Video has been released which shows how the self-driving Uber car killed a pedestrian.
Posted on 03/21/2018 5:24:49 PM PDT by COBOL2Java
Video has been released which shows how the self-driving Uber car killed a pedestrian.
An Uber spokeswoman said the company was “fully cooperating” with the local authorities.
The autonomous Uber had a safety driver at the wheel, as was required for Uber’s autonomous test vehicles operating on public roads, Tech Crunch reported.
Police said that the Uber was driving northbound near Mill Avenue and Curry Road when a woman attempted to cross the street with her bicycle in front of the vehicle outside, of a crosswalk, KNXV reported.
In the video, you can see Elaine Herzberg, 49, suddenly appear in front of the car.
The pedestrian was hit by the Uber while it was traveling 40 m.p.h. in a 45 m.p.h. zone.
After being struck, Herzberg was transported to a nearby hospital where she died, police said.
(Excerpt) Read more at themaven.net ...
This exact scenario should of been in the design and testing criteria for the Uber car.
Good point. That it wasn't is an abject failure of the Test Design Specifications.
What I’ve noticed about those “Russian videos” is how poor traffic conditions are over there. The lanes are not properly marked; the wide open intersections have maybe one traffic light for dozens of cars; there is little to no safety engineering. It’s every man, woman and child for themselves.
It’s pretty predictable that they have more crashes.
After watching the video on the fox news site (http://video.foxnews.com/v/5756257643001/?playlist_id=2114913880001#sp=show-clips), it is clear that the woman did not just step in front of the oncoming traffic. She had already cross the entire left lane and was half way through the right lane (the car’s lane).
She appeared slightly before the beams revealed her in the car headlights. They might have been on low beam, but still, it was more than enough time to brake.
Finally, the entire left lane was free of oncoming cars. The UBER car could easily, easily have swerved to that lane, and the only thing it would have perhaps been the rear end of the bicycle the lady was walking across the road.
Uber SHOULD BE liable. The police are wrong, and perhaps even intentionally misrepresenting.
Fox News is trying to make some case out of there not being a crosswalk, but many roads in America don’t even have crosswalks, and drivers are to be aware of pedestrians crossing roads.
The entire narrative that she just stepped out in front, though, is entirely wrong. That is not what happened here.
Well, if that was the test criteria, test failed.
Did it take for a pedestrian to be killed to get the results of this test? Couldn't Uber have done this kind of test with a crash-test dummy?
maybe the uber car became self-aware and was actually aiming...
If you watch the video, the test driver was asleep at the wheel. It does not appear that the car was equipped with night vision capabilities. If it was, it could have spotted the pedestrian a long way back. Instead it was apparently relying on regular camera technology which is pretty much useless on a moonless night and a wet road.
I’m sure if there is an infra red video that there would be no doubt that Uber was guilty of vehicular manslaughter. The failure to utilize infra red technology would make it worse. It could probably be viewed as reckless disregard for human life, I.e., second degree murder.
A driverless car is an inherently dangerous piece of machinery. Any accident such as this should be treated the same way they treat companies that use explosives. If someone is killed, then someone must go to jail.
I agree.
It probably sounds arrogant of me to say such a thing, but I’m quite certain — just from the video — that I would have detected that pedestrian.
This was NOT someone suddenly jumping into the pathway of an oncoming car.
LOL, the way you said that made me snort aloud! It does look like the Wild West there!
All good points.
But, if this thing can’t drive at night on a normal road, then something is terribly amiss.
And, as Marlowe says, why in the world was this driverless car not outfitted with FLIR.
I sat on a tank range and saw living objects from small animals to deer up to 2 miles away. In ahelicopter, I saw detailed sharp infrared images of real human beings while traveling over 100 mph above water.
Well hopefully the family of the deceased has retained good representation and they'll manage to sue the pants off Uber. A "setback" for driverless technology? Sure, but that's how seatbelts became commonplace.
FWIW I will NEVER get into a driverless car. I always back up my computer data for the reason that you never know when your computer is going to crash or get hacked. And every computer program out there has hundreds of bugs. Driverless cars are a stupid idea.
However teacherless universities are long overdue.
The old turntable was near perfect technology.
