Self-Driving Uber Car Kills Arizona Pedestrian

Like nobody ever died before when a new tech was introduced. Some places required cars to have people walk ahead of them with red flags to warn pedestrians and equestrians didn't stop the car from becoming the #1 transport device (in many places). It's sad for the few who get killed, but ultimately the number of lives saved will be much higher. And as others pointed out there are a lot of details missing from this story.
 
Self driving cars are for lazy fucks who shouldn't be behind the wheel to begin with. If you're too fucking stupid to pay attention to the road while you're driving, do us all a favor and don't drive! Take the bus, train, etc...How many more people will have to die before we realize technology isn't the answer to everything?

What about disabled people? I have a coworker who ends up having to walk a mile to work every day, even in the snow, because he occasionally gets seizures and can't legally drive. And that means his wife gets stuck with all the running the children around and other errands that require a vehicle. I have talked to him about this, and he would love a self-driving car, since it would make his family's life much easier.
 
Does it vary from state to state on whether a bike is a vehicle or pedestrian? Around me it's a vehicle BUT most people riding bikes still act like they are pedestrians re: crosswalks and whatnot.

On a side-note, my car was T-boned by a kid on a bicycle before. I was in the middle of an intersection and the kid on his bike plowed through his stop sign and right into my car. His friends were able to brake in time but the kid was not so lucky. Broke his front teeth but otherwise ok.

I'll wait for more info before I judge.
 
Self driving cars are for lazy fucks who shouldn't be behind the wheel to begin with.

Hardly. Traffic jams happen because humans suck at driving. We brake faster than we accelerate. That unevenness causes traffic jams even when there aren't accidents.

When realized, self driving cars will be the only thing saving us from gridlock. We have plenty of road capacity if we take crappy human drivers out of the equation.
 
Those who want them can have their self-driving cars, so long as they don't seek to ban human-controlled automobiles. That is something I would physically go to war over to defend.
 
Almost hit a kid on a bike once. He just came out of no where. Scared the shit out of me. But driverless cars suppose to be able to see 360 degrees at the same time.

Inasmuch as they can 'see', they do see in 360 degrees. But a driverless car still has to make a decision - if it is going 40 mph and it 'sees' a person on the sidewalk, it cannot slow down to ensure that it will always be able to avoid that person if the person decides to leap into the street. If it did that, it would disrupt the flow of traffic each time it drove past a pedestrian. As long as the person is continuing on the sidewalk, the car will continue at 40 mph. It is really really hard to create an AI that can look at a lidar map and decide if a person is acting like they might step off the sidewalk.

Which brings up our second problem, and it's one of the real problems that the AI people are wrestling with: If a person walking a bicycle leaves the sidewalk and moves onto the bike lane, does the car presume the person is going to cross the street, or does the car presume that the person is going to get on their bike and start riding?

The third problem is that none of the solutions in use today are good at seeing movement through a parked car's windows, or movement behind a chain link fence. Humans do that easily, but computers don't.


Like nobody ever died before when a new tech was introduced.

You should read about the adoption of microwaves. There was a time when they were close to being outlawed as unsafe.


Almost hit a kid on a bike once. He just came out of no where. Scared the shit out of me.

I used to work in a college town, a town that had a population of ~10,000 in the summer and ~27,000 during the school year. And students are fucking idiots, they will jaywalk whenever they want, they will walk right up the middle of the street ignoring the cars that are backing up behind them, because they don't give a fuck - they have the right of way. We had an incident in my town where a student on a bicycle crashed into a parked car that hadn't been moved for days, and the bicyclist filed damages against the car owners policy. And you can howl and scream bullshit and gnash your teeth all you want, but the insurance company paid it, and the owner of the car had no legal recourse to say anything, since the claim was between the bicyclist and the insurance company.
 
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In Portland Oregon we have people who give 0 fucks and walk expidiciously and blindly into traffic moving at 30-35 mph.

Sometimes they walk away unscathed however the biggest losers get hit by the MAX light rail. It's Darwinism at work daily.... Even pigeons look both ways.
 
Love how the article and arguments are emphasizing the crosswalk, like it should be mandatory to only cross at crosswalks. all the rest of those jay birds should be locked up for impeding the right a way of a automaton.

I know that there was a time when the majority of drivers would see a person on the side the road and we would slow down and most likely move away from the person so when we pass them its very unlikely they could get injured (even if they attempted self suicide it would have been near impossible to hit them)

but i guess this day and time there is no need to cautiously approach a pedestrian unless they are in a designated crossing area. just fly right on by em, if you some how do harm to em big deal they were in the wrong because they weren't in the designated crossing or walking area and deserve to die. serves those peasants right, and oh yeah i want a portion of their estate to fix the damage they did to my vehicle.

this is is why i am anti self driving car . people want to take away so much of every day privilege of others just so they can ensure the success of a half backed technology. for the sole purpose that they can sleep behind the wheel .

make all the excuses you want that pedestrian should not have died.

crosswalking or doing cartwheels along side the road that vehicle should have used due care when encroaching on a pedestrian . (slow down and avoid or stop and alert the passenger of obstruction)

its failure not to just demonstrates how inadequate the technology is.
 
