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Uber Self-driving Vehicle Accident Results In Pedestrian Fatality In Arizona...

W. WIllie

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What does the system do to the vehicle when the motorcycles "split" the lanes.
My understanding is the motorcycles can't "split" lanes over "X" mph. But they do.
 

Tre'

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Still not legal here in Washington but I have seen it done a few times. The attempt here (if I remember it correctly) was not allowed if traffic is moving over 35 mph and no more than 15 mph over traffic speed.
 

Ty

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I have heard that there was an accident somewhere that a humanoid was driving a car and hit someone else resulting in a death.
Of course. The difference is that it's easy to identify who should be punished in regular accidents... In an unmanned vehicle, who is held liable for a death? The "safety driver"? the owner? the corporation? Their stockholders?
 

Made in USA

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Here is the video on Youtube:

Details of the situation: There were signs in the medium telling would be crossers to use the crosswalk further down.
The woman with the bicycle was wearing dark clothing and no reflectors are noticeable on the bicycle.
She was jaywalking. It was dark.
She had her back to the oncoming traffic when first seen by the camera.
The Uber driver (later in the video) spent most of time not looking at the road.
The headlights look low and did not illuminate her upper body until too close to stop.
Apparently the LIDAR was not working as the vehicle did not attempt to stop or miss her.
If the LIDAR was not working, was the vehicle safe in autonomous?
If LIDAR not working, was the driver told by boss not to use?

Is this an OSHA issue since the vehicle is a "workplace" and the "operator" should not have used without the safeties all working?

It's a sad situation but perhaps lessons will be learned.
 
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Ty

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... Maybe the lesson here was "Don't walk out in front of cars". This is something my kids have known since almost walking age. I don't get how an adult would think that was okay.
 

Rob Croson

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The headlights look low and did not illuminate her upper body until too close to stop.
I noticed this too. However, have you ever used a dashcam at night? I have noticed with ours that the image on the dashcam looks noticeably darker than it really is. The way the camera sensor reacts to the brightly lit area close to the headlights causes the whole scene to be very dark in the recording. The view through the windscreen always has much, much better visibility than the recording.

The video makes it clear to me that the AV *should* have detected this pedestrian, especially since she had a bike with her. The vehicles radar/lidar should have detected her and stopped the vehicle. She walked across multiple lanes, in clear conditions, with empty roads, and no obstructions that would have concealed her. You can see the pedestrain's shoes at least two full seconds before she gets hit. If the vehicle could *not* detect a pedestrian in these situations, then it had no business driving in autonomous mode on public roads.

And WTF was that "safety driver" doing, playing around on his phone? You can't even tell if he even has his eyes open.

Having said all that, the pedestrian made some poor choices here. Crossing multiple lanes of road in the dark, in dark clothes, just outside the pool of light from the streetlights, and not watching toward traffic.

I don't really know what the official ruling on this will be. IMNSHO, there is no way the AV should not have been able to detect that pedestrian. One of the biggest advantages of AVs is that they are supposed to be safer. It's not apparent to me from watching that video how this is any safer that a human driver.

One thing this does bring to mind, though, is that unlike pretty much every other AV company, Tesla does not use Radar/Lidar sensors on its vehicles. How is a Tesla supposed to cope with stuff like this? Thi picture is so washed out from the headlights and streetlights, you can't see anything past them until it's too late.
 

Coss

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... Maybe the lesson here was "Don't walk out in front of cars". This is something my kids have known since almost walking age. I don't get how an adult would think that was okay.
It's the "do as I say, not do as I do" syndrome, adults figure it's ok to break laws where kids are supposed to know better.
Was that guy sleeping behind the wheel?
 
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