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.
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.
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?