The rider in the Uber vehicle is NOW at fault??? Ah come on......

[a kennedy]

The woman who was hit by a self-driving Uber vehicle this week in Arizona could be blamed for the incident, an expert said.

Video released Wednesday of Sunday's accident in Tempe, Ariz., shows the car not appearing to brake or steer away from pedestrian Elaine Herzberg, 49, as she walked across an open lane and in front of the car.

Herzberg appeared to be looking away from the oncoming vehicle, while an in-car camera shows Uber driver Rafaela Vasquez looking down at something below the dashboard, out of view of the camera, before the collision.

Drivers remain behind the wheel of Uber's cars to take over when the cars' autonomous systems fail.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2018/03/23/self-driving-uber-pedestrian-accident/453319002/

[Lee-Lee]

1. Its possibke for multiple parties to be at fault

[janterry]

2. This is the very technological problem

that people have been raising. Pedestrians are unpredictable. They don't follow the rules of the road (always) - and that's going to be a challenge to figure out.

[tonedevil]

3. It's a good thing...

no pedestrians have ever been hit by a car driven by a human.

[FrodosNewPet]

10. So, by that reasoning, defects in autonomous systems and sensors are acceptable?

Even though she was 100% in the wrong for crossing the street where she did, the vehicle failed its most important job.

The LiDAR (which I have seen may have been disabled) and the radar should have been enough to detect her from at least 100 yards away in that situation. Even a WELL DESIGNED optical system should have had enough resolution and dynamic range to spot the fact that something was in the road and moving in a dangerous way.

[tonedevil]

16. What reasoning says that defects are acceptable?

We already have cars. Those cars are driven by humans. Everyday humans drive cars into other humans and the struck human is fatally injured in many cases. We have apparently decided that some humans being killed by other humans driving cars is the price we are willing to pay for more convenient transportation. That is not to say we don't try to make cars driven by humans safer, just that we don't park all our vehicles every time someone is killed.
I may be way off, but I am pretty sure that autonomous cars are already better than humans at driving. When I really think about it yes in everything some defects are acceptable, there are percentages of rat dung that can be in your food. So to some degree autonomous cars will have defects and while fixing those defects should be the goal like everything else sometimes they will be accepted.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

37. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Isn't that how the saying goes?

What if driverless cars cut fatalities in this country from 40,000 to 20,000 ( I would think we can do much better)? Are we going to freak out and throw out the new systems to GAO back to 40,000?

While checking google to see how many people died in traffic accidents I see that fatalities increased the last two years by 15%. We're back over 40k for the first time since 2007.

One of the theories is the increase is due to distracted driving.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-safety.html
If the estimates are confirmed, it will be the first time since 2007 that more than 40,000 people have died in motor vehicle accidents in a single year. The 2016 total comes after a 7 percent rise in 2015 and means the two-year increase — 14 percent — is the largest in more than a half a century.

[FrodosNewPet]

40. I'm not against autonomous cars

I am against shortcutting autonomous cars. If and when the tech is inadequate, I am in favor of placing legal and public reputation pressure on the developers and implementors.

BTW...have you seen where Uber's self driving cars only average 13 miles between human interventions?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

42. I think we are on the same page.

No I didn't know the 13 mile figure.

Also, the video you posted about the actual street conditions is very enlightening. Looking at the Uber video I was under the assumption the area was more rural. Having been to Phoenix, I know how dark it can get when you get slightly off the beaten path. Obviously not the case here.

Which leads me to say the human safety driver might be in bigger trouble than I initially thought. Even more so when you factor in he should have known he would be needed sooner than later.

Clacking away on his clacker.

I swear to god I'm going to get a train horn installed in my cars for people checking their email at traffic lights.

[FrodosNewPet]

11. At 4 seconds in, you can begin to see pedestrians, even in the crappy resoltion of the video above

They were 9 seconds away at the time.

The victim was crossing the road with a bicycle, which should have made her even more visible to the entire sensor suite.

[lame54]

12. These cars must be held to a higher standard

[tonedevil]

17. Apparently...

that standard is perfection.

[lame54]

18. If they are going to take millions of jobs they'd better...

Be way better and not just cheaper

[tonedevil]

20. The way I understand it...

90% of all accidents are caused by human error. Even if machines are not perfect the 30,000 deaths a year in the USA from automobile accidents could be reduced considerably if we can just eliminate the nut behind the wheel.

[brush]

24. Why defend a failure in the lidar and radar? The car's sensors failed miserably and need to...

be improved before allowed back on the road.

There is no competition between it and human drivers.

At lease there's not supposed to be according to you autonomous adherents so don't bother to bring up that straw man argument. They're supposed to be better yet that car didn't not even detect the woman, it never even slowed down.