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The fact that these systems would run into stationary objects as if they don't exist, it a pretty serious limitation. I didn't know this aspect until fairly recent, and unlike before it does make me question the future viability of the systems. Was that the case here? Was person in a sort of unintentional game of chicken scenario?
 
Interesting. Self driving cars definitely need more testing/improvement before being put out on the road. There needs to be emphasis on the safety driver to be alert for now during this test phase. Humans are unpredictable. I don't know more about this case, but I really am curious if it was the fault of the technology or the fault of the pedestrian. Probably both. The technology needs to eventually be advanced enough to adapt and deal with unpredictable situations such as pedestrians, bikes, other vehicles of transportation, or other hazards on the road.
 
Maybe self flying small planes would be safer. A lot more paths in the air than on the ground.
 
This might not even been the cars fault. Woman was Jay walking proabably not paying attention. On her phoneore then likely and walked out in front of the car. People too quick to say fuck Uber. If this was a Tesla car people be out white knighting the hell out of it.

Not really. Have you ever had a jaywalker step out in front of you? Chances are yes. Did you know how to respond or did you just say fuck it and run them over? Have you ever seen someone run a red light where if you would have pulled out you would have been hit? Why didn't you just say "The light is green, screw it I have right of way according to the laws on the book so I'm going"? Seriously, the car didn't understand how to respond to a person in the middle of the street. Is there anyone here confused about what to do when driving and there is a person in the street in front of you and in your path? Self driving vehicles are nowhere near ready to handle situations where everything doesn't fit into some predicted parameter. The bottom line is that people make mistakes and humans are better at compensating for other humans than some algorithm that is limited in flexibility. That's just accounting for algorithm errors. What about sensor failures, etc.? The auto industry can't make reliable engine sensors ( https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/r/advice/car-maintenance/what-are-automotive-sensors ), and I'm supposed to trust them with more advanced sensors to navigate a 4000 pound projectile in close proximity to people? Yeah, F that noise.
 
What about disabled people? I have a coworker who ends up having to walk a mile to work every day, even in the snow, because he occasionally gets seizures and can't legally drive. And that means his wife gets stuck with all the running the children around and other errands that require a vehicle. I have talked to him about this, and he would love a self-driving car, since it would make his family's life much easier.

Or you know he could take a uber and not kill the rest of us with his automatic car.
 
The question I have is this:

How many hours had the self driving car been in operation in that area?

There’s 1 fatality.

What’s the acreage fatalities in the given area at the same hours of operation? Expand that to other areas and compare.

To many human factors in autonomous cars to think they will be incident free. However any reduction in fatalities is a win in my book.
 
You are dead on with this statement. The New York Times wrote this piece as an anti-autonymous vehicle opinion piece rather than a factual story regarding the actual situation noted in the headlines. The only detail we are given to work with is that the pedestrian was out of a crosswalk. For all we know they could have jumped off a bridge and landed in front of a moving car. The remainder of the article goes on to mention unrelated incidents in which there were autonymous vehicle accidents instead of actually discussing the incident in question which leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I find the lack of details telling, and unfortunately can't derive an opinion on the situation without forthcoming facts.

Honestly this is some incredibly poor journalism on their part and fails to deliver anything factual other than the premise. Whether they were in a rush to bring this first to light, or just had an agenda to promote, the lack of information is telling.
ISn't this the state a national media at this point? Instead of journalistic research and fact reporting its more about the story and how someone wants to slant it. Regardless of your stance on the current White house administration this trend has been growing for decades. Everything reported at this point is more opinion than facts, from the times up movement to gun control,to any scandal coming from the government. I hate the state a news in this country its extremely difficult to find truth in the trash dump we call "news".
 
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Unfortunately these are the growing pains of emerging technology. I also wonder if the woman crossed right before the car could do anything to stop in time, or if the technology truly did fail there. I wish that we could tax car companies (or find some other way to cover the costs) to create pedestrian overpasses on streets with heavy traffic, as I imagine the amount of accidents would dramatically drop if we had that.

edit: it appears to be a cyclist rather than a pedestrian. that makes things a bit more interesting - I wonder how it all went down.


tell us that when something like that impacts you personally... computers are not capable of the decision making ability that your average driver is... how to anticipate and predict...
 
Hardly. Traffic jams happen because humans suck at driving. We brake faster than we accelerate. That unevenness causes traffic jams even when there aren't accidents.

