Self-Driving Uber Car Kills Arizona Pedestrian (versus, safer, delivery)

[flint8ball]

Here's the deal...

Autonomous vehicles are coming.
There will be accidents.
There will be fewer accidents than self driven cars.
Saying "Why do we need autonomous cars" is like riding your horse and buggy in the 1890's and saying "Why do we need these automobile thingys"

That said, I will be driving my own vehicle for a long time to come. I like to drive and I live in a rural area. Autonomous will begin in urban ride share environments where routes and hazards are adequately planned for and minimized.

There will be huge benefits and efficiencies realized in trucking, ride sharing etc.

Like any other technology it is, and will be, an exercise in continual improvement.

[DetroitN8V]

Originally Posted by rah62

Yeah, people can get their lives together after prison, bla bla bla - that happens occasionally. But I still would prefer not to get in a car with someone convicted of armed robbery.

What does that have to do with this incident?

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by flint8ball

Here's the deal...

Autonomous vehicles are coming.
There will be accidents.
There will be fewer accidents than self driven cars.
Saying "Why do we need autonomous cars" is like riding your horse and buggy in the 1890's and saying "Why do we need these automobile thingys"

1. Not necessarily. Remember when they said Google Glass was coming? Then it wasn't. The fact is that most drivers have no interest in owning a self-driving car, and want nothing to do with them. The market for self-driving cars is totally unproven.

2. Yep, we already can see that.

3. That remains to be seen. They are off to a bad start.

4. Bad analogy. Cars were a major improvement over horse and buggies. The top speed of a horse and buggy is about 8 - 10 mph. The average speed is about 2 -3 mph. A car can be driven across the country in a few days. A horse and buggy took many months to make the same trip. Even with the superiority of cars it still took a good 30 years for them to faze out horse and buggies.

But self driving cars are no better than a human driven car. The only people who can possibly benefit from them are incompetent senior drivers and drunks.

[lvmensch]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

1. Not necessarily. Remember when they said Google Glass was coming? Then it wasn't. The fact is that most drivers have no interest in owning a self-driving car, and want nothing to do with them. The market for self-driving cars is totally unproven.

2. Yep, we already can see that.

3. That remains to be seen. They are off to a bad start.

4. Bad analogy. Cars were a major improvement over horse and buggies. The top speed of a horse and buggy is about 8 - 10 mph. The average speed is about 2 -3 mph. A car can be driven across the country in a few days. A horse and buggy took many months to make the same trip. Even with the superiority of cars it still took a good 30 years for them to faze out horse and buggies.

But self driving cars are no better than a human driven car. The only people who can possibly benefit from them are incompetent senior drivers and drunks.

You really are ignoring the writing on the wall. The AV makes it on driver elimination. Trucks and car services. That gets the first few hundred thousand vehicles going. They then set the statistics that will likely show a 4 or 5 X reduction in accidents. At that point the human driven vehicle is doomed. We merely negotiate the tail.

And there are vast potential benefits. All of a sudden you can talk about much faster traffic and traffic flow. You can coordinate the operation of vehicles...run convoys of tight space vehicles down the freeway at 90 or 100 miles an hour. Cut the LA to LV trip to 2.5 hours instead of 4.5. And do it safer. Have stop signs coordinate the vehicle flow...one rarely has to stop. This by the way is not hard...simply requires the vehicles cooperate and communicate. You can do it with human driven vehicles and we may very well in the interim period. You simply have a small display on your dash and you gas or brake until it centers...and you roll through the stop sign.

Lots of good possibilities. We just have to ride through the implementation.

[elkotronics]

1. Not necessarily. Remember when they said Google Glass was coming? Then it wasn't. The fact is that most drivers have no interest in owning a self-driving car, and want nothing to do with them. The market for self-driving cars is totally unproven.

2. Yep, we already can see that.

3. That remains to be seen. They are off to a bad start.

4. Bad analogy. Cars were a major improvement over horse and buggies. The top speed of a horse and buggy is about 8 - 10 mph. The average speed is about 2 -3 mph. A car can be driven across the country in a few days. A horse and buggy took many months to make the same trip. Even with the superiority of cars it still took a good 30 years for them to faze out horse and buggies.

But self driving cars are no better than a human driven car. The only people who can possibly benefit from them are incompetent senior drivers and drunks.

