Uber Driver Was Streaming Hulu Just Before Fatal Self-Driving Car Crash, Says Police (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Tempe, Arizona, police have released a massive report on the fatal Uber vehicle crash that killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg in March. The report provides more evidence that driver Rafaela Vasquez was distracted in the seconds before the crash. "This crash would not have occurred if Vasquez would have been monitoring the vehicle and roadway conditions and was not distracted,'' the report concludes. Police obtained records from Hulu suggesting that Vasquez was watching "The Voice," a singing talent competition that airs on NBC, just before the crash. Hulu's records showed she began watching the program at 9:16pm. Streaming of the show ended at 9:59pm, which "coincides with the approximate time of the collision," according to the police report.

Comments

I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Holi]

How's the crow taste?

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

Relevancy score to posted topic [from 1 - 10] -> 1

Congrats, you win the booby prize!

I cannot stand Uber, but it was the driver "testing" the auto pilot that was the weak link here. Testing generally means shit can go wrong.. so pay attention.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

For the most part people have been defending the idea of automated vehicles.

Uber in particular has been late to the game, trying to buy talent from other automated vehicle efforts and, with this crash, turning of the 'people in the roadway' system because it was too inconvenient.

So, yeah... a lot less crow to eat than you think

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[thegarbz]

How's the crow taste?

Errr you post makes no sense what so ever. The people who were defending Uber's self-driving car were from the beginning blaming human error...

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Actually, I do RTFA]

t it was the driver "testing" the auto pilot that was the weak link here

In a very foreseeable way. If Uber couldn't figure out they shouldn't allow unsupervised employees to carry an small entertainment device into a situation where there were rare but impactful actions/attention required, I put more blame on Uber.

After all, an employee having an accident is one thing. An employee consistently making choices without consequences for a while, and those choices causing the accident, is a failure of supervision.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[StikyPad]

To be fair, if the woman hadnâ(TM)t been jaywalking on a dimly lit street at night in front of oncoming traffic, the accident also wouldnâ(TM)t have happened. There were two people making poor decisions, their paths crossed, and one of them died because of it. It sucks.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[kiviQr]

note that "dimly list street" - what you have seen is footage from camera that does not perform well in low light condition. Human eye works way better - as long as you focus it on the road...

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it wasn't a dimly lit area, Uber's own diagnostics attested to this, she was spotted with plenty of time to come to a full stop if need be. Furthermore, this is an area with an average of 1.25 miles between marked crosswalks. Are you saying you would have made the half-mile hike to the next crossing?

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[saloomy]

Until someone puts out a law saying companies can force employees to turn in / turn off their cell phones. Then the same people will be crying foul for giving employers that power.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct - testing auto pilot includes the part where we see the effects of a distracted driver if something goes wrong with the automation... automation who's very existence practically begs the human driver to ignore the road. Similar to texting while driving - drivers SHOULD pay attention to the road rather than text, but we know many will. Deciding on if auto pilot is safe enough to use in mass production must account for the fact the human drivers won't pay attention to the road as this accident revealed in testing.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

I have a friend who's a school bus driver. Using a cellphone while behind the wheel (even when parked) is a first-time termination offense. And remember, there is sound and video recording in school buses.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. "

So do your cells.

" A perfect, soul-less copy."

Since your soul supposedly transcends death, what's your point?

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[unknown_user_name]

The safety driver watching Hulu is more than just a poor decision on the drivers part. It represents a complete failure of the safety culture at Uber. What were hiring requirements and training for safety drivers. There was in cab recording of the safety driver. Was it streamed to a monitoring system to ensure the drivers were doing there job? Was it reviewed by safety supervisors? Was there any ongoing analysis done to determine how effective the safety drivers were? Did the safety drivers have regular performance reviews/ briefings to ensure they were staying focused on the road? The fact that the driver was watching Hulu while working suggests that she knew she was not being monitored and that her primary role was a warm body in the drivers seat as safety theater.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

Well in about the same way that United Airlines shouldnâ(TM) allow their pilots to don blindfolds while attempting to land the airplane. Itâ(TM)s probably true, they shoulâ(TM)t allow that, but it also shoulâ(TM)t be necessary to say something like that to begin with.

Itâ(TM)s the same situation here: while arguably Uber should have made it explicit, it should just go without saying that you donâ(TM)t stare at your phone in that situation!

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Actually, I do RTFA]

It's already legal for companies to do so (turn off/do not bring).

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[tattood]

Furthermore, this is an area with an average of 1.25 miles between marked crosswalks. Are you saying you would have made the half-mile hike to the next crossing?

If you bothered to check, you would have seen that the place where it happened was about 300 feet from a crosswalk.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Actually, I do RTFA]

If United has a pilot don a blindfold, and had no copilot to take over, I would also blame them. However, the situation of "be a daredevil while landing" and "when bored, turn on a tv show" are very different things. It is foreseeable that when bored people will watch TV.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Human eye works way better

It shouldn't. Silicon devices should be much more sensitive than human eyes. Someone cheaped out?

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[r_naked]

To be fair, if the woman hadnâ(TM)t been jaywalking on a dimly lit street at night in front of oncoming traffic, the accident also wouldnâ(TM)t have happened. There were two people making poor decisions, their paths crossed, and one of them died because of it. It sucks.

The sensors detected her just fine, the software just decide: 'Ehhh fuck it -- I am not stopping"

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[SirMasterboy]

What about senior citizen, their eyes don't work so well in the dark either.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That teleporters are perfect for gingers?

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[sexconker]

You have no clue how good the human eye is and how poor a digital replica is, do you?

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

He's like most people here. Assumes technology is better than humanity at everything. Gets confused and abusive when he is wrong.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Until someone puts out a law saying companies can force employees to turn in / turn off their cell phones.

Ah, but as Uber repeatedly states, their drivers are NOT their employees.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[mlyle]

The drivers testing the vehicles are employees. :P

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[magarity]

Well in about the same way that United Airlines shouldnâ(TM) allow their pilots to don blindfolds while attempting to land the airplane.

Instrument landings happen all the time is when the *airplane* is effectively blindfolded by poor weather. But there's no way the pilots can see the instrumentation when blindfolded themselves, that would be nonsense.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

So it was made in a New York?

