Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident • Hacker News Board

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#921

Post by stormthebeach » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

manmal wrote: post #803

atonse wrote: post #25

How did LIDAR and IR not catch that? That seems like a pretty serious problem. It's clear from the video that a human driver actually would've had more trouble since the pedestrian showed up in the field of view right before the collision, yet that's in the visible spectrum. When I argue for automated driving (as a casual observer), I tell people about exactly this sort of stuff (a computer can look in 20 places at t…

Regarding how the LIDAR did not catch that, there are 4 possibilities I can think of: 1. A software bug failed to recognize the obstacles, or misclassified them, or it fell below some probability threshold. 2. LIDAR didn’t work at the time, and the car did not shutdown. 3. The victim‘s clothing absorbs the LIDAR‘s wavelength pretty much completely, such that it appeared as a „black hole“ and was ignored by the algori…

4) That portion in particular is a slight down slope

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#922

Post by ng-user » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

Robin_Message wrote: post #877

Why are safety drivers not: - working in pairs, so there is social pressure, conversation, and two pairs of eyes to increase alertness and safety? - doing shifts of 30 - 45 minutes at most [1] (although they could potentially swap back and forth with a co-driver) - issued a dumb-phone for emergencies and searched for entertainment devices (it's good enough for Amazon warehouse staff) - being monitored by the driver-f…

All of those suggestions will increases cost and decrease profit, there's no law mandating any of those so why would they go above and beyond for 'safety' reasons?

I understand it's the ethical decision but at the end of the day for-profit companies are only interested in one thing: maximizing profits.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#923

Post by beegeezuz » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

In any normal country it would have been the pedestrian at fault for crossing at an unmarked place at night time without wearing reflective gear, and not up for debate.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#924

Post by aurizon » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

It looks like Uber is hiring irresponsible homeless people to save $$. It is hard to say if I would have seen her, I am accident free driving for 63 years, however, when I drive, my eyes are on the road, I do not doze off or look at accidents I pass, so I would have slowed dramatically, and possibly stopped. Some frame by frame analysis versus time/velocity etc should answer some questions. LIDAR does not depend on full spectrum light, and should have seen the woman, although the frame is mostly open space?

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#925

Post by kochb » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

We're still in the early days on this, but given this video it appears that there was a hazard in the road that should have been detectable by a road safe system. In this case, the system failed to recognize a person, and they're dead.

I'm not a legal expert, but it seems plausible that this isn't going to be just a sad tragedy with no one at fault - in the near future we could see actions such as negligent homicide charges.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#926

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

Keats wrote: post #818

Someone on Reddit posted a comparison of the same spot at night but with a good camera: https://m.imgur.com/a/PM7uu from a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XOVxSCG8u0 That paints the whole accident in a very different light from the video from Twitter. Would any human not notice someone crossing in the good camera screenshot?

> Would any human not notice someone crossing in the good camera screenshot?

Humans run into things in broad daylight all the time.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#927

Post by throw7 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

1. What a clear failure for self-driving/collision avoidance technology, especially in conditions (night time) that we've been told are much better for machines to "see" in.

2. "safety driver" useless if he's distracted. what's the point if he's not actively engaged?

3. Video comes from what? Is this raw video from the cheapest chinese dashcam uber found on the shelf and slapped into the system so they can get ahead of the story and plausibly deny in certain situations?

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#928

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #105

chrsstrm wrote: post #16

The description given before the video was released painted a picture in my mind that the woman was on the median and "suddenly" entered the roadway in front of the vehicle. I pictured someone darting across the road directly in front of the car, with no way to stop in time. This video shows a completely different scenario. The woman started on the median, but the vehicle was in the #2 lane. She wasn't visible to the…

I think this seems like exactly the scenario that autonomous driving vehicles are intended to prevent. may be optimistic. Lots of people are hoping they will prevent such scenarios, the motivation for fielding them is more related to making lots of money.

Being buried in lawsuits isn't a great way to make money, generally speaking. The people hoping to make lots of money at this should have a pretty high level of motivation to make it safe.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#929

Post by AngeloAnolin » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

Lots of mention about LIDAR here. As well as IR sensors, etc.

Unless Uber comes out with all the technical specifications that is mounted on the car to detect motion and obstruction on the road, all are mere speculations.

The vehicle in question here would be in the custody of the authorities (impounded), so they should be able to investigate the details on it. Uber should provide as much technical specifications available on the vehicle to aid in the investigation (especially if they are certain that it was more the fault of the pedestrian rather than the self-driving vehicle (SDV)).

SDV companies and advocates should probably pool resources where they could buy a parcel of land, simulate it into a city like settings, and perform edge case tests such as people suddenly crossing, animals, objects, lighting conditions. This will allow for better simulation as well as advancement of technology that would soon realize the possibilities of autonomous driving cars on the road as safe and reliable.

Update: Added safe and reliable.

Re: Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident

#930

Post by kyrra » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

AngeloAnolin wrote: post #929

Lots of mention about LIDAR here. As well as IR sensors, etc. Unless Uber comes out with all the technical specifications that is mounted on the car to detect motion and obstruction on the road, all are mere speculations. The vehicle in question here would be in the custody of the authorities (impounded), so they should be able to investigate the details on it. Uber should provide as much technical specifications ava…

Waymo has 91-acres already[0]. They are selling/donating that land to the "California AutoTech Testing, Development and Production Campus", which will expand to 300 acres and allow others to use it too[1].

[0] https://www.wired.com/story/google-waymo-self-driving-car-ca...

[1] http://wardsauto.com/industry/samsung-joins-waymo-autonomous...