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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

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the basic point, but does the 1.13 per 100 million miles figure include freeway driving?

freeway driving causes less accidents than street driving

I think you were downvoted to dead because people saw this as an objection to the parent; more charitably, I assume you're just adding more color - but you might want to telegraph your intentions a bit clearer.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#282
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I think it's one of those things that is both inexcusable and guaranteed to happen. It absolutely makes sense to put a human in a car you're testing and don't have full confidence in yet but are sending into real traffic. Not doing so would be ludicrously negligent. However, humans simply don't maintain focus for a long period of time without some sort of extreme, years-long training. The ability of mon…

However, if the car saw the pedestrian, even as a false positive (presumably from far enough away to have enough time to brake/avoid it), I think it should’ve alerted the driver. The driver would’ve most likely started paying attention and avoided the crash.

> I think it should’ve alerted the driver.

I like the idea, and if these pruned false positives are rare enough I think it would be a great safety measure - you could even have the driver verbally label things, which might have both training (in the AI sense) and awareness (for the humans) benefits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling).

Note that "rare enough" needn't be all that rare, just that if it is multiple every second or something it clearly wouldn't be practical.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This custom is prevalent in places other than Pittsburgh. It can also get you a citation if a cop sees it.

As it should, what a ridiculous thing to do.

As a long-time but not native Pittsburgher, I have to agree. The "Pittsburgh Left" is dangerous . There are arguments here that it eases traffic flow by "crowd-sourcing" a left-turn light or that without it there'd be a backup of traffic. What rubbish. A left turn light allows several (dozens at some intersections) make a left. A "Pittsburgh Left" only allows one reckless, impatient driver make this left. And I see it more often on four lane roads than on two lane roads so I discount the eases traffic flow argument. It's a moving violation with a heavy fine and points on your license - as it should be.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#285
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's illegal to enter an intersection if you're unable to immediately leave it. So, if you don't have a clear left turn, you're supposed to sit behind the white line. Likewise, it's illegal to enter an intersection, going straight, when there isn't enough space in your lane, for the back of your car to clear the intersection. Doesn't stop people, though.

Your first point is not true, at least not where I live. It is legal to enter an intersection to prepare to make a left turn before oncoming traffic has cleared. This very scenario is spelled out in the NYS drivers manual— see the second example under “right of way”. [0]

[0] https://dmv.ny.gov/about-dmv/chapter-5-intersections-and-tur...

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#286
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> get 5 9s reliability That's it? Humans have greater than 7 9's reliability when driving. (As measured by fatalities per time of driving, and assuming a fatality takes 5 minutes, and average speed is 30mph.) If the cause of a fatality is 10 seconds of failure, not 5 minutes, humans have greater than 9 9s of reliability. Math: 10 seconds / (1.13 / (30 miles/hour / 100 million miles)) Fatality rate is 1.13 per 100 mil…

Fatalities seems like a pretty low bar to measure failures by... I would prefer to measure reliability by reported accidents per 100k miles. This stat seems to be 183 per million miles in 2009, compared to 1.13 for fatalities per million miles. So quite enough to shave 7 9's down to 5ish...

The problem is that a lot of accidents are not reported and even injury severity can be very subjective (especially if there's an interest to do so[1]). I prefer counting fatalities because it's a hard endpoint - bodies are hard to hide.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ogxZxu6cjM

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#287
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if this happens i will surely protest self-driving cars. cities should be built for pedestrians, not cars.

Don't protest self-driving cars, protest the laws you feel shouldn't apply to you. After all, there are plenty of other reasons jaywalking laws might become more strictly enforced.

If I'm not mistaken, car makers first lobbied to outlaw jaywalking. So if it's anything like the past, protesting self-driving cars and protesting the laws will amount to the same thing.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like the opposite of that -- letting the left turn car go before both sides move, rather than after both sides finish. The behaviour you just described is what everyone does in Michigan. The Pittsburgh left sounds friendlier, but more risk prone to people who don't expect it or respect it.

Correct, although the creep and go after the light is also practiced. Main reason for the Pittsburgh left's popularity is that there are a number of roads in and around the city where during rush hour it's otherwise impossible to ever make a left and have no turn lane.

This happens to me sometimes, my solution is to overshoot by a block, then hook 3 right turns, rather than slow up everyone behind me or pull a daredevil left. I would hope self driving cars would be programmed to follow a strategy like mine while still accommodating daredevils by using cautious acceleration and effective collision avoidance.

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#289

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…

And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away. I think we should be targeting self driving for long-haul freeway scenarios where the rules are relatively simple and predictable. Trying to control for the infinite number of scenarios in cities is a nightmare which will ultimately bog down the development of any company which makes that its goal.

We should anyway just remove cars from cities altogether

Re: Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck

#290
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pull into the intersection and go when it’s clear (on yellow or red). Gunning it so you can cut off oncoming traffic is ridiculous.

That doesn't solve it at all, you're thinking of a different problem. I got clued in from another comment that only mentioned it offhand, but this is the problem the "Pittsburgh left" tries to solve: The traffic is a single lane, and you want to turn left. Light turns green, and you wait for the oncoming traffic to clear. All traffic behind you is stopped on a green because they can't get around you.

Even with multiple lanes this can be an issue as people behind you try to merge right to pass you which in busy traffic increases the chance of accidents and causes slowdowns.
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