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It's going to take a long time for self driving cars to be on the road
No, it is here right now. Waymo has driverless Pacifica vans cruising the streets of the Phoenix metro area since last October. No humans in the car. Waymo is going to launch a driverless rideshare in the Phoenix area some time this year. You can book free test rides now. Driverless cars are legal in Arizona. Our streets are being used as a big R&D facility.
Called this years ago. Surprised it didn't happen sooner. And what the heck was the human operator doing while the vehicle he was supposed to providing a failover/backup function for doing? Taking a selfie? posting something snarky about Trump?
I really sincerely hope UBER is forced to pay a multi-billion dollar settlement that bankrupts the company or that this woman's family winds up being the majority owner.
Completely preventable, just 100% gross negligence - should be charged as intentional homicide, because if you don't have your hands on the wheel and your foot over the brake, then you planned to not be able to intervene, so your intent to not be able to help, when any reasonable person should expect a system failure, is the necessary intent.
I’ve been in those Uber autonomous vehicles. If neither the vehicle nor the operator (in many cases there’s a 2nd operator or engineer in the front passenger seat) could see the pedestrian in time to break, its almost certainly the vuctim’s fault.
I'm sure parents whose kids play and ride their bikes in the streets are totally thrilled about this new development.
How many years now have those videos been on youtube showing our helicopter gunships using heat and infrared targeting to kill their human targets. So why can't they put that tech into the autonomous cars? Then have them programmed to stop when a warm body is detected.........or if they are texting....just take em out.......
Hmm, not a good analogy. Those systems are not autonomous. They are not target acquisition and identification systems. They are just cameras and require a human operator to perform target selection and fire control.
There ARE autonomous kill vehicles, as there have been long-standing development programs for this technology, but they are not used in anti-personnel warfare by the United States military.
It's going to take a long time for self driving cars to be on the road
I don't know about that. Last night I paid $45 for a 7 mile cab ride from O'Hare airport. The cabbie didn't even get out of the cab to assist with my 3 suitcases (just came back from a long trip to SE Asia), and then got pissed when I only tipped him 10%. If Uber or any company starts giving us the option of driverless rides at 50% or less the fare of human-operated vehicles, it's going to catch on a lot faster than you think. It's why these companies are investing so much in the technology.
And considering human-driven cars kill about 30-40 pedestrians per year in Chicago alone, many of those fatalities being hit-and-run crashes, I think driverless technology needs to be cut a little slack until it's proven to be less safe than human drivers.
I remember reading when they started all the testing around here that one of the problems encountered was that humans did not follow the laws and expectations. For example, AZ drivers usually coast through stop signs and they never respect the speed limit. The car may have been expecting the pedestrian to move in a particular way - she zigged when she should have zagged. Uber has been doing its testing around Arizona State University, though, and I am sure this is not the first time the cars have encountered jaywalkers with bicycles. These cars are loaded with cameras and sensors, so it will be possible to reconstruct this event pretty precisely.
The car obeyed all traffic laws. The woman jaywalked across a 4-lane road. Sorry, if you jaywalk a busy street, expecting all cars to hit their brakes to not smash into you, and then get hit, I don't feel that bad for you.
Called this years ago. Surprised it didn't happen sooner. And what the heck was the human operator doing while the vehicle he was supposed to providing a failover/backup function for doing? Taking a selfie? posting something snarky about Trump?
I really sincerely hope UBER is forced to pay a multi-billion dollar settlement that bankrupts the company or that this woman's family winds up being the majority owner.
Completely preventable, just 100% gross negligence - should be charged as intentional homicide, because if you don't have your hands on the wheel and your foot over the brake, then you planned to not be able to intervene, so your intent to not be able to help, when any reasonable person should expect a system failure, is the necessary intent.
Not going to happen. The woman broke the law, she crossed outside of a crosswalk. The car did not do anything legally wrong.
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