[tonedevil]

28. How is there no competition...

between autonomous cars and human driven cars? They are both designed to do the same job. Humans have been driving for a bit more than 100 years and for the US population that results in a bit more than 30,000 deaths due to accidents every year. It is estimated in those accidents that 90% of the time they are caused by human error. If autonomous cars can cut that by one quarter it would be a great improvement. I remember when the drivers arm was the seat belt for my juvenile self. When seat belts first came out they could actually exacerbate the damage from the accident. Airbags have had their issues as well, but we keep using them and improving them over time. It is thanks to those and other safety improvements the fatality rate went down from around 60,000 to where we are today.
I don't know why the car acted as it did and neither do you. Maybe Uber went cheap and the sensors were not strong enough or are a type that have a high failure rate. I'm sure there is an investigation as to the root cause of the failure. My hope is that the investigation is executed by observers with no ties to Uber or Volvo so it isn't just CYA. Autonomous cars can certainly be a horror show, but they have the potential to improve highway fatality rates as significantly as seat belts, anti-lock brakes, and air bags.

[brush]

30. There shouldn't be any competition. Self-driving cars, if they accomplish their most important task,

being better than human drivers, there should be no question at all that they are better.

That accident in Az shows they are not even close to doing that.

Keep them off the road until they are.

[tonedevil]

35. So far Uber seems to agree...

with you. One incident doesn't prove or disprove the readiness of the technology, but good luck keeping autonomous cars off the road until you are comfortable with their abilities.

[brush]

36. You should also be confident in their abilities. If you continue to say they should be on the road..

after that spectacular failure you've yielded any credibility to be worth bothering with.

[tonedevil]

39. The only way it matters...

what you think of my credibility is if I think you have any. I am confident in the abilities of autonomous cars one crash is not a spectacular failure. It is reason to study what went wrong not reason to scrap autonomous vehicles.

[brush]

43. Don't remember anyone saying scrap them. Improve them, yes. How is that hard to understand?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

41. What should we do with that driver (and millions like him) who was supposed to be the safety...

... but was too busy fiddling with his phone?

[honest.abe]

4. Well technically, the uber car should have been capable of dealing with this situation.

It has a radar type detection system called LIDAR that normally works in a situation like this. Clearly something malfunctioned.

The poor dude in the car should not be blamed.. IMO. I would imagine it is very difficult to stay attentive if not driving the car.

[sdfernando]

7. I agree with you

This is basically like being a passenger is a car....on a long trip because the Uber "driver" or should I say babysitter isn't really doing anything. How many of us doze off on long trips in a car?

[Jim__]

5. Reality is that anyone co-piloting a self-driving car is going to occasionally be distracted.

I don't believe any person can sit in a car as a back-up pilot and retain constant focus on the road.

[honest.abe]

9. Indeed.

If that is Uber's fail-safe they are going to have many more incidents like this.

[PoliticAverse]

6. "sue everyone let the courts sort it out". n/t

[pnwmom]

8. Worse, this is also saying the woman who got killed could be at fault.

As far as the rider is concerned, there is already plenty of data showing that back-up drivers don't increase safety because of the lag time between the car's failure and their own response.

[Voltaire2]

13. It is entirely possible that the pedestrian

was at fault.

[pnwmom]

15. Not more than the car that didn't either steer away or brake when she was detectable. n/t

[Voltaire2]

19. When she was detectable is the point.

she may not have been detectable by either a human or the system within either’s response time. She was not in a crosswalk. This may have been her fault.

[pnwmom]

22. These systems are supposed to be able to see much better than a human in the dark.

It didn't even slow down. The reason they are voluntarily taking the vehicles off the street for the time being is because they realize that this car didn't work AS INTENDED, and they have to figure out why.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/22/self-driving-car-uber-death-woman-failure-fatal-crash-arizona

Video of the first self-driving car crash that killed a pedestrian suggests a “catastrophic failure” by Uber’s technology, according to experts in the field, who said the footage showed the autonomous system erring on one of its most basic functions.

SNIP

The footage “strongly suggests a failure by Uber’s automated driving system and a lack of due care by Uber’s driver”, Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law school professor and autonomous vehicle expert, said in an email. He noted that the victim is visible about two seconds before the collision, saying: “This is similar to the average reaction time for a driver. That means an alert driver may have at least attempted to swerve or brake.”

SNIP

“I really don’t understand why Lidar didn’t pick this up,” said Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor and self-driving expert. “This video does not absolve Uber.”

Even though the video appeared dark, King said there was likely more visibility than the footage suggested and noted that the darkness should not affect the car’s detection abilities.

SNIP

Police have emphasized that the victim was not in a crosswalk at the time of the crash, but experts said the technology still should have stopped the vehicle, a Volvo, and King noted that the exact section where Herzberg entered the street is a common area for pedestrians to cross near a local park.

[brush]

25. Nah, it was a failure of the lidar and radar. They are supposed to detect objects in the road way...

before humans whether it's dark or light.

Uber would be inviting even more lawsuits it's going to get from this case if it put those cars back on the road with such faulty technology.

[onethatcares]

14. thank gaud

it wasn't a semi truck hitting someone or something.

this technology scares the crap outa me.

[misanthrope]

21. I understand why

When talking about a standard small car stopping quickly due to an unexpected event -- wreck, jaywalker, what have you -- then it's far more manageable than something weighing multiple times as much and having to deal with much more inertia/momentum. A bus would be just as dangerous as a semi.

