DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Woman struck by an autonomous Uber vehicle, died in Tempe, Arizona today.

j/c

I find it amusing at best how so many can have such strong opinions when there is almost zero facts about how the incident unfolded.

If the victim walked out in front of a vehicle so quickly that no reaction time was allowed for, it's the pedestrians fault. If the car had time to stop and did not react, you can blame the technology.

But until we have those facts, this is all pure speculation and nothing to base an opinion on.

This was added to the above article...

That video(s) will be huge in justifying this. Regardless who is at fault, I still think these type of cars don't belong testing their unknown devices/technology on the live and open road.

Driverless vehicles have been tested for probably 25 years... no matter how long you test them in controlled areas.. the second you roll them out into public, it's still "testing them"... Just like medicine goes through many levels of testing but eventually it has to be "tested" on people... you can't avoid it.

Valid point made there.

I resemble that remark.

Don't look any further than the hit Classic Futurist Documentary by Stephen King: MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE!!

I would be curious to know what the stats are when comparing human drivers vs autonomous drivers on a per-mile basis. Which causes more accidents, injuries, deaths? I suspect the autonomous cars are already much safer than the average human driver, but likely not very good human drivers.

Whether or not you agree with it (ethically), self-driving cars are the future and they will be here before you know it. They will be mainstream in the 2020s. There's just too much money in it. This will save businesses many billions of dollars per year and all they have to do to push things forward is kick back some of that in the form of campaign contributions.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying, don't expect the politicians to put up much of a fight.

Until the wrongful death lawsuits start coming in anyway.

Say the technology improves to the point where accidents/deaths are much less likely than they currently are. This seems to suggest that it would actually save money on top of scaling back the workforce in the first place. Or maybe juries will decide that a death caused by an autonomous vehicle is vastly worse than one caused by a human driver, and this will be reflected in judgements. Who knows. It's kind of a side point though. This is coming and it's going to be here before we know it.

The point I'm making though is that if Joe the Plumber hits a pedestrian and is found at fault, then an ambulance chasing lawyer can go after a percentage of Joe's paycheck as compensation.

If an Uber self-driving car mows down a pedestrian and is found at fault, then every decent attorney in the country is going to try and have a go at Uber's assets. In the end, there will probably be huge settlements and a new major stockholder of the company.

I hear you...but the fact remains in this case that a human driver was at the wheel of this car testing it. He is ultimately responsible for what happens with the car while testing. This fact is taking the back seat in this discussion.

The attorney doesn't go after the average Joe's paycheck. They go after the insurance company of Joe. If I hit someone today (knock on wood), I'm not going to be sued personally nor am I concerned about my paycheck being jeopardy. The victim's attorney will go after Nationwide and they will likely settle out of court.

As far as attorneys going after Uber, they'll actually be suing Uber's insurance company. No different than today where a truck driver, driving for Wal-Mart, hits and kills someone, the victim's family attorney will go after Wal-Mart's insurance company..

If anything, I can see where as autonomous driving continues to be perfected, this being bad news for attorneys' pocketbooks.

Video of accident in article:

So, was it avoidable? Arizona police release dashcam footage showing moment female pedestrian was killed walking across poorly-lit road by self-driving Uber car that DIDN'T brake

Link

Shouldn't these vehicles be on closed course test tracks instead of public streets to work out the bugs?

If you read the article, the chief of police says car not at fault. I get approx. 2 seconds to react, insufficient to prevent accident. The pedestrian was a drunk, apparently no blood test yet, she was wearing dark clothes, in the dark, in an unlit area, crossing a 45 mph road.

I would like to see the sensor logs if there was even a detection by the automated system, and how this is handled. It may very well be that the programmers failed to account for the possibility of a pedestrian walking directly into the path of the vehicle while at 45 mph on a road where no pedestrians should be crossing.

Like I said earlier, they do not have stupid pedestrians on the test track.

Tulsa, your question has been addressed and answered SEVERAL times, by multiple different people.

Perhaps you could elaborate what exactly you do not get?

