The day I accidentally killed a little boy • Hacker News Board

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#161

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:47 PM UTC

luckroy wrote: post #154

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those houses are generally located far away from the road (farm houses) or are in some other way separated from the road way. If it’s a rural highway and houses are near the road, it typically results in a speed zone, even in desolate Nevada.

That's not true everywhere. My wife's parents live in rural Iowa on a highway that has a 45 mph speed limit. Their home is part of a small cluster of homes and their mailbox is across the road, similar to the circumstances in the OP story.

45 is a speed zone if the normal speed is 60 or 70. I just got done traveling on US 395 through most of California, and we would typically speed zone down to 45, then 40, then 35....around houses. I’m sure there are actually well defined rules about this in California.

Regardless, living on a highway is not prime real estate.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#162

Post by vanadium » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:47 PM UTC

Pigo wrote: post #7

I can barely bring myself to read stories like this now. I never really thought about it before my son was born, but there's always this dread you live with in the back of your mind. This little helpless person has your life in it's hands. The world and fate is trying to take them out, and if they succeed you'd never recover. You can learn to live with pain, but I don't believe you ever get over something like that.

Same. It's bad enough that my son (then 2, now 6) almost ran into a very busy street while I was in the car waiting as my wife was getting him ready to go home from daycare.

That feeling of utter panic and helplessness watching him run while my wife and I screamed for him to stop will never, ever go away. It still pains me when the memory comes up, of what could have been.

He stopped 3 feet from an oncoming 18-wheeler and turned around in more fear than I've ever seen in a little kid since.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#163

Post by joosters » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #151

joosters wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autonomous cars could actually lead to increases in road deaths (or at least, less pressure to improve road safety, and hence less potential reduction in deaths), because people would be far less invested in the accident. There would always be someone else to potentially blame: the manufacturer of the vehicle, the programmer of the software, the creators of the sensors, or even the owner of the vehicle not cleaning t…

Has that ever happened before in the American or other western legal system? It seems highly unlikely that no one would be assigned blame. Heck, we already have cars driven for us (taxis) and the blame for an accident is attributed to the driver, that wouldn’t change if the driver was a computer, the legal syste, wouldn’t simply shutdown.

Well, it happened in the original article. The driver was not charged with killing someone.

Even if blame is cast, in the autonomous future that blame would be upon a company, or multiple companies, whose legal departments will spend great effort diverting the blame onto other people or other companies. No one individual will be charged with killing someone, and no one person will have a death on their conscience.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#164

Post by zuppy » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #63

weavie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expound on how the culture and mindset is different? I can imagine what it would be, but don't want to just jump to stereotypes..

In Europe you generally have to be 18 to get your drivers license, and rigorous study is required to obtain a drivers license. 40-50 hours of driving with an instructor (depending on your talent), and a test that I as a reasonably intelligent person had to take three times to pass. Note that this makes getting your license fairly expensive (on the order of 1500 to 2000 euro), some parents save up for this like Americ…

Depends of what you mean by Europe... For example, in Romania it's a few hundred euros (~300-400€).

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#165

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

Pigo wrote: post #28

ceejayoz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American road infrastructure is owned and controlled at the state/local level. The Feds don't even own the Interstate system, and the standards for it are set by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

The original commenter was saying the US is criminally liable for not being as amazing as Sweden. So it sounded like they were saying the fed needs to swoop in and fix their mess. That's where I was coming from anyways.

"Borderline criminal" tends to be a rhetorical way of saying "they should be ashamed". Even if it was literal, states can be liable, and as the primary folks in charge of road infrastructure, they'd be the targets.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#166

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #9

bryanlarsen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it" That's BS. Sweden has essentially zero pedestrian fatalities annually, and its overall traffic fatality rate is well under a quarter that of the US. There are two main components: reducing speed limits and spending money on infrastructure. Both of these are anathema in the US, but the refusal to do so is borderline criminal, IMO. http://www.visionzeroinitiative.…

Sweden may also have more stringent license requirements...

And? If they play an important role in the difference, we should adopt them.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#167

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

joosters wrote: post #142

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #3

You have to feel terribly sad for everyone involved here. The only place the blame can rest is humanity's desire to mix very fast, solid vehicles with very slow, squishy pedestrians in the same spaces. We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it, but hopefully self-driving cars (and less polluting cars, too) will start to reverse the damage done by the automobile, in the not-too distant future.

Autonomous cars could actually lead to increases in road deaths (or at least, less pressure to improve road safety, and hence less potential reduction in deaths), because people would be far less invested in the accident. There would always be someone else to potentially blame: the manufacturer of the vehicle, the programmer of the software, the creators of the sensors, or even the owner of the vehicle not cleaning t…

The legal system has already solved this problem because liability isn't exclusive. For a product that the operator and owner are required to maintain in safe condition, where there is contribution of a defect in some component, it's possible for the operator, owner, the whole sales chain, the manufacturer and the supplier of the defective component to all be fully liable, and for none of them to be able to avoid that liability because the others also could be held liable.

Autonomous cars aren't special, even among cars, in this concern, and it's not a remotely new problem for the legal system.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#168

Post by jordanmoconnor » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

asow92 wrote: post #107

Tragic. But how is this hacker news?

"Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#169

Post by 0942v8653 » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

Myrmornis wrote: post #66

qaq wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same and this is a really good idea

Non-parent here. I’m surprised to hear calls for a Netflix “safe space” from adults on HN rather than from whiny kids at a liberal arts college. It’s obvious that you’re sincere and that becoming a parent has affected you profoundly.

There's a chasm of difference between electing not to consume some form of entertainment, and refusing to listen to an argument or speech in a university environment.

Most of the time when harm to a child is depicted in a film or television show, it is sort of a cheap, unfair way to get at the viewer's emotions.

What is suggested here is nowhere near the same thing as having a "safe space" which restricts the speech of others.

Re: The day I accidentally killed a little boy

#170

Post by adventured » Tue, Jan 09, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #29

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #3

You have to feel terribly sad for everyone involved here. The only place the blame can rest is humanity's desire to mix very fast, solid vehicles with very slow, squishy pedestrians in the same spaces. We're way too far down that rabbit-hole to address it, but hopefully self-driving cars (and less polluting cars, too) will start to reverse the damage done by the automobile, in the not-too distant future.

> but hopefully self-driving cars Think more boldly: public transportation.

There's no reason self driving cars/vehicles can't be public transportation. Most likely there will be a segment just like that.

A slightly larger, electric, van type vehicle, that holds ten people, for public group commuting. It would be a solid improvement over present circumstances and would probably work quite well, and cost effectively, for poorer working class people.