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Self-Driving Uber Car Kills Arizona Woman in First Fatal Crash Involving Pedestrian (gizmodo.com)
Joe_Dragon writes: Last night a woman was struck by an autonomous Uber vehicle in Tempe, Arizona. She later died of her injuries in the hospital. The deadly collision -- reported by ABC15 and later confirmed to Gizmodo by Uber and Tempe police -- took place around 10PM at the intersection Mill Avenue and Curry Road. Autonomous vehicle developers often test drive at night, during storms, and other challenging conditions to help their vehicles learn to navigate in a variety of environments.
According to Tempe PD, the car was in autonomous mode at the time of the incident, with a vehicle operator sitting behind the wheel. A police spokesperson added in a statement that the woman's 'next of kin has not been notified yet so her name is not being released at this time. Uber is assisting and this is still an active investigation.' The woman was crossing the street outside a crosswalk when she was hit, the spokesperson said. Update: Uber says it is suspending self-driving car tests in all North American cities after a fatal accident.
According to Tempe PD, the car was in autonomous mode at the time of the incident, with a vehicle operator sitting behind the wheel. A police spokesperson added in a statement that the woman's 'next of kin has not been notified yet so her name is not being released at this time. Uber is assisting and this is still an active investigation.' The woman was crossing the street outside a crosswalk when she was hit, the spokesperson said. Update: Uber says it is suspending self-driving car tests in all North American cities after a fatal accident.
I'm very familiar with the types of sensors used in these cars. They have trouble with rain, snow, sunlight, scratches, dirt, basically anything. Try sticking your head out the window while driving and pretend your eyeballs are the sensors. It's a pretty comparable comparison. We're 50 years out from a working self-driving car. The AI isn't there, the sensors aren't there, and every amaaaaazing show-off event being held is on a perfect road with perfect weather or some conditions they know the car can handle.
. . . to the existing legal system. So many have speculated what would happen when a self-driving car inevitably killed a 3rd party. Might as well get the process started so the litigation / legislation is resolved quicker and things move ahead . . .
(a) Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway unless he has already, and under safe conditions, entered the roadway. - https://law.justia.com/codes/g...
And of course the thousands of laws and ordinances stating that pedestrians have right of way on marked and unmarked crossings which would be pointless if pedestrians always had right of way.
Working in Tempe AZ I am familiar with the area of the intersection. This area is not a high volume pedestrian area like South Mill Avenue. I really can't imagine anything more than infrequent pedestrian traffic on a Sunday evening at 10 pm. You go a mile south on Mill Avenue (walk under the 202 Freeway overpass, and then cross over the Tempe Town Lake bridge and yes you will find plenty of pedestrians. But looking at the Google Maps this area is pretty much undeveloped desert park on the east and a theater venue on the west. O.T. Genasis was playing at the theater Sunday night at 7:30 so if I had to guess I would place money on the pedestrian having attended the show (bar in the theater) and may have parked in the park parking lot some distance to the east (free parking versus pay or full parking at the venue). I am just guessing, but this is a plausible informed guess. https://www.google.com/maps/pl...
The original reporting on ABC15 Self-driving Uber car hits, kills pedestrian in Tempe actually includes a video that has the caption "Self-driving vehicle hits BICYCLIST". The video also shows a crumpled-up bicycle.
Unfortunately, ABC15's text article says "a woman walking outside of the crosswalk was struck" and that is what the rest of the media is regurgitating as their own reporting.
Not true, I live in Las Vegas.. In 2011 or so we had so many idiots J-walking and getting hit by cars(multiple a week) the city made it legal to run over anybody J-walking as long as you were sober and driving legally.. The rate of people getting run over in Vegas has fell through the floor since then.
Did you mean criminals? FTFY
It's worse than that. The "fake" social security numbers they used are stolen from real taxpayers who are then on the hook for the unpaid taxes years later.
