Self-Driving Uber SUV Kills Woman In Tempe

[Irving]

I'm under the impression that the lady was actually walking her bike across the street, but that doesn't change much because being knocked onto your head from standing is about the same as coming off of a bike.

This will be interesting as it will have similarities but a lot of new stuff to deal with, as already mentioned. It it were a person driver, the first thing an investigation is going to look at is vehicle speed and what the driver was actually doing at the time. It's unlikely the Uber was speeding, so like Gman pointed out, a lot of attention will be on sensors. The other thing is that I really can't believe that a vehicle like this is not equipped with cameras. Even if the vehicles doesn't use cameras to operate, I have to imagine that all this early stage testing stuff is jam packed with cameras to review scenarios just like this one.

[Irving]

I was reading this article to try and find more information: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/t...-fatality.html

When I came across this

The accident was a reminder that self-driving technology is still in the experimental stage, and governments are still trying to figure out how to regulate it.

I couldn't help but think that we'll know that self-driving tech has fully arrived when vehicle start fleeing the scene of accidents.

Anyway, through all the fluff, there is decent info in the article, as well as a photo of the vehicle on the side of the road where you can see the impact point on the vehicle. Assuming that the vehicle wasn't moved, you can see which lane it was in as well. Investigators say that the Volvo was traveling at about 40 mph, but there is no indication that it attempted to slow down, but they didn't say why they thought that.

[CHA-LEE]

I have seen my fair share of ignorant bike riders doing stupid shit while riding on public roads. I have also seen bike riders intentionally put themselves in harms way because they feel they have the "Right of Way" regardless of the potential consequences. Go to Boulder and you will see that crap at just about every intersection.

If you are navigating public roads without a continual "Who is doing stupid shit around me?" mindset then you are more likely to meet your maker.

[Gman]

Uber Self-Driving SUV Kills Pedestrian Crossing Street

“The technology that can assess and react to the driving environment continues to evolve, but it’s not foolproof,” says Jake Fisher, director of auto testing at Consumer Reports. Even advanced safety and object-detection systems, found in many cars today, have not yet been perfected, he said. “We see all sorts of driver-assist systems fail from time to time in the cars that CR evaluates. That includes forward-collision systems that issue false alerts and lane-keeping systems that don’t recognize lane markings as they should.”

That's been my experience as well.

There are times when a human driver can anticipate changes to the driving environment whereas sensors are creating snapshots of what it currently detects. You can pick up on subtleties of how another driver is interfacing with their car. I can regularly detect when a driver wants to be in another lane well before they actually make a lane change. Many times they'll keep hedging to one side of their lane, almost subconsciously.

California has increased the regulation on self-driving vehicles requiring them to prove the safety of the vehicle while Arizona relaxed rules allowing autonomous vehicles to not require a 'safety driver' behind the wheel. Most of the testing in the area of autonomous vehicles appears to be in AZ.

From what I can tell, the deceased was walking their bike across the street and were moving from the median toward the sidewalk. My bet is that the sensors couldn't make a distinction between the pedestrian and other objects found in medians.

[Skip]

I was reading this article to try and find more information: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/t...-fatality.html

When I came across this

I couldn't help but think that we'll know that self-driving tech has fully arrived when vehicle start fleeing the scene of accidents.

Anyway, through all the fluff, there is decent info in the article, as well as a photo of the vehicle on the side of the road where you can see the impact point on the vehicle. Assuming that the vehicle wasn't moved, you can see which lane it was in as well. Investigators say that the Volvo was traveling at about 40 mph, but there is no indication that it attempted to slow down, but they didn't say why they thought that.

Technology is very good at dealing with known and repeatable scenarios but very bad and unknown ones and truly automated learning (AI). In meatspace a machine isn't dealing with a set of defined scenarios but all scenarios including those previously unknown.

"Machine learning" really still is in its infancy even though you find in white papers all over the data space. Could be a missing censor input or interpretation.

When I'm driving and see a ball heading towards the street I slow down and get ready to slam on the brakes. Can't count the number of times a child or a dog has run out chasing it. I bet most of us here do the same without realizing it! The ball may not be in the field of a censor. The interpretation that a child/dog could follow may not be in the code. And if so, the automation can't slam on the brakes anytime there is a nearby object that is moving or it would needlessly cause accidents. There is an element of judgment and evaluation of risks.

There is a lot going on between a human's ears. And some of that isn't just mechanics but morals/ethics. I don't just drive save because it saves me on my insurance but because I don't want to hurt anyone.

So we automate a critical (life/death) function while paying people not to work? I think this is being done wrong.

If the automated bugger-flipper does it wrong, my order gets jacked up. If the automated car gets it wrong, people die. Why not get the bugger-flipping automation right first?

[Gman]

Yep. The use of the term Artificial Intelligence is also overused. It simply doesn't yet exist. There are some functions being used that may be part of an AI 'toolkit', like sensors, but figuring out what to do with that data is still programmed.

[TheGrey]

I'm growing a bit concerned at this push to test technology "in the real world" before it's actually ready. I would think that self-driving vehicles would be run through some sort of field test facility where they can shove random objects suddenly into the test streets, see how it does with massive potholes or precipitation, etc without the danger of killing actual people that are unaware they are in what is essentially a giant video game.

[CHA-LEE]

So the question is......... If you are walking across the street why wouldn't you be looking out for oncoming cars? The magical street crossing fairy isn't going to keep you safe when someone or something blasts through the crosswalk.

I seen a similar zero sense of situational awareness situation happen yesterday. I was driving to work though my neighborhood and a guy was walking across the street in front of me. He was also cutting across the middle of the street in a diagonal fashion towards my car. He had ear phones in and his head was buried in his phone texting. I was driving about 25mph and slowed to a stop just as he was walking in front of my car. He didn't even see me even though my front bumper was less than 6 feet from him. I honked my horn as he was bout to walk right into my car and he about shit his pants when he looked up to see what was going on.

[Gman]

I'm growing a bit concerned at this push to test technology "in the real world" before it's actually ready. I would think that self-driving vehicles would be run through some sort of field test facility where they can shove random objects suddenly into the test streets, see how it does with massive potholes or precipitation, etc without the danger of killing actual people that are unaware they are in what is essentially a giant video game.

Frogger: The real life version

[Gman]

I seen a similar zero sense of situational awareness situation happen yesterday. I was driving to work though my neighborhood and a guy was walking across the street in front of me. He was also cutting across the middle of the street in a diagonal fashion towards my car. He had ear phones in and his head was buried in his phone texting. I was driving about 25mph and slowed to a stop just as he was walking in front of my car. He didn't even see me even though my front bumper was less than 6 feet from him. I honked my horn as he was bout to walk right into my car and he about shit his pants when he looked up to see what was going on.

I used to work up around 20th in downtown Denver in a past life over 20 years ago. There's an area where the light rail would loop back from north to south and ran the opposite direction to traffic. There was signage to warn pedestrians that trains approached from the other direction. As I'm waiting on the sidewalk for an oncoming train to pass, a guy reading a newspaper shows up in my peripheral vision walking past me and gets ready to step off the curb. I reflexively grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. The train almost knocked the newspaper out of his hand. He was very thankful.

It's human. It happens. It always has and always will.

Once people rely on automation, they get to where they require it. This has been seen in aviation where so many commercial pilots are used to having systems do everything for them, that they lack the skills to manually fly the aircraft when those systems fail. And guess what, systems fail even in ways that were never anticipated. What I find really interesting is when systems fail and humans find ways to manipulate the vehicle in ways that were never anticipated to a happy outcome.