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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.
And yet, in most cases now they're orders of magnitude safer than the distracted meatbag texting away on their iPhone. Or the late-night drunk trying to make it home from the bar without getting caught. Yeah, even now I'd probably take my chances with the self-driving cars instead of humanity at the wheel, thanks.
Self-driving cars don't need to be perfect, just better than people.
If self-driving cars rack up fewer pedestrian deaths per mile driven than human drivers, that's the critical metric.
--PM
We're 50 years out from a working self-driving car.
Thank you Mr Luddite. It's a shame that we currently live in a perfectly safe world where no pedestrians ever git hit and these darn self-driving cars come along and...
Wait, what? Drivers hit pedestrians all the time? Especially so when they cross in the middle of the street at night in the rain?
Remember, there WAS a human sitting behind the wheel. The fact that he didn't see here / could not react in time means she was (A) really hard to see, and (b) probably came in front of the car very suddenly.
We are not 50 years from self-driving cars. We are *0* years from self-driving cars. They are being deployed today and the ramp-up will only continue, because even if they make mistakes it's still FEWER mistakes than people will make, on average.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This incident makes no one a "monster" -- just like CSX and Amtrak aren't "monsters" when a pedestrian gets struck by one of their trains (which is almost universally because someone trespassed onto the right-of-way, or just plain decided to commit suicide by train). You can't bubble wrap the world.
There is no data to support your statement. Self driving cars haven't even started driving for real yet and Musk's marketing tweets don't count as a scientific study. Testing is not the same as real driving. At this time WHEN CONDITIONS GET BAD WE DON'T LET THE AI DRIVE. Let that sink in. If AI is so much better it should be able to outperform the worse the conditions get, not the other way around.
Your statement is like saying you are a great basketball player but only during controlled ideal practice and you have never played a real game.
An argument for not building cities where cars come first at the expense of people who want to walk or cycle. Regardless of what's driving the cars.
Can't happen? Zero fucking times. Prove me wrong with a link.
I don't know about you, but I personally power-cycle my brain every day or it starts to malfunction. My computer, not even every month.
If by "mistreat" you mean "jail and deport" and by "undocumented worker" you mean "non-us citizen here illegally" then I don't see where your argument is.. It's not right to enforce some laws but not all. Regardless of your feelings, if you want it to work another way lobby to have he law changed.
Yup, death penalty for jaywalking. That sounds about how a fucking monster thinks.
It's not a "penalty". It is an unavoidable consequence of some kinds of jaywalking --- for example, running off from the side into the street just ahead of a vehicle approaching that point in the road at the speed limit. It is possible there was no "obstacle" for the car to detect Until it was already too late to avoid an incident.
There is a certain minimum sight distance required for an approaching vehicle's driver to recognize that there is a pedestrian in the road, AND react, AND take action, and then even after the breaks are being applied -- there is stopping distance.
For example, if the vehicle is travelling 45 MPH down an arterial street, and a pedestrian jumps out 20 feet ahead of the vehicle.... it will be nearly impossible for an accident to be avoided.
> You have a very low opinion of your driving ability.
Nope, but I have a very low opinion of the driving ability of many people I see on the roads every time I drive somewhere. Self driving cars are probably already better than the lower 30% of licensed drivers out there and will only get better whereas that 30% will get worse as they age and let their bad habits get worse.
If a human was driving the car we would still be looking at what the human driver did wrong.
No. If a human was driving the car, it wouldn't have hit the news.
Except not hitting pedestrians is kind of important. Knowing you're in a residential area and being on the lookout for kids chasing balls is important. Regardless if you had the right of way your not going to win any brownie points by saying that after you run down a kid.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Google self-driving cars run literally millions of miles and the worst accident they get into is one of their cars getting rear-ended by somebody else. Uber gets into the game, and 3 months later they've killed someone. Can't say I'm surprised. Google is generally a responsible company. Uber uses a "break things, move fast, skirt the laws and let someone else pick up the wreckage" business model. Expect quite a bit more of this. I'm not opposed to rapid development of new tech like this. Sometimes, accidents will happen. 100% safety isn't a physical possibility. It's just that nobody should be surprised when outfits like Uber rack up an impressive body count.