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Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

reuters.com

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Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#321

Post by Quenty »

untog wrote: post #311

This opens up an interesting question going forward. We can't rely on Uber themselves to analyse the telemetry data and come to a conclusion, they're biased. So really, we need self driving car companies to turn over accident telemetry data to the police. But the police are ill equipped to process that data. We need law enforcement to be able to keep pace with advances in technology and let's face it, they're not goi…

State governments, especially those authorizing self driving cars, could authorize this to some extent.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#322

Post by DangerousPie »

I know this is a slightly insensitive question to ask right now, but assuming that what happened was that the car tried to turn right and the cyclist came from behind and crossed into its path[0]: Who would actually have been in the wrong?

I cycle along paths like this from time to time myself, and I always assume that I should let a turning car pass in front of me. As soon as I see the turn signal I will either fall back or even pass into the car lane to overtake on the other side.

Of course that's in part because I know I would lose the fight anyway, but also because I think I am not actually supposed to be "overtaking" them on the right side, so they have the right of way before me.

What do the rules say in this case?

[0] This is based on this link posted elsewhere: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4370667,-111.9430321,3a,75y,...

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#323

Post by openasocket »

untog wrote: post #311

This opens up an interesting question going forward. We can't rely on Uber themselves to analyse the telemetry data and come to a conclusion, they're biased. So really, we need self driving car companies to turn over accident telemetry data to the police. But the police are ill equipped to process that data. We need law enforcement to be able to keep pace with advances in technology and let's face it, they're not goi…

Aren't you basically just proposing that the NTSB analyze automobile telemetry, the same way they analyze aircraft telemetry data? Doesn't seem wildly outside the realm of possibility.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#324

Post by [deleted] »

untog wrote: post #311

This opens up an interesting question going forward. We can't rely on Uber themselves to analyse the telemetry data and come to a conclusion, they're biased. So really, we need self driving car companies to turn over accident telemetry data to the police. But the police are ill equipped to process that data. We need law enforcement to be able to keep pace with advances in technology and let's face it, they're not goi…

[deleted]

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#325

Post by JustSomeNobody »

smallgovt wrote: post #111

Not to dismiss the tragedy of this incident, but it should be expected that self-driving cars kill pedestrians -- just at a rate lower than what's expected from human drivers. Perhaps there's a better metric to look at, but I'd like to see number of deaths caused per miles driven. If Uber's self-driving cars are killing more pedestrians than a human driver would, we have a huge problem, but I'd be willing to bet they…

I'm pretty sure you don't want to compare right now. Self-driving cars are just too new.

I think the rate of overall vehicle crash deaths in the U.S. is less than 2 per 100 Million vehicle miles. Pedestrian traffic is a fraction of that.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#326

Post by propman »

This is purely an emotional initial reaction to hearing this without knowing most facts, but I just have to vent and for once be part of the outrage culture and make emotionally charged statements before more info comes out.

Uber ruining self driving cars that can save 20k lives each year and improve our economy and get millions out of poverty and improve everyone's quality of life by being short sighted, financial driven, and bringing the worst aspects of Silicon Valley to the extreme.

I am so sorry to everyone at Google and Waymo who have tried so hard to not let anything like this happen by being extremely cautious and safe. Ughhhh I feel so frustrated, this is going to cause so much backlash.

Travis, Anthony and whoever else pushed for this to go ahead without caring about safety is evil. This action doesn't have a direct correlation of evil like directly murdering someone. But these highly intelligent individuals ignored their conscience and the easy deduction that actions to compromise safety, laws, decency for quick profit are immoral. Whether they admit it or not they KNEW that this was a high possibility and refused to take precautions creating this awful culture. 20k lives a year, and all the benifits that will be delayed for years are on their head.

They won't face any consequences, just convince themselves of absolution of guilt and do nothing to remedy the situation, but I have no respect for them.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#327

Post by dagurp »

untog wrote: post #311

This opens up an interesting question going forward. We can't rely on Uber themselves to analyse the telemetry data and come to a conclusion, they're biased. So really, we need self driving car companies to turn over accident telemetry data to the police. But the police are ill equipped to process that data. We need law enforcement to be able to keep pace with advances in technology and let's face it, they're not goi…

NTSB? https://www.ntsb.gov

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#328

Post by astrodust »

Johnny555 wrote: post #240
pcthrowaway wrote: post #65

The people leading the development should demonstrate that they can stop for pedestrians by personally jumping out in front of them on a closed test road. If they're not able to demonstrate this, they shouldn't be putting them on public roads.

Self driving cars are still subject to the laws of physics... unless you're going to dictate that self-driving cars never go above 15mph, I wouldn't advocate jumping in front of even a "perfect" self-driving car. Braking distance (without including any decision time) for a 15mph car is 11 ft, for a 30mph is 45 ft. Self driving cars won't change these limits. (well, they may be a little better than humans at maximizin…

Unlike humans who have limited vision, self-driving cars are generally able to observe all obstacles in all directions and compute, in real-time, the probability of a collision.

If a car can't observe any potential hazards that might impact it using different threat models it should drive more slowly. Blowing down a narrow street with parked cars on both sides at precisely the speed limit is not a good plan.

Re: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

#329

Post by lukev »

JackFr wrote: post #67
nodesocket wrote: post #8

Striking a pedestrian in a crosswalk is horrible and terrible news. The reality though is how many pedestrians are hit by manual driver's vs automous drivers? On a percentage basis I gotta believe autonomous cars are orders of magnitude safer. Self driving cars aren't going to be perfect. How many people lost their lives in early factories to machines during the industral revolution? Imagine if they had pulled the pl…

> On a percentage basis I gotta believe autonomous cars are orders of magnitude safer. Why? NHTSA reports 1.15 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles travelled in 2015. Waymo advertises >5 million road miles travelled. Let's say Waymo + Uber have driven 10 million vehicle miles and killed 1 person. That makes them 10 times more dangerous than human driven cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_r…

This is the important statistic. Evidence so far points to autonomous drivers being worse than human drivers. In which they definitely have no place on the streets without a lot more R&D.
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