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

No law is necessary. An employer can stipulate that cellphones are not allowed as part of the employment contract. The prohibition can be limited (e.g. No cellphones in specific areas) or cover an entire campus.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

That footage is as clearly intentionally darkend

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

Either the camera Uber used was awful or that video was intentionally darkened. The latter seems more likely, but both are possible. After all, Uber cheaping out on something isn't exactly surprising.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[grep -v '.*' *]

The sensors detected her just fine, the software just decide: 'Ehhh fuck it -- I am not stopping"

That's obviously a extreme software failure -- the crash might have scratched the paint, thus damaging the car.

Those lazy software people should be fired immediately and the responsible managers should hire new ones -- preferably 20 years experience in a field that's only been around for 5.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Applehu Akbar]

If United Airlines did have its pilots wear blindfolds, it would be Alitalia.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[nospam007]

"How's the crow taste?"

An employee watched TV instead of doing her fucking job.

Your Dyslexia is acting up again.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[mrclevesque]

"The fact that the driver was watching Hulu while working suggests that she knew she was not being monitored and that her primary role was a warm body in the drivers seat as safety theater."

And I'd bet her hourly wage will confirm that.

If they'd been really serious about her being a safety driver for an autonomous car on public roads then they would have payed her a lot more.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Whooty McWhooface]

I don't think that applies here.  Aren't Uber drivers dispatched through a cellphone app?  I know Lyft is but I haven't taken Uber.  (Lyft is always cheaper for my trips.)

If they apply a knee-jerk broad brush "fix" by default, they aren't fixing anything.  They are just forcing the drivers to decide if they would be willing to break the law in order keep their job.

A better solution would be a mandatory agreement to limit the apps they can use on the job our risk penalties.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

The software had been set to say "Ehh fuck it-- I am not stopping" instead of the other option "Yooo mama! -- I'm slamming on the fuck'n brakes".

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, what's that? Sounds like you just said you're in favor of capital punishment for minor infractions.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

So no 911 help from that driver in an emergency then

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[sphealey]

I think the point was more that Uber's openly stated method of business is to deliberately break laws it finds inconvenient.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[dohzer]

Can anyone else remember a point to self-driving cars other than being able to do other things while the car drives? I sure can't.
Because it's safer? We'll apparently not in this case.
Umm... Why am I pay extra for self driving cars again?

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You have no clue how poor the human eye is and how good a digital replica is, do you?

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I don't "assume" it. I know it is because we can measure it.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. The human eye has a better dynamic range, but digital sensors can collect more light, have better color distinction in lowlight, and most importantly, can have their gain increased much more.

Watch any golf tournament on TV that goes into early evening, and you can see this effect in action.

Also, most self-driving cars use active lidar, which use active illumination.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[_Sharp'r_]

Companies using a safety driver to test automated driving need to program their system to drop into manual mode at random intervals no more than an hour apart.

If the safety driver has to regularly be alert and take over, they'll pay attention. Otherwise, it's almost impossible to convince a normal human to focus for day after day of sitting there and not having to do anything just in case there is a failure which by then they won't be expecting. If their "normal" is that they expect to have to take over with no notice at least once an hour, they'll be ready to take over in the event of a real issue.

The psychology of this is already well researched for patrolling security guards, metal detector monitoring, etc...

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

apparently not. Digital devices are far more sensitive than our poorly evolved meat sensors. We can indeed measure it.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect when you call something, 'self-driving' that isn't?

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

You are utterly wrong. Compare dynamic range of eye to that of camera systems.

Been that way ever since film. Part of the artistic skill of being a good photographer is choosing the dynamic range to capture that produces the desired photo.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact the video was released by the chief of police very early in the investigation suggests to me the whole PR release was handled in Uber's favour.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

the 'ai' is just too human-like. it was watching hulu, as well, and got distracted.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you just pretending to be retarded?

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[91degrees]

Does the car use visual sensors for driving, or was the camera just there for test purposes? If the latter, it doesn't need to be all that good.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[91degrees]

I think a running commentary should probably work. The Advanced Driving test in the UK has this as part of the requirement. Example here. Would need to be adapted for the nature of self driving cars, and would require some training of the operators but nether of those are barriers. Would certainly keep the safety driven engaged, which is the key point. Would also allow comparison with what the car sees and what the driver sees.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

sexconker is a cow. MOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOO! Moo says the cow. Mow cow MOOOOOO! YOU SEXCONKER COW!!

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[William Baric]

It's a very sad world when a company has to treat every employee like a child who needs constant supervision. And of course, the really interesting question is who will supervise the supervisors? Will it be turtles all the way down?

How about we go back to a saner world when we considered adults as responsible for their own actions?

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[thegarbz]

It shouldn't. Silicon devices should be much more sensitive than human eyes. Someone cheaped out?

Yes they are, and the result is that we take this awesome footage and through 99% of the data away and cram it into an 8bpp representation on a display with a woeful contrast ratio.

The wonders of the human eye is not that it's more sensitive than silicon, but rather that it is more selective and as such we are able to see phenomenal amounts of dynamic range that can not only not be captured by silicon, but also not displayed properly as a result.

Either way, I guarantee the road did not appear anywhere near as dark as in that video.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[thegarbz]

You have no clue how good the human eye is and how poor a digital replica is, do you?

The GP is narrow minded. CCDs are definitely far more sensitive than the human eye but they suffer greatly in the way the resulting image is processed. All the sensitivity in the world doesn't help if you clip the highlights, compress the result to 8bit, and display it on a shitty monitor with a 200:1 contrast ratio.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You're an idiot and a blind Uber defender

I'm saying that Uber uses shit cameras and therefore I'm a Uber defender? You should have your head checked.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Yes, I'm wrong about CCDs being much more sensitive than human eyes and that's apparently why astronomers switched back to human eyes. Oh, wait...

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But there's no technical need to do any of those in a night time camera. Those are artifacts of cheap designs, not limitations on the light capturing technology.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

That employee should TOTALLY be docked for that day's pay!