Thank you, Cloudy Dayz. This is ill-conceived, ill-contracted clap-trap technology that is too Star Trek for it's own good. Imagine the possibilities, think Teen Mom for a second, then get back to me. For this to work there would need to be tons of new laws, new training, and cops will be driven nuts.

Think of Americans right now, our heads are down at our phones 24/7/365. And you, lvmensch, think we'll just merge into dorky Star Trek messings like this? How much are the clean-up people going to get paid? I might sign up for it - clean up on Interstate 10 - another out-of-control deathtrap clap-trapper creamed into another Uber autonomous, the Uber autonomous was going sideways on the highway, bouncing into the guardrail, looking a lot like Mike Myers in the little cart in Austin Powers, turning little tiny itzy bitzy turns on its own.

And Imagine. They call him a Dreamer.

[SawuScimitar74]

It is sad to hear that the woman had to have her life end like that. Definitely not a good way to go. However, she probably could've avoided it if she were to use a crosswalk instead of jaywalking. We have crosswalks for a reason. They help people cross streets safely to make sure that there is a reduced risk of anyone running into pedestrians. Even then, there can be drivers who are not paying attention to traffic lights and crosswalk signals, and they end up hitting someone. People like that just get on my nerves every time.

That being said, I really think Uber needs to be a little more careful with their hiring system. I wouldn't want to be riding an Uber with someone who has a criminal record. Maybe whoever was driving the computerized vehicle wasn't paying attention. This is why the company needs to pay more attention on who the heck they're hiring. Make sure to hire drivers who will take their job seriously and will not do anything to get themselves distracted while behind the wheel. It is exactly why I'm with the whole "It Can Wait" pledge whenever it comes to texting and driving. Texting while driving is definitely one of the dumbest things drivers can do.

Having unmanned vehicles driving around is not the safest thing on the road. Should they eventually let these types of vehicles on the road again, Uber should have it go through a series of tests to make sure it won't fail. As of right now, that hasn't been the case.

[firehaz1]

If a human driver not drunk, texting not paying attention and obeying law hits and kills someone who walks in front of the car at last minute then stops; no charges filed. Where can we find a driver who is "looking 100% of the time, obeys traffic laws, no drinking, no texting, no distracted driving...hmmm. This poor young lady walked her bike into oncoming traffic. Its a tragic accident. No one wants to put blame on a victim. Blame someone or something else. Its a sad sign of our times.

[hikernut]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

Can anyone tell me what these paths on the median are for? I have never seen these anywhere before. They are marked No Pedestrians, but they also have a curb, so they don't look like they are for cars or bikes either. According to the reports this is the area she was crossing from.

AFAIK they are purely aesthetic. It is confusing because they look like multi-use paths, but they don't go anywhere.

[ghdana]

I live and work by where this happened. Today I drove to Cafe Roma for lunch and had a person wait for me to drive by before they crossed at the exact same spot as the accident happened, only on the southbound lane, at 11:30 AM. Tempe is basically saying there "we will give you a walking area here, but no crosswalk because that would impede traffic and cause accidents. They could cross the road at the cross walk, but it isn't as convenient as where the accident happened.

I think the fault lies on the pedestrian if the Uber had their lights on at 10pm. If I'm going 38mph and don't expect a pedestrian I don't expect to stop.

I used to drive across that bridge daily and even though the speed limit is 35 it isn't uncommon for people to be going 60 trying to make green light patterns.

[hikernut]

Originally Posted by ghdana

I live and work by where this happened. Today I drove to Cafe Roma for lunch and had a person wait for me to drive by before they crossed at the exact same spot as the accident happened, only on the southbound lane, at 11:30 AM. Tempe is basically saying there "we will give you a walking area here, but no crosswalk because that would impede traffic and cause accidents. They could cross the road at the cross walk, but it isn't as convenient as where the accident happened.

I think the fault lies on the pedestrian if the Uber had their lights on at 10pm. If I'm going 38mph and don't expect a pedestrian I don't expect to stop.

It's not a walking area. It appears to be just part of that median's landscaping.

Since this is a case of jaywalking at night and the car appears to have been obeying the speed limit, I'd be surprised if Uber is legally charged with anything. However, if the NYT accident diagram is accurate I expect Uber and possibly the other players have a big PR battle ahead, as this seems like the sort of incident that should have showcased the technology and saved a life.