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Self-Driving Uber Car Kills Arizona Pedestrian


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Before blaming the deceased woman who was wrong, take a look at the video from the car. The bozo driver was looking at something in his lap and not paying attention. If,he was alert she might be alive today.

[url=http://www.autonews.com/article/20180321/MOBILITY/180329893/uber-self-driving-car-video-shows-operator-was-distracted-before?cciid=email-autonews-blast]

Those headlights are terrible, they must be looking at best 30 feet in front of the vehicle,

they don't see beyond the street lighting which is why the lady appears from nowhere..

On high beam, a human driver may have seen her a lot earlier and reacted.....

 

but that doesn't explain why the autonomous telemetry didn't see here and react,

there's no vehicles blocking sensors...

Edited by jpd80
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It's clear there wasn't enough time for a human to react but the car should have been able to see the person crossing the street and react much sooner. This is precisely where a system should be able to augment the limits of human vision at night and it completely failed here.

Edited by Assimilator
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Arizona had the highest pedestrian fatality rate among all U.S. states in the first half of 2017. Maybe it's due to design of streets and roads in the state, especially in Phoenix metro area? Or Arizona drivers? Autonomous cars can help solve this problem. They have the potential to dramatically reduce traffic fatalities of all types.

 

2rfvec7.jpg

Edited by rperez817
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Holy Crap! Uber is so screwed. I just watched the videos exterior and interior of the accident and I'm appalled.This stinks to high heaven of a blatant cover up for Uber. I would check that cops bank account to see if there was a large deposit.

 

1. Police says she darts in front of traffic. Video clearly shows she doesn't dart in front of traffic, as she is in the middle of the road crossing it. Sidenote, the video sucks which makes it seem darker than it is. On Jalopnik, there were many commenters saying the area is actually very well lit and with average eye sight, she would have been visible sooner than what the crappy camera had shown.

 

2.The driver isn't paying attention at all, yet it is her (his?) job to be paying attention. This is the rub with autonomous cars in my mind, it has to be completely fully autonomous with no manual control needed. Folks will become lulled into thinking the car will do all the work (see every Tesla auto pilot accident). With this in mind, it has to work ALL the time and be fully tested before rolling out on public streets.

 

3. Whatever system that Uber was using didn't work at all. Dark or not dark, it should have been able to pick her up. This seemed like a classic use case for the system to work and it failed...big time.

 

Uber has every reason to overstate the capabilities of their systems right now because if they don't, they won't last much longer as they a bleeding money. This accident will be a total black eye to autonomous vehicles. The only thing that will save Uber is that this woman was homeless. If it would of been an average Joe with a family. The negligence lawsuit would of been in the hundreds of millions in my opinion.

Edited by jcartwright99
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Maybe the "human safety driver" was texting. Ever think of that?

First "robot car" to kill a human......and it has begun! It's only going to get worse from here on out.

 

I was right driver was texting.

 

 

3. Whatever system that Uber was using didn't work at all. Dark or not dark, it should have been able to pick her up. This seemed like a classic use case for the system to work and it failed...big time.

 

Agree!!!!

Edited by coupe3w
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The car plowed right into her while she was already in the road (and almost across the lane to the sidewalk). This is technology fail, plain and simple. Thank goodness for the release of the video. I think GM, Ford, Waymo, and all the others need to be scrambling to understand the nature of the failure and what type of system Uber employs (I would guess they already know). I wonder if NHTSA would compel Uber to share its data with the others so that all can learn from this failure.

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I would assume that the purpose of the rider in the driver seat is as a backup of the autonomous systems. She should be at least fired if not share some of the blame if she was not doing what she was being paid for. Also the woman who was hit seems totally unaware of the car coming at her. If you are crossing a road you would think you would be looking up the road for oncoming traffic. Especially on a road with a high speed limit as I assume the car was not speeding. Thea being said I agree the sensors should have picker her up even if she was out of the reach of the headlights.

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That video clearly showed the technology had failed, be it sensors, software, or both. For my eyes, the woman became visible at just past 0:03s mark, where her white shoes can be seen. About 2 seconds later, just before 0:05s mark, she was struck. The vehicle did NOT do anything! As if it did not see any object in its path.