Put the album on the turntable. Place the needle at the beginning.
Enjoy.
Like driving a car. Get in, turn the key. Drive.
From your Freeper handle, I suspect that you are a software engineer. Have you ever written a program that didn’t have some bugs or have you ever met a piece of computer hardware that was not subject to insidious failure?
Would you walk blindfolded across 6 lanes of highway at night knowing that all the cars on the highway were run untirely on some computer algorithms and hardware manufactured by children and prisoners in China?
My son is a computer hardware engineer. His Job is to find bugs in the hardware and test the comparability of the software. He has yet to meet a program that didn’t have potentially fatal bugs.
Yet this same hardware and software are being used to hurtle a 2500 pound piece of steel though a maze of other vehicles, pedestrians, potholes that can swallow small vehicles, and drivers who are drunk
or inattentive. And if you think the government is going to take my right to operate my own car, then they will have to pry the steering wheel from my cold dead hands.
I've been a software engineer for 30 years. During the course of my career I've also been a software tester (which I thoroughly enjoyed). I've also been an IV&V engineer (which is a LOT of fun).
Here's a down&dirty answer which I think covers your questions: Uber should have tested their self-driving vehicle with a better-thought-out Test Engineering Plan, and with crash-test dummies to plow into, instead of having to learn about their failures by killing a human being.
FWIW his company hired an H1B executive from a third world country who promptly tried to move the department he was in to that third world country and they wanted him to basically train his replacement in that third world country and set up the operations there.
After about 6 months of back and forth he was able to convince the higher ups that this idea was not feasible and (based on that country’s and our country’s import and export restrictions) it would have been illegal.
So he’s still there. For now.
Good for him. I worked for a big company (who shall remain nameless) that had a two-tiered system: one was the experienced engineers (me) and the other were the fresh-out-of-college engineers. The latter class got shipped off to a six-month training session where they got pumped up with corporate BS and came out thinking they were God’s gift to the software engineering world. They would send these off to a project like paratroopers to “BOOM” create some system somewhere. Then they’d send us in after the fact, to clean up their mess and maintain it.
I lasted for five years in that environment, until the company decided to go into the security arena. I thought that was great, since I was very much into digital security. Unfortunately, the idiot wunderkinds they brought in knew NOTHING about security (except what they may or may not have sleepily learned in class) and didn’t much care what we experienced old codgers tried to tell them. After two security breaches I quit that company. Haven’t looked back.
Plenty of time for an alert human to stand on the brakes prior to impact. But I noted they neglected to even mention if the self driving Uber vehicle braked before impact.
For an alert defensive driver, that would have been plenty of time to stand on their brakes prior to impact.
I know that this is a case of rush to market to get ahead of the competitors. Some companies are unethical in that they consider a minimal number of human casualties to be acceptable collateral damage on their way to a profit. Some of the larger companies unofficially write the litigation costs into the equation. I am not knocking capitalism or corporations in general, believe me, but there are some bad actors in every sector.
Honestly, the more I review the video and think about other possible scenarios, the madder it makes me that that car with that useless human backup was put on a city street. I am not like some others who have posted here that are remaining fixated on the blame aspect of the likely drug addled victim who was jay walking with no natural light visibility. Move to another situation and imagine the car on a highway that runs along the edge of a downward slope. Replace the bag lady with a cow or sheep and imagine the car hitting it, spinning off the edge of the cliff and killing everyone inside and possibly people below. An unexpected object in the road is the real issue that needs attention, not what the object is or how it got there. Human drivers deal with it all the time by making split second judgment calls and maneuvers and most are able to avoid death. They could never do that, though, by plowing full speed into the object as though they didn’t even see it. Most attentive, video game playing 5 year olds behind the wheel could have done better than that car did. And, if we’d seen what the car was supposed to be seeing with night vision, it would have looked like an intentional hit.
We are trusting these companies with our safety and they are treating that trust in far too cavalier a manner. Putting this obviously less than fully tested prototype in this real life situation was not an acceptable risk. Either that night vision camera is faulty or the program algorithm is shockingly inadequate. When it comes to human safety, redundancy is an absolute necessity and so is a means of testing that doesn’t feel like Russian roulette.
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