In many civilized countries (i.e. UK), pedestrians always have the right-of-way
They don't have right-of-way. Cars are not under any obligation to stop to let you cross a road, except at a zebra crossing.
Just because there's no offence of jaywalking, that doesn't mean pedestrians have priority over cars on the road.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It isn't legal if you do it on purpose (that is called murder) but if you accidentally hit someone who is jaywalking, the jaywalker is responsible for the accident and may be prosecuted both criminally and civilly.
Obviously if you are DUI or driving dangerously yourself and that caused the jaywalker's demise, then it could be considered manslaughter or you may also be prosecuted criminally and civilly, the onus could also revert back onto the driver to prove the person was not jaywalking, you can 'legally' walk across the street if it was safe to do so and you would not have to expect a car coming at 90mph around a corner.
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It's never legal to intentionally run someone over and it has always been the pedestrian's fault if they cause an accident jaywalking. You cannot legally run anyone over, regardless of their position, you can however be indemnified for hitting a jaywalker.
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It's a new thing. Literally everyone on the planet foresaw the potential for this has very very high. I'd be amazed if the developers themselves found themselves in a quandray that often occurs in machine learning: holy crap these are amazingly good results but we can't tell you when it will fail. After not seeing failures in all the test cases you find yourself letting go of that worry that it will fail catastrophically.
When cars were new themselves there were some remarkably crazy pedestrian protecting rules put in place such as requiring a flagman to walk in front of a car. But the thing about cars was that they really weren't a big leap from horses,trains, or boats. Propulsions systems controlled by human drivers are dangerous too of course. But were used to them and have mental models to protect us well ingrained.
Not so with driverless vehicles. And everyone thought this would happen even if they hoped it would not.
The whole tesla didn't see the truck thing should have been a tip off that the system wasn't flawless yet.
As usual it's the race to market that takes off the safety restraints. This is why we have regulations. To add some friction into the tragedy of the commons.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Yes they do, all the time. It's called involuntary manslaughter if the pedestrian dies and it's truly an accident.
No.... Manslaughter requires a criminal act with the accused having a demonstrable criminal intent to prove the guilt -- such as DUI, recklessness, or criminal negligence such as driving distracted or texting instead of being attentive to the road. If a pedestrian dies, and it's truly an accident: in case of no wrongdoing by the driver, then the occurrence is by definition an unfortunate incident, and not a crime.
She was hit here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@3...
I know this because I looked at
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
and I know the location intimately. The speed limit here is 40. The road, Mill Avenue, going northbound is two lanes plus it is adding turn lanes to go west and east. There is a bike lane. The road has just gone over a bridge (man-made lake) and under a freeway bridge (202) -- there are no off- or on-ramps at this location. There is a parking lot under the bridge for the concert venue (SW corner: visible in the Reuter's image) plus there's a public park/beach on the north side of the lake.
As
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...
states, there was no rain.
http://alert.fcd.maricopa.gov/...
I haven't seen the crumpled bicycle photo, but we JUST started a bunch of "share bike" schemes in the Phoenix metro area (well, Phoenix proper has had one for while -- Tempe/Scottsdale ones are more recent): Limebike is the main one, I think (we have some that have "Ono" on them, as well). So if the bike is yellow or yellow/green, it was probably one of those. Tempe is hugely bike friendly for a US city because it is both (a) the site of ASU (b) progressive.
The southbound lanes are 2 wide at this point, so this lady was riding a bike across ~5 lanes of traffic plus a BIG (mostly paved) median. There's a shortcut trail just RIGHT there to go east, so maybe she was aiming for that.
A sad situation for sure. I see the Uber and Waymo vehicles all the time, so there's no lack of miles in and around that area.
This isn't the case you're looking for. There was a driver behind the wheel, and he (or she) was responsible for the operation of the vehicle.
I haven't heard of any good cases regarding autonomous mining trucks like CAT 794f, but those might come first.
Bruce Perens.