For a human driver who pays attention, he/she may not be able to avoid the hit, but he/she would have definitely tried something, braking, jerking the steering wheel, something. But the autonomous system did NOTHING.

 

EDIT: Just watched it again, the hit was before 0:05", then the replay "paused". So it had about 1.5 seconds to react.

Edited by 03 LS
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Here's a map view of the area in Tempe, Arizona where the incident occurred. The arrow shows the path the victim most likely used. This path, separating northbound and southbound Mill Avenue, is not a crosswalk even though it looks like one from overhead. A sign tells pedestrians not to cross Mill Avenue here. The crosswalk is about 500 feet to the north where Mill Ave intersects with Curry Rd/W Washington St.

 

TempeAerial.jpg

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Here's a map view of the area in Tempe, Arizona where the incident occurred. The arrow shows the path the victim most likely used. This path, separating northbound and southbound Mill Avenue, is not a crosswalk even though it looks like one from overhead. A sign tells pedestrians not to cross Mill Avenue here. The crosswalk is about 500 feet to the north where Mill Ave intersects with Curry Rd/W Washington St.

 

The woman had crossed 1 1/2 lanes of the road, yet was *apparently* undetected by any of the sensors. FAIL.

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The woman had crossed 1 1/2 lanes of the road, yet was *apparently* undetected by any of the sensors. FAIL.

 

Agreed, but also, let's rephrase it:

 

The woman had crossed 1 1/2 lanes of the road, yet was *apparently* unable to see the car with the bright headlights coming straight for her. FAIL.
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Let's not. She was walking across a 2 lane section of highway (not in a cross walk) and was 1 1/2 lanes across when struck. You can't make the assumption that she saw the vehicle when she started across.

You must be joking. You can see a car approaching at night with lights on from hundreds of yards away.

 

And it doesn’t matter if she could see the car when she started across - she could darn well see it before she stepped in front of it if she was paying attention at all.

 

Why are you so defensive about this?

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I would assume that the purpose of the rider in the driver seat is as a backup of the autonomous systems. She should be at least fired if not share some of the blame if she was not doing what she was being paid for. Also the woman who was hit seems totally unaware of the car coming at her. If you are crossing a road you would think you would be looking up the road for oncoming traffic. Especially on a road with a high speed limit as I assume the car was not speeding. Thea being said I agree the sensors should have picker her up even if she was out of the reach of the headlights.

The report I heard claims the car was traveling 3 MPH above the speed limit.

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Let's not. She was walking across a 2 lane section of highway (not in a cross walk) and was 1 1/2 lanes across when struck. You can't make the assumption that she saw the vehicle when she started across.

 

You're right. Let's ignore the fact that the woman is 100% at fault for getting herself run over.

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Oh yeah. Either way you can't blame speed.

My problem with this accident is that the car didn’t seem to “see” her. That’s a really big problem. Could the car have avoided her? Maybe not, but it should have seen her and at least tried to miss her. She illegally walked in front of the car. I’m not trying to excuse that. A moderately alert driver would have tried. I expect an autonomous car to do better.

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My problem with this accident is that the car didn’t seem to “see” her. That’s a really big problem. Could the car have avoided her? Maybe not, but it should have seen her and at least tried to miss her. She illegally walked in front of the car. I’m not trying to excuse that. A moderately alert driver would have tried. I expect an autonomous car to do better.

 

 

Exactly. There are two separate things to be said here.

 

The woman walked into the path of an oncoming vehicle at night. The vehicle was not speeding and had its lights on. She is 100% responsible for her own death. Period.

 

The collision avoidance and automatic braking functionality in the vehicle did not work.

 

One doesn't negate the other.

Edited by akirby
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Exactly. There are two separate things to be said here.

 

The woman walked into the path of an oncoming vehicle at night. The vehicle was not speeding and had its lights on. She is 100% responsible for her own death. Period.

 

The collision avoidance and automatic braking functionality in the vehicle did not work.

 

One doesn't negate the other.

 

Exactly, While the car obviously failed at detecting her ( as well as the rider who again I would assume is supposed to be there to back up the electronics) The women could easily have avoided getting hit. In fact I am baffled how she could walk out without noticing a car coming at 38 or 40 mph not 75 and not even reacting when the car was a few feet from her.

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