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

The video that was released to the media was contrast boosted to make it look worse. The Uber cars have high resolution cameras and the source video is much more clear.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

This Uber driver however, wasn't just riding around in her own autonomous vehicle, she was an employee whose entire job was to make sure the experimental autonomous vehicle did not behave in an unsafe manner. Until self-driving cars become "perfect" the driver won't be able to totally take attention away from the road, and experiments like this are supposed to get us there.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

Visual acuity is irrelevant, the problem is the limitations of human biology. The first problem is that your optic nerve passes through the back of the eye creating a blind spot right in the center of your vision. Your brain does a very good job of hiding that hole and that is part of the second problem: your eyes aren't a window for your brain. Most of what you actually see is a "best guess" by your brain. It's good enough most of the time, but the processing of the signals from our optic nerve is a black box that we have no control over. The other major problems are the limited range of the electromagnetic spectrum that your eye is able to process and the location of the rods in your retina. The rods (low light vision) are concentrated along the outer edge of the retina. You actually have better night vision in your periphery. If you're trying to see something in the dark you should actually look slightly away from it. By contrast we have completely control over the processing of light in a camera and they can both process a larger range of the electromagnetic spectrum (infrared for example to see people in the dark) and they can also be equipped with image intensifier tubes (think night vision goggles) to see things in the dark that no human eye could perceive.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[thegarbz]

No they are limitations of display. Your eyes in realtime adjust every point dynamically. You can do that in software too, and the result looks like shit. There's a reason when you take a photo into the sunset everything around you looks black, and that's because the alternative looks like garbage.

Also you want to capture realtime video in HDR with almost no compression? Good luck with your technology. Your $200 dashcam suddenly isn't.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[_Sharp'r_]

You could use a running commentary, but then you also need to QA the commentary at random brief intervals to ensure they aren't just talking. That takes additional resources. I still think having the driver actually periodically do what they are supposed to be there for would be ideal, but a running commentary would at least ensure they are paying attention, even if it wouldn't get them used to taking over control on short notice.

Obviously in either case, you'd want to start the driver on a closed track (an abandoned neighborhood like Mythbusters used several times would be perfect) in order to get them used to the requirements and only let them out in public once they've established they can actually do the job with minimal risk of harm to others.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[K. S. Kyosuke]

No they are limitations of display.

But there's no "display" in self-driving car's "brain". Only an FP framebuffer which doesn't have these limitations.

Also you want to capture realtime video in HDR with almost no compression?

You're *not* trying to store it so it's irrelevant what a dashcam can or cannot do. (Your brain is not trying to store it either after all.)

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[thegarbz]

Oh you're talking about the car navigation system not the feed. Right. Well that makes everything you said irrelevant since the car navigates using LIDAR and doesn't care how light or dark it is.

You're *not* trying to store it so it's irrelevant what a dashcam can or cannot do. (Your brain is not trying to store it either after all.)

Side note: Your brain definitely stores it. Your vision is actually quite horrible. What you see is made up of an assessment of a lot of "stored frames" each individually quite horrible. But our brain is great at building a visual world out of a continuous crappy feed.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[Anonymous Coward]

Any device-use while driving that requires hand or eye contact unto a small screen, and not part of normal car operation, is illegal in our country.
Yes, this including so-called "smart watches".

Of course, supervising a self-driving car is so mind-numbing boring, people will always find ways with this. Expecting anything more is really naive.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[terrycarlino]

I'm pretty sure that Uber would have fire their testing monitor if they knew they were streaming Hulu while they were suppose to be monitoring the operation of the test car.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[terrycarlino]

It's not applicable here because the person in question wasn't an Uber driver (which Uber claims is a contractor) but a self-driving vehicle test monitor working for Uber as part of their division that is developing a self driving car.

Re: I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[sexconker]

That's not how any of this works.

Digital telescopes at high sensitivities require perfect stillness for long periods of time and isolation from all other light to get a fuzzy dot to filter.
And such telescopes don't exactly fit in the human skull.

Have you ever used a film camera? How did the shot come out compared to what you saw in real life?

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[sexconker]

Increasing gain doesn't do shit other than up the noise floor.

Guess which car didn't use LIDAR, or didn't react to the results of anything?

Guess which car and camera we're talking about. You can go and watch the video. If your human eye can't see tons better than that camera you shouldn't have a license.

Further, go look up other videos of that area. It's NOT dimly lit. This was at best a crappy camera and crappy software with an inattentive "driver" and a complacent Uber. In actuality, I believe it's a good camera with crappy software, an inattentive "driver", and an Uber who is complacent with inattentive drivers and crappy software, and who is fucking lying about the whole situation. I believe they doctored the footage from the external cam to make it appear very dark and make it seem like it wasn't their fault. I believe they released the internal camera's footage (note how it's nice and bright and clear, in your typical "night vision" light amplification style) to shift blame to the "driver", who they hired, trained, and presumably reviewed.

Re:I remember a lot of people defending Uber

[sexconker]

Did the Uber car use LIDAR? It had the module installed, it may have even been on, but the software didn't give a fucking shit either way.
Neither did the "driver". Neither did Uber.

What now?

[DontBeAMoran]

Do we ban Uber, Hulu, cars or pedestrians?

Re:What now?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Do we ban Uber, Hulu, cars or pedestrians?

Autonomous cars are OK . . .

. . . we just need to get rid of the loose nuts behind the steering wheels . . .

Re:What now?

[kiviQr]

Clearly it was "The Voice" fault!

Re:What now?

[nitehawk214]

Except that this autonomous car ran over a pedestrian because the loose nut behind the wheel was not paying attention.

If there had been no people in the car, this still would have happened. This is why no cars are licensed to drive autonomously. As long as cars require a driver to monitor they are going to be more dangerous, as the "driver" is going to get bored and not pay attention.

Re:What now?

[boneglorious]

Exactly, we need to perfect the safety features in a way that requires the driver to be driving/attending fully like normal, then we can consider integrating the safety features into a truly driverless, attentionless car. But this nonsense about making it easier for drivers to not pay attention to the road, yet not have the safety features that allow true inattention, is just, well, nonsense!

Re:What now?

[Anonymous Coward]

There will be a new sign to be posted on steering wheels: Warning: Streaming Hulu can be hazardous to pedestrians

Re:What now?