Thing is, that inertia/momentum exists even with a human steering the heavy transport. If this woman had stepped in front of them the same way she did this Uber car, she's be just as dead.

Otherwise, I'm leery about corporate entities and Uber in particular. Ride-sharing companies have shown through their very business model a scofflaw attitude toward regulations intended to make the taxi business safer for customers and generally more egalitarian. By their reckoning, laws are for others while they feel they should be exempt, something that strikes me as very libertarian in its essence.

A business entity with that ethos isn't going to give a damn about the inherent safety of any technology. All they want is the money and all other responsibilities be damned. In a post-Citizen's United world, they already have the upper hand anyway so why would they wait to find out about potential problems if they don't fear paying a cost for it? They can buy politicians as they have become accustomed to buying "justice" and all we can do is sit back and watch.

[ProudLib72]

23. This is good to know

When pedestrians are in a crosswalk and obeying traffic signals, drivers have the responsibility to not hit them, Arrowhead said. But when pedestrians cross outside of a crosswalk, it is their responsibility to yield to traffic and not get hit.

That makes the pedestrian negligent in this accident, he said.

Driving in downtown Denver, there are always pedestrians crossing the streets against the walk signals, not in the designated crossing sections. I'm just going to run them down from now on since this proves I have zero responsibility toward them.

[LisaM]

26. Our driver's ed program was very stringent, and it was drummed into us

that if we in any way could have prevented an accident, then we could be at fault for it, regardless of whatever the "rules" were.

I don't know why the pedestrian was crossing where she did, but I know that on some streets in Seattle, the crosswalks are often a half mile (or more) apart. I didn't see any crosswalks in the photos, but people who aren't frequent pedestrians often don't realize that in order to use crosswalks, pedestrians sometimes have to walk quite a bit out of their way. If you're carrying something or if the weather is bad, this can really be burdensome.

The car was also going 40 mph; this seems a little bit high for an area with pedestrians, but maybe that was the speed limit.

[ProudLib72]

27. You need a license to drive, but you don't need a license to walk

It seems to me the majority of responsibility rests with the driver for this reason. And I agree with your assessment that, if a driver could have prevented the accident, he/she/it is responsible. So it comes down to whether or not a human driver could have avoided the pedestrian, and "new technology" is not an excuse.

I tell you, I'm getting frustrated with the people who argue that this is just a knee jerk reaction to new technology. Someone is dead. The people who make the knee jerk complaint seem an awful like the pro-gun lobby making their excuses every time there is a mass shooting.

[Major Nikon]

29. Theres a more pressing question

The question really should be will there be more or less vehicle related fatalities due to autonomous vehicles. We may already be there, but without a doubt at some point the answer will be less.

At that point we really have an ethical responsibility to implement the technology, yet I have no doubt it won’t happen as soon as it should because of the knee jerk reaction that happens every time one is the least bit involved in a fatality.

[ProudLib72]

31. "the knee jerk reaction that happens every time one is the least bit involved in a fatality"

[Major Nikon]

32. The biggest cause cause of vehicle fatalities is...

Driver error.

[ProudLib72]

34. Because, until now, there have been no driverless cars

But if they take the stance of AI having zero responsibility for hitting pedestrians and killing them, then I'm sure the statistics will show how wonderfully safe driverless cars really are. You're avoiding this major point from the article that LisaM and I were discussing: they are trying to move the goalposts here and pin the responsibility on the pedestrian.

[Major Nikon]

38. I didnt get that out of the article

The news report just quotes an expert which states the driver could be held responsible, which seems rather obvious. Another result could be the accident would have been inside the delayed reaction time of a human driver. Seems a bit premature for any knee jerk.

Regardless the day will inevitably come when AI is responsible for a fatality. It will be something of a shame if this example is used to kneecap a technology which has enormous potential to save lives.

[ProudLib72]

44. Here is what I posted above, a direct quote from the article

When pedestrians are in a crosswalk and obeying traffic signals, drivers have the responsibility to not hit them, Arrowhead said. But when pedestrians cross outside of a crosswalk, it is their responsibility to yield to traffic and not get hit.

That makes the pedestrian negligent in this accident, he said.

My original point (and I think it was LisaM's as well) was that, when we went through driver's ed classes, we were always told that the driver carries the responsibility in cases like this. The real question this article brings up is whether or not this AI system that was put into use could properly identify a pedestrian in the road and take action to avoid hitting her. I have no issue with the fact that driverless cars will exist and give mobility to people with disabilities who would otherwise need to rely on others. I do take issue with introducing driverless cars into real world situations before the AI is good enough.

We differ on when to call AI "good enough". I admit there are scenarios in which the pedestrian is completely at fault and an accident could not be avoided regardless of who was driving. But when the technology experts make a statement like the one in the quote, well that is just silly. Five year olds chase balls into the street. Drunk people wobble into the street. Pedestrians have always had the right of way...until now apparently.

[sl8]

33. Why does the title say "The rider in the Uber vehicle is NOW at fault"?

The message body and the article are talking about the victim (pedestrian) being blamed. The only people mentioned are the victim and the (backup) driver. I don't see anything about a rider.

Am I missing something?