Posted on 03/19/2018 11:44:55 AM PDT by grundle
SAN FRANCISCO — A woman in Tempe, Ariz., has died after being hit by a self-driving car operated by Uber, in what appears to be the first known death of a pedestrian struck by an autonomous vehicle on a public road.
The Uber vehicle was in autonomous mode with a human safety driver at the wheel when it struck the woman, who was crossing the street outside of a crosswalk, the Tempe police said in a statement. The episode happened on Sunday around 10 p.m. The woman was not publicly identified.
Uber said it had suspended testing of its self-driving cars in Tempe, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They need to be.
When this technology CUTS a thousand fold the fatality rate per mile versus human drivers, then they have a leg to stand on.
Right now, expect that the driver less car is DEAD, and God help anybody who has money invested.
“DOES NOT COMPUTE”
“DOES NOT COMPUTE”
I walk my bike across intersections all the time, look at the HUMAN drivers faces, and react accordingly.
Poor girl never had a chance.
right-of-way or no right-of-way, the claim will be of a faulty and/or excessively dangerous design. just because someone doesn’t have the right-of-way doesn’t automatically mean they’re supposed to get a death sentence.
an ordinary driver exercising ordinary diligence will do their best to brake and or avoid killing ANY pedestrian under any circumstance. How many times did you undertake to kill a pedestrian because they violated the right-of-way? Or did you do your best to avoid killing a fellow human being who wasn’t exercising good judgement?
It is advertised as “autonomous.” Therefore, all the responsibility goes to the software that powered the car, and to the team of software designers.
That won’t happen, of course. The driverless car’s “driver” will be held responsible.
Better get this straight, folks. Many companies are gearing up to unleash robots and/or “artificial intelligence.” These devices can and will injure people, kill people, or destroy property. Better figure out who is responsible, folks! And DO NOT hold the entire public responsible through some crazy scheme.
You’re very fond of assuming the car did not brake. There’s nothing to indicate that in the story, you just want to make sure we all think a human driver would have avoided the accident, while studiously ignoring the fact that there WAS a human in the car, and they didn’t. Some accidents can’t be avoided, at least from one side. And when it’s ped vs car failing to comprehend the right of way is very often a death sentence, that’s why peds need to remember they don’t have any armor.
“What about the mangled bicycle on the sidewalk ahead of the vehicle?”
It’s gonna sue, too.
When the bridge fell and killed people, it is the bridges fault, not the people behind it. As with guns, not the people misusing them, but a call for banning guns. This Uber car had an attendant behind the wheel monitoring the driverless car, what was he doing, daydreaming or fondling himself? Ban all driverless cars now, because someone got killed by one. Or someone, a human(s), need to be held accountable for killing a person.
So, what exactly is the purpose of the “safety driver”? Is he just there to take the keys away from the car if it runs over someone?
You’re very fond of assuming that the car DID brake. There’s nothing to indicate that in the story.
I’m assuming nothing. Maybe it braked, maybe it didn’t. Maybe it had an opportunity to brake, maybe it didn’t. We don’t know, and frankly it doesn’t matter. What we know in this instance is that whatever went down the human backup didn’t spot it in time either. Which happens. We live in an imperfect world. You want to make assumptions and play the luddite, but out here in reality all the current data says a human wouldn’t have done any better (because they didn’t).
Only robots allowed to walk.
It takes from 145' to 195', nearly half, to two thirds, of a football field, to stop from 45 MPH. The story I read said the vehicle was northbound, on Mill Road, near Curry Road in Tempe, and the speed limit along there is 45 MPH.
Could you get it done if someone rolled or stepped out in front of you? Could you do it at night?
We know nothing except there was an accident and death, and that there is a damaged bike, and an Uber vehicle with damage to the right front corner.
Does it matter? If she was on her bike, or with her bike on the road, she had the right-of-way.
...
Arizona: Vehicles must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians within a crosswalk that are in the same half of the roadway as the vehicle or when a pedestrian is approaching closely enough from the opposite side of the roadway to constitute a danger. Pedestrians may not suddenly leave the curb and enter a crosswalk into the path of a moving vehicle that is so close the vehicle is unable to yield. Pedestrians must yield the right-of-way to vehicles when crossing outside of a marked crosswalk or an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. Where traffic control devices are in operation, pedestrians may only cross between two adjacent intersections in a marked crosswalk.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/pedestrian-crossing-50-state-summary.aspx
We don't know that the software or driver didn't exercise good judgement or attempt to stop. We just know the car hit a bike at 10 PM (it's full dark at 10 PM), and the speed limit in that area is 45 MPH.
I'll almost guarantee there's video from the car of this (for the very reasons everyone expects - litigation primarily, and tweaking the software/hardware secondarily). We should probably wait until that is reviewed before deeming the vehicle/driver at fault.
There have been industrial accidents before. I think this kind of roboticide is new though.
And as she was on or maybe on a bicycle, what does the law say for this?
That's also an assumption. It takes 145' to 195' to stop from 45MPH (depending on reaction time, weight of vehicle, driving conditions). It was dark, which can be a delay in itself if whatever is out there isn't in the headlights (shouldn't matter to a vehicle with all kinds of sensors).
All we know is someone is dead, and the death was caused by a collision with an Uber vehicle that was in autonomous drive mode with a human as backup.
Don't take this as an endorsement of autonomous vehicles. I don't want them on the roads with me.
AZ law says crosswalks are for pedestrians, if you’re on your bike you’re a vehicle and need to follow vehicle rules to the best of your ability. Of course people ride their bikes through crosswalks all the time and nobody cares, unless there’s an accident.
No assumption. There’s a person in the car, if they spotted the situation and acted it was too late, we know this because the accident was not avoided.
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