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 ...
KNXV-TV video footage with accident reporting at scene.
Arizona law states the pedestrian must yield to vehicles in the road when the pedestrian is crossing outside a marked crosswalk. Unless something extenuating happened (i.e. the vehicle was speeding in autonomous mode, or there was enough reaction time to stop, with no measures taken to do so either by the computer or human safety driver), then I'd say the dead jaywalker's estate has no recourse.
The car was most certainly set up with video to record everything going on, so I would prefer to see what the video shows first.
And what if they were under the influence when they wrote the code?
Was the car here illegally?
” Next things will be self flying airplanes”
Self-flying passenger jets will begin testing in 2018
“Absolute idiocy to have self driving vehicles. Next things will be self flying airplanes, self shooting guns (oh boy, I can hear the uproar if that happens).”
Sex robot sales are off the charts. They even have homosexual robots, whatever that means, and they are flying off the shelves. Won’t be long before one of those robots gets tired of taking it up the ass and kills someone.
This involved a self-driving car with a human operator at the wheel to deal with "extenuating circumstances" like this very thing. The real question is whether this operating configuration impaired the vehicle's ability to take any avoidance measures in a case like this.
Here's another question I have that relates to the effectiveness of self-driving vehicle technology:
How is the vehicle supposed to react when it approaches a pedestrian who is waiting to cross the street legally at a marked crosswalk? If the pedestrian isn't in the street, can the vehicle even "see" her?
Okay, so the story states "crossing the street outside a crosswalk", from which I assumed a jaywalker. But the video accompanying the story is of a bicycle lying on the sidewalk with bent wheel and possibly frame. Will have to wait for more evidence. The Uber vehicle shows damage on the right front corner.
Airbus?
Accidents with industrial robots were initially very common
Something to keep in mind is that Uber, the car manufacturer, the autonomous technology developer, etc. could be facing tens of millions of dollars in civil liability even if the pedestrian is determined to be 90% at fault.
Good question. Probably a combination of many things to sense the surroundings. My question is, if they record video of what's going on around the car (I'm sure they do) in order to tweak the programming as new situations arise, do they also record video of the person who is supposed to intervene in these types of situations. This occurred at 10 PM, was this person alert, paying attention to the road, and as ready as possible to intervene? When I took driver training in the 1980s, my instructor had a separate brake pedal for his use, and boy was he on it when needed.
Does the Uber vehicle have flashing lights or audible alerts for bikers or pedestrians? Would giving a special heads-up defeat the purpose of testing an autonomous robot in public? Is a person, or a manikin in the drivers seat, for night testing?
JohnnyCab
...a human safety driver at the wheel....
>>:::::<<
Thinking human wasn’t providing enough safety.
“How is the vehicle supposed to react when it approaches a pedestrian who is waiting to cross the street legally at a marked crosswalk? If the pedestrian isn’t in the street, can the vehicle even “see” her? “
How is a human driver supposed to react when they approacy a pedestrian who is waiting to cross the street legally at a marked crosswalk if the pedestrian isn’t in the street?
OTOH, I saw a video a few weeks ago of a car tracking pedestrians on the sidewalks.
At 10 p.m. it was dark.
The woman was not in the crosswalk.
Funny thing is that last night I was driving home around 9:45 p.m. and almost hit a guy crossing the road. He was dressed all in black and I did not even see him until my car was even with him. He was in the left traffic lane.
I am certain that if I had hit this guy it would not be national news.
Wait and see what all the facts are.
Driverless trucks are now being used in Atlanta. According to the article, it’s the same company that is using the driverless cars in Phoenix. Now instead of one person getting killed, there will be multiple deaths.
Truly sad. Government and lobbyists shoved these cars down our throat just recently.
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