[sphealey]

It has already been documented that the sensors provided data about the obstacle to the control module in plenty of time to stop the car or change lanes. Even if no action were taken by the primary control system the backup sensor provided 1.5 seconds of warning which is enough for 18 ABS actuation cycles and probably 10-15 mph of speed scrub-off. The obstacle happened to be a human - who was killed- so the car was not badly damaged or the occupant injured. If it has been a piece of machinery that fell off a truck? A total failure by the Uber Corporation in every way.

Re: What now?

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words, the jaywalker was going to be hit by a car due to her negligence regardless.

Re: What now?

[sphealey]

No, that doesn't follow from anything I wrote. Nice try though.

Re:What now?

[RespekMyAthorati]

This whole idea of having ordinary drivers alpha-test various "levels" of autonomy is total crap.

"Level 5" should be called "Autonomy" and everything below that "Not Autonomy".
Cars that are above "level 1" but below "level 5" should be
tested only on test tracks by qualified test drivers.

Think of the Children

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully this gets "the voice" taken off the air

Hulu?

[jfdavis668]

Couldn't she afford Netflix?

Re:Hulu?

[The-Ixian]

Stupid thing is, the "commercial free" Hulu service is about as much as Netflix...... and still shows commercials!

Re:Hulu?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never seen a commercial on commercial-free Hulu. And I've had it for years.

I don't watch Agents of SHIELD or the other 6 shows that still have them. I watch the other thousands.

Re:Hulu?

[LordKronos]

So what you are saying is that commercial-free Hulu does not show commercials on any shows except for the shows where it does show them?

Re:Hulu?

[stinerman]

There are a few apparently due to streaming agreements where they must show a commercial before the show. There indeed are some, but they are the vast, vast minority.

Re:Hulu?

[antdude]

Not everything is on Netflix!

Re:Hulu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be alright to say a food product is nut free if 1 out of 1000 contains nuts?

Zuckerberg trial all over again.

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll have to take this to congress to explain how multiple people can use a single hulu account. Or maybe this is how uber is fighting back...

Why am I not surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why risk your life to still-being-developed technology for a dumb tv show? I feel like very idiot getting into wrecks on these self-driving cars is like this. I have too much anxiety that prevents me from driving a lot of the time but with any of these systems I still could easily monitor the road. They don't deserve to drive or own a car in the first place

Re:Why am I not surprised?

[tbuddy]

I could understand if it were Rick and Morty, but not The Voice.

Re: Why am I not surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing the test drivers had no idea how far along Uber was with driverless tech and the test drivers had faith in the engineers.

Shocked

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I'm absolutely shocked that an employee whose job is "be vigilant for hours and react in seconds" had their mind could wander and decided they could probably watch a whole episode of the Voice without any negative consequences. I mean, there are people who watch TV while they are actively driving.

Re:Shocked

[thegarbz]

had their mind could wander

I'm sorry but your sarcasm is completely lost in this case. There's a very big frigging difference between having your mind wonder, and kicking back and watching a frigging TV show.

Re:Shocked

[The-Ixian]

There's a very big frigging difference between having your mind wonder, and kicking back and watching a frigging TV show.

Get back to your cheeseburger picnic, Randy!

Re:Shocked

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm absolutely shocked that an employee whose job is "be vigilant for hours and react in seconds"...

Idiot relied on an idiot box. News at 11.

There's not denying that the monotony of being the safety driver in a car like this would be mind-numbing, but if the driver wanted to keep stimulated with a little entertainment she should have listened to audiobooks instead of watching TV.

Re:Shocked

[thegarbz]

If that was a pop culture reference I don't get it. If it was an insult I don't get it either.

Re:Shocked

[Actually, I do RTFA]

There's a big difference between those two actions. There's a continuum between "space out for 1 second", "space out for 30 seconds" and "fuck it, I'll watch a TV show."

Re:Shocked

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, an audio book would have been 1000X better than staring at her screen. She was known to have been looking down at the time of the accident.

Even in a second or two a car can cover a distance large enough to bring new objects into range which you weren't aware of before because they were masked by other objects, or difficult to spot. And that is a few seconds. Imagine someone watching a whole TV show...

Re: Shocked

[Anonymous Coward]

Trailer park boys.

A mans gotta eat.

Watching or listening?

[squiggleslash]

Isn't "The Voice" a singing competition? It's not impossible to envisage someone streaming that with no intention of watching the video.

Re:Watching or listening?

[phalse phace]

Isn't "The Voice" a singing competition? It's not impossible to envisage someone streaming that with no intention of watching the video.

Why was the driver looking down then?

Re:Watching or listening?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scratching her cunt, like you do on slashdot.

Zuckerberg trial all over again.

[Anonymous Coward]

going to need to take this to congress to explain how several people can steam on one account.
must be uber's way of fighting this.

P.S. Paying attention saves lives

Does this matter in Uber's case?

[qzzpjs]

In this case she may have saved a life by doing her job and paying attention, but the final solution assumes that nobody is sitting behind that wheel. This is still a major fail for Uber's software.

Re:Does this matter in Uber's case?

[Nidi62]

To me, this is no different than highly automated systems such as trains that still require humans to monitor them. You still hear about trains going to fast and derailing and turns out the person monitoring the controls was asleep, or texting, or whatever. Very often, if they survive, those operators get charged at the very least with negligence and manslaughter. I would expect and assume that will be the case with this too. It's not a fail on Uber's part because the technology is not ready for independent operation (which explains why they have a driver behind the wheel). Still not an Uber fan, though.

Re:Does this matter in Uber's case?

[azadrozny]

There are several problems here. First they disabled the braking for an experimental system without at least some audible warning system. Second, they had a human in the car to monitor the system who would have likely caught the problem had she been paying attention, so their policies, procedures, and quality control are lacking. Finally, the auto braking was disabled because of too many false positives. This tells me that the system wasn't nearly ready for road testing, certainly without more oversight of the vehicle and its operator.

Re:Does this matter in Uber's case?

[suutar]

my understanding is that the car had a warning system... which was also disabled. I have to wonder if the... "driver" isn't quite right... let's go with "designated monitor". I have to wonder if the designated monitor had been informed that the warning system and braking system were both disabled.