When realized, self driving cars will be the only thing saving us from gridlock. We have plenty of road capacity if we take crappy human drivers out of the equation.
You are so wrong on so many levels.
Gridlock is a result of the density of cars exceeding the limits of road capacity. Slower drivers increase density. Unless self-driving cars drive faster than humans than they will increase density. When mixing self-driving cars with human drivers self-driving cars will drive slower because of it's limitations in anticipating human behavior thereby increasing density. Only by removing humans from the roads will self-driving cars decrease gridlock.

Removing human drivers will create massive social problems. Initially only the rich will be able to afford self-driving cars. People who drive for a living will be put out of work by self-driving cars. People who buy self-driving cars will be targeted by an angry public. Every accident will raise the public's ire. Rural communities will vigorously oppose banning human drivers.

Self-driving cars are several decades away...
 
Rural communities will vigorously oppose banning human drivers.

Self-driving cars are several decades away...

My truck drives just as much off roads hauling stuff around than it does on roads....no self driving car can handle that.
 
My truck drives just as much off roads hauling stuff around than it does on roads....no self driving car can handle that.
This is a good point to bring up. Driving off road for hauling or daily farming chores could never be replaced by self-driving cars because of the nature running a farm or any other job that requires non-road driving.
The car fleet could never be 100% driverless because of this very point.
 
Oh really?



If Boston Dynamics can figure it out, so can autonomous cars.

I wouldn't say never.... It will happen, sooner or later - probably later, but not never.
 
Oh really?



If Boston Dynamics can figure it out, so can autonomous cars.

I wouldn't say never.... It will happen, sooner or later - probably later, but not never.


Hey car take this load over by yonder tree.
Hey car go line up to that aircraft for towing.
Hey car go sit below the grain chute...
Hey car back up to the lake so I can unload my boat...

And on and on...you need an override. Especially with poor GPS coverage. Some of the lakes I fish we are lucky to get a cell signal in most parts. GPS is spotty but usually there, depends on which sats are acting up.
 
If the driver takes all the blame and goes to jail. Don't think anyone will be a saftey driver anymore. There's just too much money to be saved by having driverless vehicles. The tech isn't going to go away imo.

Why would you think that?

CNBC's 10 most dangerous jobs.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/04/the-10-most-dangerous-jobs-for-men.html
1. Logging workers
2. Fishers and fishing workers
3. Aircraft pilots and flight engineers
4. Roofers\
5. Refuse and recyclable material collectors
6. Structural iron and steel workers
7. Truck drivers
8. Farmers, ranchers and agricultural managers
9. Electrical power-line installer and repairer
10. Supervisors of landscaping, lawn service and grounds-keeping workers

But if it's just incarceration and not death & dismemberment that you are concerned with;

Corporate Officers, Medical Personnel, Law Enforcement Officers, and many other professions all come hat in hand with significant risks of civil and criminal liability, yet there are plenty enough people still signing up to fill those seats.
 
Gridlock is a result of the density of cars exceeding the limits of road capacity.

Actually, even without on- and off-ramps freeways can never reach more than 60% capacity. People who fail to maintain a consistent speed (even if it's above the speed limit) will cause phantom or shockwave jams that prevent the smooth flow of traffic.



 
ISn't this the state a national media at this point? Instead of journalistic research and fact reporting its more about the story and how someone wants to slant it. Regardless of your stance on the current White house administration this trend has been growing for decades. Everything reported at this point is more opinion than facts, from the times up movement to gun control,to any scandal coming from the government. I hate the state a news in this country its extremely difficult to find truth in the trash dump we call "news".

I remember awhile ago just after college I got into listening to Noam Chomsky for awhile. One of the biggest takeaways from all his lectures and books was the fact that actual news/facts from a source is really limited to a very few unique places. A death certificate, a birth certificate, legal documents, and other print materials that are free from bias. Nowadays this could probably be updated to real photographs, videos, and other media related documents that are unadulterated.

Take this car incident for example. What type of training do the autonymous drivers receive? What car and type of ai algorithm is being employed? What street, intersection, did the accident take place on? Was there any police statements collected at the scene that could be viewed to get a better understanding of the situation? ect

Without those essential base details, we're really left to just discuss a philosophical argument about the use of ai vs. the cost of human life, instead of the real reason behind the accident, which causes politicians to jump to poor conclusions and shutter future tech due to unfounded concerns.
 
She was like 60 yards from a crosswalk and stepped out from the median.

It sounds like it'll end up being her fault: http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-crash/

“It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode [autonomous or human-driven] based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,” Moir told the paper, adding that the incident occurred roughly 100 yards from a crosswalk. “It is dangerous to cross roadways in the evening hour when well-illuminated managed crosswalks are available,” she said.

