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 ...
Don’t bicyclists have to follow the same traffic laws as cars?
That’s what I was taught. So, like a car that stops, if she was stopped, standing on or with her bike, she is still a bicyclist, not a pedestrian. If you are in a car, stop a a light or stop to let a little old lady on a bicycle cross in front of you or move aside, are you suddenly a pedestrian if a car rear ends you while you are stopped?
What is the practicality of a self driving car anyway? Say they had cars that could drive as the best human driver, why would you want to use it? I’m sorry but if I want to take a hop to the local supermarket I do not want to waste time punching in a street number, street name, town name, zip code then hitting a button and sitting back as the car goes EXACTLY at the speed limit which on some streets can seem like a crawl. No way would I be into that. I like cars, and this whole thing seems like a freedom rape, this dictatorial method of how we must be transported now.
And how the hell is that going to work for trucks unless they have some specialized roads that can be isolated, like say a tube? Are they REALLY going to get computers up to a level where it can predict potential danger, like say kids playing with a ball on the sidewalk and you slow down in case the ball goes into the street? Or can it tell the difference between a bag in the street and a hunk of metal? I use to drive a taxi in New York city. Twice I almost ran over a drunk guy passed out in the street in the West Village which was like drunko city back then, probably still is. I got out of the cab and physically pulled them to the sidewalk before they got hit. That’s two lives I saved. What’s a self driving cab going to do? There’s just so many different things that could happen it’s insane, I do not see how a self driving car could handle that especially in cities where you got all kinds of craziness going on. The only way I could see it working is if like I said they isolated the roads but then it would be like having railroads wouldn’t it.
Ah. Gotcha. Misread your post. You are right.
LMAO! Yep! It’s absolutely true isn’t it
“A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”
“Even if they save thousands of lives every year?”......
Yes! The “self driving” vehicles have no “brain”, rely entirely on sensors, which we all know “fail” (yes, as do human brains). Such vehicles should not be allowed on public roadways UNTIL such time the have PROVEN they will not/cannot fail. If the person killed was you wife, sister, mother, daughter, you may think differently.
In Atlanta??? YIKES! Now my wife will have greater difficulty talking me out of keeping us away from there.
I don’t know if she was a bicyclist or pedestrian at the time of accident. We won’t know who was at fault until the investigation is complete.
Such vehicles should not be allowed on public roadways UNTIL such time the have PROVEN they will not/cannot fail.
...
Wrong. They shouldn’t be allowed on the road until there is evidence that they are as good as a human.
The ultimate goal as far as safety is concerned is that they will be much better than humans and that they will significantly reduce accidents and fatalities.
To require that they be perfect is outlandish.
All machines can fail. If we’re only fail proof machines on the road we might as get rid of the roads.
I have been here in Scottsdale , just north of Tempe, for a week. We have seen these two Volvo’s with their spinning radar / laser array on top of them all week.
We crossed at the assigned crosswalks in front of them several times. I called out to one of the drivers the other night asking what they had on top.
Self driving car, the guy said. I walked faster.
My guess is that the bicycle bounced onto the sidewalk.
If an autonomous car tracked pedestrians that way and reacted accordingly, the car would be constantly stopping and starting in urban areas because it can’t distinguish between a pedestrian waiting to cross the street and one that is waiting for a bus or just standing there texting on an iPhone.
Now I read on Breitbart that Uber as self-admitted problem with bicycles and bike paths. No wonder they tried to cloud this up so quickly.
Here: "“Uber has acknowledged its self-driving cars are a danger to bicycles — even as the company battles San Francisco and the California Department of Motor Vehicles over operating the vehicles in the city without a permit,” wrote Breitbart News’ Chriss W. Street in 2016. “Uber cars crossing a bike path not only represent a deadly risk to cyclists, but violate California law that mandates that a right-turning car merging into the bike lane before making the turn must yield the right-of-way to the bicycle.”
Maybe Uber and the inattentive driver need to be charged with murder?
Source: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/03/19/report-uber-self-driving-vehicle-involved-fatal-accident/
This is a copy of a post I made to someone else. Watch the presser with the police if you want to know more:
The information about the accident is coming from the police not Uber. Watch the video of the police conference at the following link. The police are identifying the woman as a pedestrian. They are making a point of saying she was outside a crosswalk. She may have been pushing a bicycle. They say she was hit as soon as she stepped into the vehicle’s lane. There is video of the accident and the police spokesman has seen it.
Still gives no license to run down a little old lady. Murder is murder. These cars need to stay OFF THE ROAD.
In Arizona, crosswalks tend to be miles apart...
Where are the SJW to cry out for her? Oh, yeah, Uber gives them lots of money.
Preliminary investigation shows the car ws not at fault.
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