I don't think that's the case always. If Ford makes a flaw in their car, and is found to be negligent, then lawyers sue Ford. They don't sue Ford's insurance company. That's kind of what I'm getting at. When you take the "personal liability" out of the equation, then it's a whole different animal. A flaw in a product that causes a death isn't typically something that gets covered by liability insurance.

Why are you bothering to answer a question with a question? If you don't want to respond to my question with an appropriate answer, don't, but stop wasting everyone's time reading that drivel.

Yes they were tested on private roads. THere's different degrees to testing just like with anything else.

Thank you.

I see, you choose to not bother reading the thread and wish to witch, whine, and wail that you are not being spoon-fed what you want.

Noted for future reference.

this suck, RIP the victim.

but unfortunately, there are cost when it comes to developing new tech.

wish the driver was more alert, and while i'm not trying to victim blame, for too often people wear super dark clothing at night. thats fine, but follow the crosswalks if thats the case.

preventable death from all parties involved. hopefully though, they can continue developing this tech.

Only thing that would possibly be better is maybe a thermal sensor of some sort, assuming it doesn't have one already.

Human driver wasn't alert, but hard to say what it really would have looked like from human eyes. The camera certainly shows she came out of nowhere.

Most of the blame is on the victim in this case.

The video is crazy. The victim was almost done crossing the road. I'm sure she thought the car would see her in time and decelerate. How tragic.

However you get your jollies bud.

I'm pretty sure in a 45mph zone at night I wouldn't assume a car would slow down.

In 1925, the inventor Francis Houdina demonstrates a radio-controlled car, which he drives through the streets of Manhattan without anyone at the steering wheel. According to the New York Times, the radio-controlled vehicle can start its engine, shift gears, and sound its horn, “as if a phantom hand were at the wheel.”

Driverless cars (as we know them) have been tested on tracks since the 90s... eventually you have to roll them out.

I can't really make blame. Like you said, she appeared out of NOWHERE in that video. Even if the driver was looking forward the WHOLE time, would they have seen her or possibly some of the bike's reflectors? I would say the reaction would've been better but the outcome probably still tragically the same.

Horrible...

The video has been released. I could not have stopped in time. SHe walked in front out of the dark and did not look

But is it that dark to the naked eye? You're seeing this through the lens of a camera who's iris is adjusted down to the light it sees ahead, making the dark areas darker. The human eye can see so much more than a camera lens.

You have a point there. Just not sure how much of one. I cant see much outside of headlights on a dark road. guess it depends on the moon too.

Also factor in your field of view being much wider while maintaining a greater depth of field. You stand a much greater chance of picking up the movement with your own eyes vs a dash cam. So the question is, while the video shows the lady just coming into view from a dark scene, what did the or could the driver see or have seen? That driver didn't appear to be paying a whole lot of attention.

Outlaw these (dumb) cars for 100 years!

There are enough stupid ways to die without this nonsensical technology.

Hashtag where is the sanctity of human life?

Imo the problem about relying on a video at night is that cameras suck operating at night. Without direct light reflecting the object, cameras just can't pick up things in the dark like human eyes can. She's walking a few feet behind a street lamp and we can still only see her when she's ~10 yards away. Quite frankly there are so many other cars, bridge lights, and lamps on the street where I believe any human driver looking at the road could've avoided killing her.

Autonomous cars don't just use cameras though. They can use lasers, radar and infrared to detect objects.

Most cars use lidar. I was referring to us trying to tell how dark it was via a video recording. Quite frankly, my guess is that Uber's system detected the woman, but the coding didn't recognize her as a person.

Good point!

J/C .... this sounds cold, but it isn't meant to be ..... but technology does take time to go from the drawing board to the public. I wonder how many people were killed by improper installation and/or use of electricity when it 1st came into widespread usage? How many people were killed in auto accidents when they 1st started being used by the the public? (and even today)

There will always be accidents when most technologies are new to the world.

What we can clearly see in the video is that woman was not looking where she was going and she was crossing a street. Hard to blame this on technology.