Re:Does this matter in Uber's case?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to wonder if the... "driver" isn't quite right

Transphobe!

Re:Does this matter in Uber's case?

[RespekMyAthorati]

To me, this is no different than highly automated systems such as trains that still require humans to monitor them.

Yes, highly trained and evaluated humans, not some minimum-wage kid who has no understanding of the system.

Are you surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

In this role UBER is paying minimum wage and the qualifications are a pulse and a drivers license - this doesn't exactly attract people who would not fit in as extras in Idiocracy.

Re:Are you surprised?

[quantaman]

In this role UBER is paying minimum wage and the qualifications are a pulse and a drivers license - this doesn't exactly attract people who would not fit in as extras in Idiocracy.

My thoughts exactly.

You're having someone drive a prototype vehicle where you know focus is going to be an issue. You probably don't need someone with a 4-year degree, but you need to make sure they're responsible and have good work habits.

Instead Uber found the cheapest body they could throw in the driver's seat.

Sure she was negligent for watching Hulu instead of controlling the car, but so was Uber for hiring a test-driver who couldn't be reasonably expected to pay attention while the car was driving.

Re:Are you surprised?

[apoc.famine]

What's even more damning to Uber is that they previously found out that the car detected the pedestrian something like 6 seconds before the crash, but wasn't configured to autobrake or potentially to even give a warning that it sensed that condition.

If you don't even have autobraking worked out, why would you be testing an autonomous car anywhere but a private track? You'd need to be an immoral company who thinks that laws are an inconvenience to make that sort of a decision.

None of the above

[PraiseBob]

How about we arrest the driver for watching TV while they were supposed to be operating a multi-ton piece of machinery?

Re:None of the above

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes thatâ(TM)s what should happen. The level of hubris it takes to watch your phone while responsible for safe operation of an automobile is unparalleled. This wasnâ(TM)t a mere accident, it was gross negligence.

Pay attention when you are in positions of responsibility. The millennial generation seems to have a sense of entitlement as big as a politicianâ(TM)s ego. I see drivers all the time preoccupied with their phones and 95% of the time they aren't the older 50+ drivers, they are the 20-somethings and 30-somethings. They never learned personal responsibility and that when other peopleâ(TM)s lives are in your hands you should keep your attention off of teh twitterz and teh facebooks and teh youtubez.

Re:None of the above

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we arrest the driver for watching TV while they were supposed to be operating a multi-ton piece of machinery?

Naw, sue her. I'm sure she's pulling a huge income with her gig economy job.

Re:None of the above

[flug]

It's worth pointing out that this type of response by drivers is predictable. Not necessarily watching TV but zoning out in one way or another. You'll see Tesla trot out the excuse every time as well: "This system requires constant monitoring by the driver, it's not really fully self-driving, and the crash was the driver's fault for not paying attention when they should have."

But: equal--or even more--blame has to go to the designers of the system and testing protocol for not taking this obvious and well known fact about human behavior into consideration when designing their system and their testing protocol.

It's a simple fact of human behavior that once the system looks like it's working OK for a few dozen to a few hundred miles, you assume it's OK and you start to tune out.

In reality, drivers average between 90 million (auto v. auto fatalities) and 480 million (auto v. pedestrian fatalities) miles between fatal collisions. So a system that can manage to go a few dozen or a few hundred miles without anything disastrous happening is still many orders of magnitude less capable than even the worst human driver. But once the automated system has driven a certain route a few times successfully, just about any human "monitor" is going to start have confidence in the system and tune out.

There are many ways around this issue, and companies shouldn't be allowed to test self-driving systems out on the public roads without using some or all of them:

  * Far more extensive testing can be done using simulators etc before going live on public roads. They should be testing many billions of miles in this type of environment first. Some companies are putting more emphasis on this now (ie, nVidia). All should be required to do this or something similar.

  * Far more testing should be done on tracks & other non-public locations before testing proceeds on public roads.

  * Systems should not be allowed to be tested on the public roads until they have proven they are actually capable.

  * If systems do require human "safety drivers" as a backup then various monitoring systems and protocols must be in place to ensure that the humans are actually doing the work. You can't just hire random people at $12/hour, give them 3 hours of training, and hope. That is guaranteed failure.

  * Companies doing this type of testing need to be 100% responsible for anything that goes wrong. The fact that some employee wasn't doing something 100% right is no excuse. The companies need to have enough of a safety culture, safety system, and safety protocol in place that they know whether or not any individual tester is doing what they should or not.

  * Most of all, these safety-critical systems must be engineered in an environment of safety-critical engineering. Not the "move fast and break things" bullshit software development culture that is currently so pervasive.

"Move fast and break things" might be a great philosophy for developing a cell phone app, but operating a motor vehicle is a safety critical system operating in an environment with very high risk of serious injury and death. The systems and the testing must be designed to take this seriously from top to bottom.

FWIW Uber's corporate culture is like the polar opposite of this from top to bottom.

Congress is trying to pass a bill to allow nationwide testing of self-driving vehicle that is laughably lacking in any type of oversight. More here:

http://saferoads.org/2018/06/1...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/1...

Re:None of the above

[smooth wombat]

The millennial generation seems to have a sense of entitlement as big as a politicianÃ(TM)s ego

Unlike the previous generation who feels entitled to someone else's music, movie or tv show without paying for it, right?

and 95% of the time they aren't the older 50+ drivers, they are the 20-somethings and 30-somethings.

Don't know where you live, but around me it's closer to 40-60. Yes, the majority are the "younger" generation, but there are plenty of midlife folks yakking on their phones while driving.

Here's something else. At a local nature reserve I go to on weekends, I'm usually there around 6:30. You know who the folks are yakking on their phones at that hour, disturbing the animals? Senior citizens.

Re:None of the above

[Anonymous Coward]

criminal... senior citizens talking on their phones in a nature preserve. guess that isn't as bad as a driver on the phone, no? grow up.

Re:None of the above

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we arrest the driver for watching TV while they were supposed to be operating a multi-ton piece of machinery?

