Self-Driving Uber Car Kills Arizona Pedestrian (metro area, area, cell phone)

[lvmensch]

Originally Posted by DetroitN8V

None of that changes the fact of THIS situation. The driverless Uber in no way impacted the outcome.

Nonsense. The system failed to act and the lady died. No the system did not kill her. But it did not prevent her death which was its role.

The Driver-less UBER failed totally and brings the entire driver-less UBER under scrutiny as to whether it should continue.

Unless they come up with some really good story quick shut them down.

[DetroitN8V]

Originally Posted by lvmensch

Nonsense. The system failed to act and the lady died. No the system did not kill her. But it did not prevent her death which was its role.

The Driver-less UBER failed totally and brings the entire driver-less UBER under scrutiny as to whether it should continue.

Unless they come up with some really good story quick shut them down.

Rubbish. The system is not intended to provide an invisibility shield around all stupid behavior. In no way did it contribute to her death.

The ‘shut them down’ rant is getting tired. How many times can it be stated that they’ve suspended the program?

[lvmensch]

Originally Posted by DetroitN8V

Rubbish. The system is not intended to provide an invisibility shield around all stupid behavior. In no way did it contribute to her death.

The ‘shut them down’ rant is getting tired. How many times can it be stated that they’ve suspended the program?

Please. I am a strong proponent of AV. But not of idiot implementations. This one is raw. And indefensible.

They are not shut down. They have suspended the program as they see fit. I wan't a government entity stating they have solved this problem before they start up again.

The ability to satisfactorily navigate is necessary but insufficient. You also need a capability that will not kill those who can be saved.

[SawuScimitar74]

Originally Posted by 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.

It is unfortunately very difficult to find drivers who will do just that.

[hikernut]

Originally Posted by DetroitN8V

Claiming that testing the driverless Uber killed this woman is baseless. The driverless car did not kill her. Had you or I been driving our own cars at that same time in place of it, she’d still be dead.

There is a very important question here. Was the vehicle defective? Comparisons to a human driver have absolutely no bearing on the answer to that question. If Uber was operating cars with significant defects on public roads, it's in huge trouble. And if there was a known defect there could even be criminal charges.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Three issues: pedestrian not paying attention, driver not paying attention, car not paying attention. Self-driving cars need to be off the road, or this is going to become a common occurrence.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mDxiYguNPI

[craig11152]

Having seen the video I think some human drivers could have reacted in time to apply brakes and swerve left enough to avoid killing the pedestrian. Maybe clip the rear of the bike. How many I don't know but a few....1%? 10%?
From what I read the Uber did not respond at all and that is a problem. Was there a malfunction in the system? If so how often is that going to happen?
If NOT a malfunction then can we assume any driver-less car with the same technology will run down the pedestrian in that circumstance without any attempt at avoidance?

To go back to what I've said before, human drivers kill a pedestrian every 688 million miles. So far Uber has killed one every 2 million miles (based on a Forbes estimate of 2 million Uber miles driven)
Its way too early in the driver-less car development to make declarations of how "safe" they are.

[ringwise]

Originally Posted by wit-nit

She was jaywalking which is illegal here. AZ has a high percentage of jaywalking incidents. Jaywalkers looking at their cell phones or just not paying attention bring these problems upon themselves.

Unless those self-driving cars stop at every crosswalk, this could have happened even if she wasn't jaywalking.

[observer53]

Crossing in the pitch dark, from the looks of the video far too close to the vehicle for it to have stopped or avoided her even if it had been a regular car with a watchful driver.

[DetroitN8V]

Originally Posted by ringwise

Unless those self-driving cars stop at every crosswalk, this could have happened even if she wasn't jaywalking.

Being in a crosswalk doesn't give someone absolute indemnity. Her not being in a crosswalk doesn't really matter. She jumped out of pure darkness, only visible for one second before impact. You nor I would have been able to stop in time, crosswalk or not.