn't know Uber allows violent felony convictions, but looks like they ignore any convictions more than 7 years old. Including murder.

Colorado fined them $8.9M last year for violating background check laws.

https://www.denverpost.com/2017/11/20/uber-colorado-fine/

"The PUC said the drivers should have been disqualified. They had issues ranging from felony convictions to driving under the influence and reckless driving. In some cases, drivers were working with revoked, suspended or canceled licenses, the state said. A similar investigation of smaller competitor Lyft found no violations."

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#148

Post by rconti »

gmueckl wrote: post #42
TillE wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really skeptical about swerving as an evasive maneuver. It's complicated to get that right. But yes, if it didn't at least slam the brakes then something went badly wrong. Maybe you can't prevent an accident, but you can at least reduce momentum and demonstrate that your system was working correctly.

You can (and should!) brake and swerve at the same time. Unless you are driving an oldtimer, the car is capable of doing that. In my driving lessons I got told to swerve for humans. Pedestrians and cyclists are the least protected participants in traffic. If you swerve and hit another car, the resulting crash will cause a lot of damage, but injuries to humans will likely be much less severe, if they even happen. Anim…

Yes and no. The very action of braking will reduce available grip for the swerve. However, ABS and stability control mean you are at least quite unlikely to lose control if you try to do both at the same time. And of course, in this case, only a mild swerve would have been required, and adding braking would help scrub speed in the event that the obstacle moves in a manner that your swerve does not avoid.

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#149

Post by danso »

sushisource wrote: post #126
sdrothrock wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet the police were so quick to say that camera footage indicates that Uber was likely not at fault. I was surprised at that -- it doesn't seem to me that the police would have the technical knowledge of Uber's hardware and algorithms to categorically state that, let alone so quickly.

Well, if you saw that video and it really did show a So whether or not the police understand self-driving systems is not relevant to the fundamental physics problem. The key question is how long was the ped visible.

An accident may be physically impossible to prevent, but that's not the only standard. Initial reports (from the police) say that Uber AV did not even brake. Is not braking at all within a 1 second window the performance touted by AV's detection and braking system?

Re: Police Say Video Shows Woman Stepped Suddenly in Front of Self-Driving Uber

#150

Post by eddieplan9 »

danso wrote: post #44

The NYT just published a graphic that purports to show the location of the vehicle and the victim: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/20/us/self-drivi... This is the first report I've seen that indicates the Uber AV was in the right lane. Remember that the victim was crossing from left to right, and that all of the visible damage on the AV is on the right-side bumper. It's very hard to imagine a scenario in…

Please stop spreading rumors and speculations. The graphic is an illustration and does not necessarily place the car in the actual lane. It clearly contradicts with the police chief’s statement that the victim walks right into traffic from center medium. It even contradicts with the left arrow pointing to the impact location in the same picture.
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