Though the vehicle was operating in autonomous mode, a driver was present in the front seat. But Moir said there appears to be little he could have done to intervene before the crash.

“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”
 
Yes it is too soon to say that

And this is precisely why.

How many jaywalkers in the middle of the night have gotten hit by cars? Uber so presumably it was around bars, and I wouldn't be half surprised if this was just some drunk that stumbled out into the street or some self absorbed person just wandering out while texting on a phone, and could have been hit by literally anyone it just happened to be a self driving car this time.


So 4500 "pedestrians" were killed in 2016 that were NOT in a cross walk, that's more than 12 a day on average. 2000 of which were drunks. How many of these got any sort of national attention? But yeah lets point fingers at the self driving cars.

Now the upside to this death is presumably there are a bevy of sensors and cameras so we can actually see what happened, however the downside is that even if it is shown her to be the primary cause of the accident that will never get anywhere close to the headline attention that this has, then once again we can chalk up stupid fucking people ruining anything good for the rest of us.
Stupid people will always be stupid people. Having said that, the idea of autonomy in automobiles presents itself in a league of its own and shouldn't be taken lightly. As manufacturers continue to prove their safety, it will be a trial by fire. If they are anything less than perfect, they will be burned.

Autonomous automobiles are nothing more than a convenience or luxury. The idea that human lives are at risk because some people have become too lazy to turn a steering wheel just doesn't sit right with me.
 
"Operator of self-driving Uber vehicle that killed Arizona pedestrian was felon, report says

The operator of a self-driving Uber vehicle that struck and killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix Monday was a convicted felon who served almost four years in prison on an attempted armed robbery charge, according to court records.

The Volvo was in self-driving mode with Rafaela Vasquez, 44, at the wheel when the car hit 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg as she was walking a bicycle outside the lines of a crosswalk, police said. Herzberg later died at a hospital.

Court records obtained by the Arizona Republic show Vasquez has a criminal record in Arizona under a different legal name, and was released from prison in 2005.

The 44-year-old served three years and 10 months in a state prison for convictions on attempted armed robbery and unsworn falsification."


http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/2...arizona-pedestrian-was-felon-report-says.html

I feel so much safer with a multiple felon behind the wheel as a "safety" driver.
 
Self driving cars are for lazy fucks who shouldn't be behind the wheel to begin with. If you're too fucking stupid to pay attention to the road while you're driving, do us all a favor and don't drive! Take the bus, train, etc...How many more people will have to die before we realize technology isn't the answer to everything?

No, Freeloader self driving cars are being designed to remove people from driving completely. In this next 25 years you will see that regular cars will eventually be banned from the roads. This has always been the long term plan.

As to the crash looks like my guess before was correct that the crash was unavoidable and the pedestrian was at fault. This is based on the local Police Chief at this time. Statement was that manned or not this would have been hard to avoid based on the footage. The investigation is not complete but looks like that is the outcome.
 
"Operator of self-driving Uber vehicle that killed Arizona pedestrian was felon, report says

The operator of a self-driving Uber vehicle that struck and killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix Monday was a convicted felon who served almost four years in prison on an attempted armed robbery charge, according to court records.

The Volvo was in self-driving mode with Rafaela Vasquez, 44, at the wheel when the car hit 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg as she was walking a bicycle outside the lines of a crosswalk, police said. Herzberg later died at a hospital.

Court records obtained by the Arizona Republic show Vasquez has a criminal record in Arizona under a different legal name, and was released from prison in 2005.

The 44-year-old served three years and 10 months in a state prison for convictions on attempted armed robbery and unsworn falsification."


http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/2...arizona-pedestrian-was-felon-report-says.html

I feel so much safer with a multiple felon behind the wheel as a "safety" driver.

Fucking Uber... :facepalm:
 
As opposed to the several thousand pedestrians that die each year because of human drivers? Yeah, we'd better give up on self-driving cars right away! /s

From Wiki (Overall, there were an estimated 263.6 million registered passenger vehicles in the United States in 2015. This number, along with the average age of vehicles, has increased steadily since 1960.)

Let's stick 263.6 million autonomous cars on the road and see how much difference there is.

I would guess the autonomous cars would fair a tad bit better, but ask yourself this. If you were the "drive/owner" of an autonomous car who do you think should pay in case of a wrongful death. (Not saying this was not the woman's fault)

I am 51 years old. I will never own a self-driving car, but I know they will be here one day. But if I did own one, I should not be required to have insurance. Because if self-driving cars are so much safer because they are self driving, then the insurance or all costs normally associated with insurance should fall on the manufacturer. Period. Insurance is not there to pay for when my car makes a mistake. It is there for when I make the mistake and if the car is self-driving then I make no mistakes. Ergo I no longer need insurance.
 
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