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 ...
I realize Uber supports and the city of Tempe have a lot invested in excusing the dead body in the street, but this won't be the last time it happens. And take note that even Uber notes they problem with bicycles and bike lanes. Fatal ones, now. The fact that they admit this, then they should not be on any roads where there might be a bicycle or a bike lane.
It looks like she either came out of the movie theater or off a bus. It appears she crossed the road to get to the bike lane on the north side. In the median between the bus stop and bike lane their is a large clump of trees. This likely to be the shadows, the police officer mentioned in one of the reports. The north bound side where she got hit appears to be rather wide with several turn lanes. If she got hit in one of the left turn lanes I don’t see how it could be avoided. If she got hit in the right lane and the brakes weren’t even applied, I would like to see a further explanation.
I agree on all counts. Let's start with self-driving cars. There's no way the roads will ever be full of them and I'll tell you exactly why: People will go stand in front of them or surround them in revolt, preventing them from going anywhere. Think about it for a moment. The fist smarmy, uber-rich a-hole that brags about his self-driving car being better than anything else on the road is going to find his car surrounded by people and it'll go NOWHERE. Programmed to avoid hitting a human being, the car will be useless.
When people figure that out, the revolt will be on against self driving cars and self driving cars will become useless.
Personally, even with as many jerks driving BMW's who never use their f'ing turn signals there are on the road that just piss me off, I'll never give up the joy of driving.
Yep, I understand the irony of that statement.
My understanding is she stepped off the median right in front of the car. There was no time for the car or the driver to react.
If a driverless car can not be self-aware how can it be aware of others?
The car did NOT slow down, the occupant did not intervene.
...
There was no time for the car or driver to react according to the police chief and the preliminary investigation. Did you read the article?
I read several. He did not say that. He said he observed the lady finish walking her bike across the street, which is common in Tempe with the excessively long blocks. He said the car did not slow down or break. He did NOT say there was no time to. There are various reports about this. If they saw, then there was time. The computer failed, the operator in the car failed. We might allow the latter, but the former? Besides, combine that with Uber’s problem with bicycles and bike paths, this deserves careful investigation, not rash rush to cover up the first murder by a self-driving car.
“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” said Sylvia Moir, police chief in Tempe, Ariz., the location for the first pedestrian fatality involving a self-driving car. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”
From viewing the videos, “it’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,” Moir said.
“I suspect preliminarily it appears that the Uber would likely not be at fault in this accident, either,” Moir said.
Maybe they will come out with a better police report that include some diagrams. I don’t particularly want to see a video of the poor lady getting hit.
What does “shadows” have to do with the car’s computer and sensors? Are they visual and impaired at night?! Wow, then why were they out driving at night?
The driver didn’t see her either. She stepped right in front of the car. He was only aware of her presence when he heard the collision. There was no time for him or the car to react.
Thanks for the link.
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