How about you also charge Uber with negligence for failing in their driver training? There's no version of this where Uber is absolved from blame.

Re:None of the above

[thegarbz]

It's worth pointing out that this type of response by drivers is predictable.

No it's not. Gaze wandering. Boredom. Not paying full attention. All of that is predictable as it is when doing any boring job.

On the other hand pretty much every job out there if you're caught sitting down watching TV when you're supposed to be on the clock, expect to be disciplined. There's "not being attentive" and then there's "not being there mentally at all". This is the latter.

Re:None of the above

[RespekMyAthorati]

There's "not being attentive" and then there's "not being there mentally at all". This is the latter.

The why put a fucking television in a AD test car?

Everyone is at fault here

[SumDog]

The person should have been doing her job. At the same time, Uber hires people telling them it's a self driving vehicle, removes the 2 driver-per-car to reduce costs, and then tests disabling safety features because, "Hey it's okay. We have a human in case something goes wrong."

Fuck everything about this. Uber is equally at fault here. Sure she could have prevented the accident if she had been doing her god damn job. Uber could have prevented the accident if they didn't recklessly disable their own lidar and auto-brake algorithms to test their (failed) computer vision system AT NIGHT!

This girl made a mistake, one that will haunt her for the rest of her life. A girl on a bicycle is dead. There is plenty of blame to go around. But at a minimum, given Uber's track record, they should not be allowed to put these pieces of shit on the road.

Telsa has had a car crash into a truck and another into a barrier with their lane assist (they should be forced to rename that from "auto-pilot. It's not fucking auto-pilot). These systems give people a false sense of security and make people less aware, less active drivers. We are a good 15 year minimum from true autonomous vehicles and it's a fucking hard problem space.

Even with how expensive it is to expand rail, we could probably expand rail at a fraction of the price of self driving tech. Singapore and London already have self driving trains. Let's make transportation better for everyone in America first and catch up to the rest of the world before we work on complicated stuff that's only good for its cool factor:

https://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/

Re:Everyone is at fault here

[Anonymous Coward]

I have watched the crash video a few times and your post is the first time I've realized the "driver" was a woman. Poor lady. She needs to shave.

Re:Everyone is at fault here

[c]

they should be forced to rename that from "auto-pilot. It's not fucking auto-pilot

"Road Follower" would probably be accurate, but maybe not as marketable.

Re:Everyone is at fault here

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS!
Even worse, this was a glorified systems readout monitor who had been saddled with failsafe/human driver roles once they fired everyone in those positions. This should definitely be placed at the foot of Uber for a severe lack of a safety culture, especially since they have much less to lose financially for any realized safety issues like this accident that otherwise harms the industry.

Thinking about the role though, even with a fully attentive second 'driver', how they would they be expected to stay fully alert for hours on end, day after day, to notice and immediately react to the one-event-a-year incident without going insane?

P.S. Vancouver, Canada, has had self driving trains since the Expo in early 80s. Faster, safer, and more efficient than human drivers (they hold a competition once a year with manual driving) with a 35 year track record.

Re:Everyone is at fault here

[Fractalspaces]

Obviously it was Hulu's fault. There should be a driving lock integrated into the app.

Re: Everyone is at fault here

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah fuck all the people on public transportation!

Re:Everyone is at fault here

[Bongo]

Largely agree. It’s an EXPERIMENT and so you cannot know what might go wrong. Their method of “testing” suggests they believe they have tons of data showing the thing is already very very safe. Which they cannot know.

If this was a drug trial, it would be like giving the first experimental injection to 100 people. Nobody does that. You give it to maybe TWO people and wait for unexpected reactions.

They’re apparently very cavalier about their tests. Nothing to do with the person in the seat.

Re:Everyone is at fault here

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bike Smasher Mode"?

EDIT: Captcha = insanity (like from Sean T!)

Re:Everyone is at fault here

[Anonymous Coward]

Even with how expensive it is to expand rail, we could probably expand rail at a fraction of the price of self driving tech. Singapore and London already have self driving trains. Let's make transportation better for everyone in America first and catch up to the rest of the world before we work on complicated stuff that's only good for its cool factor:

Your statement would be true if one accepts fractions significantly larger than 1, such as 100/1 for the cost of rail / cost of self driving.

You massively underestimate both the cost of creating the rail system, and the cost to maintain it. There are good economic and political reasons why America doesn't have a larger rail system. A totalitarian state could put a rail system in, but a non-totalitarian state has to deal with property owners who aren't particularly interested in giving up their land. The government could take the land - but that would require investing an enormous amount of money in a very difficult political battle. The other alternative - going underground - easily raises the costs of doing things by at least an order of magnitude.

Worse, very little of that money spent on making rail possible will provide much in the way of secondary benefits. The development of technology for self-driving cars will almost certainly create another tech boom along the lines of what happened after the Internet was created.

In the end, self-driving cars will be a lot less expensive. They might be bad for you personally, if you're one of the people whose income is threatened by the development of self-driving cars (such as all those working for local governments that depend on income from unethical and hence illegal ticketing), but they will be a huge boon to society as a whole.

Re:Everyone is at fault here

[SumDog]

America use to have more passenger rail in the 1940s than Europe has NOW. In less than 100 years, roads expanded and pulled our cities apart into unwalkable spaces.

It can contract back in less time. Seattle just pumped $50 billion into ST3 and its' going to make a massive impact by 2023. Their rail construction is always ~6 months ahead of schedule too. Florida has high speed rail and will hit Orlando before 2030. California is struggling but they better not let that program die.

Is it inconceivable that they were just listening?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to play devil's advocate. Where is the proof that the operator was distracted? Do we ban car stereos and Bluetooth?

License revocation

[Anonymous Coward]

This person should never be allowed to be in a position of responsibility for a motor vehicle again. Not as driver not as monitor. Passenger, OK.

If you are going to stare at your idiotbox instead of paying attention, you have lost all and any rights to operation of motor vehicle. You cannot be trusted with lives of other people. You can find other ways to get around: public transport, walking, hitching rides from friends.

This level of irresponsibility must not go unpunished.

