TheFly

Self-driving Uber car involved in fatal crash - NBC News


A self-driving Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in a late-night accident in Tempe, Ariz.

The accident is believed to be the first pedestrian fatality involving the burgeoning technology of autonomous vehicles.

The automobile was in autonomous mode when it struck a woman who was crossing the street late Sunday night, Tempe police said.

The unidentified pedestrian was rushed to an area hospital, where she died of her injuries, according to local media reports.

Police said an operator was in the driver's seat at the time of the collision, but the vehicle was in autonomous mode. Police also said the pedestrian was walking outside of the crosswalk when she was struck.

Hours after the crash, Uber announced the suspension of all tests of its autonomous vehicles in Pittsburgh, Phoenix, San Francisco and Toronto.

"Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi tweeted. "We’re thinking of the victim’s family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened."

A Twitter account for Uber's communications department said the ride sharing company is cooperating with Tempe Police.

Self-driving cars have been hailed by technology companies as the wave of the future. Autonomous cars are already being tested in more than 30 cities around the world, with companies plowing more than $80 billion into research and development.

Self-driving cars work by using complex radar systems to observe the road, objects and other cars. That data is then fed into a computer that decides what the car should do next. Proponents of the technology have claimed that self-driving cars will make transportation safer.

Self-driving cars have been involved in accidents before, including in Tempe. Uber suspended its testing in March 2017 after one of its autonomous cars was involved in an accident.

SonicFlyer

Yep this will slow the rush towards automation.

C130driver

Expect to see more headlines like this when they try to automate more moving objects in dynamic environments. Now we can relax some of the “will planes become pilotless soon” threads for now.

SonicFlyer

They just released the video and the bicyclist/pedestrian is clearly at fault:

https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/0...d-a-pedestrian

EasternATC

Not so fast. From AP - Experts: Uber self driving system should have spotted woman.

snowdawg

One of the biggest challenges not thought of on anything unmanned is,,,?? Liability.

Who's going to assume responsibility when someone is injured/killed, and or property damage. The person sitting there with no steering wheel or the company that designed it? There are many challenges with such a concept making it more complex then many people think, beyond mechanical and technology.

rickair7777

The deep pockets are already on the hook, vehicle mfg., airline, cab company, trucking company, etc. The driver/pilot/operator is not usually the cash cow.

The paradigm shift is that it will become much easier from the jury perspective to blame a robot or corporation, essentially automatic, and awards will be larger in states where the jury does that. So there will definitely be more dollar liability cost and exposure, and automation will be held to a higher standard than human operators.

But I see another related problem... without a driver/pilot (who is automatically responsible for safety) the legal system will struggle to fix blame, particularly in cases which might be criminal vice civil. So eventually there is likely to be a requirement for a safety sign-off from the designer/mfg and the maintainer/dispatcher. If the people doing those sign-offs end up facing criminal charges, it might be hard to find people to do it.

While human operators usually get the benefit of the doubt (in the US) if there's a question of human error vs. intentional negligence, I think designers will be much more vulnerable to second-guessing on engineering and programming. If I were doing programming, I'd probably stick to web pages and cell phone apps until the legal landscape solidifies.

FlyJSH

She was jaywalking, so that may figure into who is to blame.

But a five year old kid running after Spot who escaped out the front door and is running across the street... Both dog and child are jaywalking as well, but a jury's heart will bleed.

That said, let's look at the video again.

My reaction on first seeing the video is "I'm not sure I could have reacted in time." The car seems to be overrunning the headlights; that is, it is barely 2 seconds from when the pedestrian is first visible until being struck. Based on this Vehicle Stopping Distance And Time if the car was doing 35 mph, about 2.5 seconds warning would be required to stop in time. That said, even a small delay of braking would have resulted in a lower speed impact. Survivable? Who knows, but more likely.

What REALLY bothers me after watching the video repeatedly, is I do not see the nose diving prior to impact. This suggests to me the car didn't see the pedestrian late and then apply the brakes; it looks like the car never saw her.

But is that any worse than somebody driving with his knee, eating a burger, while changing the radio station?

SonicFlyer

A human driver would very likely not have done any better. Yes, the big question remains, what happened to the radar/lidar system here? And if they weren't using that did the computer have infrared/night vision optically?


But, at the end of the day, it is the fault of the pedestrian for being an idiot.

rickair7777

I don't think a human driver would have done much better in the car, but I think they would fare much better with the jury.