The only person eating crow in this instance

[Anonymous Coward]

is you. This was neither Uber's fault nor Uber's SD vehicle's fault

Some fucking jagoff watching The Voice killed a woman and should be put behind bars for years. In reality, he'll get a ticket and that will be the end of it.

They still should have had 2 people

[rsilvergun]

in the car. If nothing else it decreases the odds. They'd both have to be watching Hulu to mess up. Safety is about reducing risk, not eliminating it. Also, Uber still disabled a ton of safety features they shouldn't have so they could get better data.

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[suutar]

As I recall, the vehicle had code that could stop automatically, but it was disabled. It also had code to warn the driver, but it was also disabled. Whoever decided that having both disabled should not be a fatal error should be fired, because if the driver knows the car can handle or warn, and expects the car to handle or warn, and is wrong, you get situations like this.

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[Anonymous Coward]

in the car. If nothing else it decreases the odds. They'd both have to be watching Hulu to mess up. Safety is about reducing risk, not eliminating it.

Risk does not mean what you think it means. Risk is the probability of an event times its impact (R = P * I). It is expressed as a [arbitrary] magnitude not as percentage. A risk is acceptable or unacceptable.

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[magarity]

in the car. If nothing else it decreases the odds. They'd both have to be watching Hulu to mess up.

It is a sad comment on society of epic proportions if companies need to hire two people to police each other from cell phone addiction.

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[azcoyote]

Good idea. Next month's Slashdot headline: "Drivers in latest fatal self-driving car crash were having sex at the time..."

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[ChoGGi]

Fired? What about being charged with negligent homicide?

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea. Next month's Slashdot headline: "Drivers in latest fatal self-driving car crash were having sex at the time..."

Investigators say they fucked up.

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[ishmaelflood]

Good idea. Next month's Slashdot headline: "Drivers in latest fatal self-driving car crash were having sex at the time..."

Investigators say they fucked up.

...and they are now fucked.

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[ishmaelflood]

The investigators announced "The fuckers fucked up while fucking and are now fucked."

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[Anonymous Coward]

The Volvo vehicle involved in the crash came with Volvo's pre-collision warning system and a pre-collission braking system. Both of those systems were disabled because Uber's self-driving car system was supposed to handle it.

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[ChoGGi]

The NTSB report found that Uber's software "determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed" 1.3 seconds before the crash. Unfortunately, the vehicle wasn't programmed to actually perform emergency braking procedures---nor was it programmed to alert the safety driver.

You disagree with my opinion that it was negligent homicide, or did you mean to reply to someone else?

Re:They still should have had 2 people

[Anonymous Coward]

This is correct, they need two people in the car: one safety driver to monitor the car's systems and one safety driver to watch Hulu and describe what was happening in the movie.

Targeting crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how one can find a streamer here, but when it comes to piracy suddenly the IP can't be matched to the downloader.

Re: Targeting crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

She logged into the HULU service with her account. What are you even talking about? Once she linked her IP with that account, that gave The authorities involved everything they needed to know.

Felon

[110010001000]

This person was also a convicted felon (armed robbery). What a country!

Re:Felon

[Anonymous Coward]

And also was a man (is a man?)

Re:Felon

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? Uber performs background checks. No way could they ever hire someone like that.

Re:Is it inconceivable that they were just listeni

[tbuddy]

I'd say the video footage of them driving and spending maybe 10% of the time looking not down at the their phone would be somewhat proof.

“This crash would not have occurred if Vasquez would have been monitoring the vehicle and the roadway conditions and was not distracted,” investigators wrote. Police said Vasquez “was distracted and looking down” for 31 percent of the nearly 22 minutes before the crash, including 5.2 of the last 5.7 seconds.

She wasn't "operating"

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a subtle difference between doing the driving and watching a machine do the driving, "overseeing" it.

The later is mindnumbingly boring and really really hard to keep doing without seeking something to pass the time. Besides, even if she'd been alert (a very slim chance after "overseeing" the thing for a goodly while) it was dark enough that she probably wouldn't've seen the pedestrian in time. Of course, if she'd been actually operating the vehicle you can argue she should have slowed down because there might've been someone. But she wasn't, she was "overseeing". So, just how much is the overseeer supposed to do, since the object is to achieve a state where the driver isn't needed at all?

Re:She wasn't "operating"

[Anonymous Coward]

The later is mindnumbingly boring

... which is why they call it a JOB and not a FUN.

Countless millions of us suffer daily with jobs we would rather not be doing. However we do not feel so entitled to ignore what we should be doing when public safety is at stake.

Re:She wasn't "operating"

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you have no concept of what this entails or you wouldn't be making this statement. I run into this problem a lot with security cameras. You can have one guard watching one camera and they will still miss criminal activity happening on the monitor after several hours of watching it. It gets even worse when you have over 30 cameras and only one guard.

We mitigate this by bringing the current motion detection to a large screen in the middle so they will know to look at what is going on but they will still miss things. There is a big difference being bored in a cubicle where you can zone off and being in a position where bad shit can happen because you're not paying attention.

This is the same reason so many accidents happen on freeways while people are using cruise control. They stop paying complete attention because they are tired or in some other way fatigued and then badness.

Uber should have had their alert mechanism shout to high heaven while slowly down at the very least. The safety engineer then should have a button to choose whether to not slow down otherwise the car comes to a stop. So this button would almost never be hit unless some garbage bad is flying across the road triggering the collision alert which wouldn't happen very much in Tempe.

Re:Is it inconceivable that they were just listeni

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good thought, but she was on video looking down a the time of the accident. It was a video taken from the car's interior: she was looking at her screen for a long time before the accident, ignoring the outside world.

should put the TV in the windshield

[Anonymous Coward]

better chance of seeing what is in front of you that way....

Or a sack of potatoes

[Anonymous Coward]

Their eye's don't see at all. Yet uber insists on using them. Oh wait, they don't and your're full on nonsense

BS

[RickyShade]

"This crash would not have occurred if Vasquez would have been monitoring the vehicle and roadway conditions and was not distracted" Bullshit. She had no time to stop by the time the person on the bicycle became visible.

Re:BS

[ishmaelflood]

You obviously have information the rest of us lack. All I've seen is the very dodgy camera feed from the car which seems at odds with what other cameras could see in the same place at the same time of night, and a LIDAR scan that picked the victim up 6 seconds before the collision. So where's your source?

Re:BS

[Anonymous Coward]

> She had no time to stop by the time the person on the bicycle became visible... ...to the really shitty, poor-in-low-light camera whose video recording you've seen. Human eyes perform in the dark far, *far* better than the shitty camera you've seen. A human would have seen the victim long before she became visible in the shitty camera feed, and would have had plenty of time to react.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The problem with rail

[rsilvergun]

is Americans really, really (and I mean really) hate paying for anything that benefits somebody else. You have it crammed into your skull from day 1 that if you're doing that then you're a sucker. A fool. A "cuck". Whatever. It's a narrative pushed by our ruling class so they can avoid paying for the commons and it's worked for hundreds of years...

Re: The problem with rail

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy fuck what drugs are you on?

This is the âoeUber/tesla killed someone -again- with shitty and fake self driving carâ thread. I have no idea which article you think you are posting to but it should be somewelse or better yet just stop shit posting (in your case same as not posting at all) to any article.

Re:The problem with rail

[Anonymous Coward]

(AC to preserve moderation).

That's part of it, but in much of the US we have seen expensive projects and low ridership and not just with rail but also with buses.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen a city bus capable of carrying 50 or so passengers carrying anywhere from 1-5 passengers. At some point people question this "If you build it, people will abandon their cars and ride" idea.

At some point it might just be cheaper for the city to start its own free shuttle service similar to SuperShuttle but focused on getting people around town and to their jobs rather than to airports.

Re:The problem with rail

[terrycarlino]

Except in a very few densely packed urban areas buses and light rail are just not useful paradigms.

For example where I work people come from as close as 1 mile away to 40 or 50 miles away. They live in every direction. Some in very rural areas. Some in suburban level density.

What kind of light rail or bus system is going to be useful for them?

Even in urban areas if you take public transportation you are trading time for using it. When I worked in Chicago it took me 90 minutes to get to work by public transportation and less than 20 minutes by car, and Chicago has one of the most comprehensive public transportation systems in the U.S. The only time it was worthwhile to take public transportation was when going downtown, and that was only because I lived a couple of blocks from the El. In that case it was 12 minutes by train and 45 minutes by car. That is an edge case.

In most place and for most people public transportation only make sense if you're too poor to own a car or can't have a license.

I "Watch" youtube on my phone while driving

[rsilvergun]

all the time. I start it up when I get in the car and it autoplays while I drive. It's entirely possible that's what she was doing. In that case it's no different than running the radio.

The question is did she also fiddle with the display on the car (like she was instructed to do so by Uber so that they didn't have to pay for a second driver/passenger to keep track of interesting driving events for the engineers to review). That'll come up in a court case.

But here's a much, much better question, why they _hell_ is this information being released to the public? At this point it should be part of a criminal case, and congrats, you just tainted every jury pool in the country. On the plus side this makes Uber look good, so I guess I just answered my question...

Re: I "Watch" youtube on my phone while driving

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a camera pointed at her face the whole time. And of course a camera watching the road. You can watch the video and get a horrific example of distracted driving.

Here

Re:I "Watch" youtube on my phone while driving

[Anonymous Coward]

So comforting to see Uber throwing any and everyone that works for them under the Bus!
How's that "sharing economy" working out for ya'll??

How about we stop calling them "self driving"?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we create a technology that we call self driving we are already setting ourselves up for what happened here. Does it give you a warning that says you need to be alert? Sure it does, but does the whole idea imply, from the very start, that you don't? Absolutely. Building these features into cars beyond driver assistive technologies is just a road that will take us to a complete lack of accountability into an endless cycle of trying to assign blame somewhere, anywhere, when these events happen, and they will happen. No matter how advanced this technology is there will always be circumstances that the intelligence built into the car or truck
isn't able to overcome that will end up killing people. On the other hand, rather than building self driving cars, if we build simple alerting and assist technologies that still require a driver to drive but operate only as safeguards to their performance rather than the other way around ...... we make the world better.

HULU!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it matter that it was Hulu? Feels like name dropping for headlines. Just like early headlines about the immigrant children separated from their parents were being kept at a former WALMART location. I'm sure their lawyers made a few calls to fix that.

Let's blame everyone but the jay-walker.

[WillyWanker]

How about we blame the woman who jay-walked out into the middle of a dimly-lit street at 10 PM? Noooo, let's not blame that stupid behavior, we should focus only on the driver and the the car. If she had walked, or rode, the extra bit to get to a crosswalk she'd likely be alive.

If this hadn't been an Uber car it never would have made headlines. People are distracted by all sorts of things while driving, and no system is going to be able to prevent all accidents, especially when people dart out into the middle of a dark road at night.

Re:Let's blame everyone but the jay-walker.

[RespekMyAthorati]

How about we blame the woman who jay-walked out into the middle of a dimly-lit street at 10 PM?

Because it wasn't dimly lit.

That's an incorrect impression given by the malfunctioning dash cam.
Every person who has photographed that stretch of road late at night (with an ordinary cellphone camera)
showed a very brightly lit and open piece of highway.

UBER is entirely responsible for properly vetting and training their test drivers, and they didn't.

Re:Let's blame everyone but the jay-walker.

[WillyWanker]

Doesn't matter. Accidents happen all the time. People in regular cars are distracted all the time. The fact is that she walked out into the middle of the street and got hit. Don't want to get hit? Try using a crosswalk.

But yeah, blame Uber. Because all non-Uber drivers and vehicles never hit jaywalkers. Ever.

Re:Let's blame everyone but the jay-walker.

[terrycarlino]

Dimly lit has not part in this. The woman with the bicycle tested positive for a cornucopia of drugs. She was jay-walking, almost certainly saw the car, and probably expected the driver would stop for her, because people generally don't run you over just because you're a duosh bag who steps out right in front of their car in the middle of the block.

She had no idea that the person who was being paid to be monitor the car decide she'd rather be watching Hulu.

There are no innocent victims here.

Of course she didn't pay attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

...she couldn't be bothered! And its obviously not her fault because reasons!!!

Typical American woman. Dumb and useless. ;-)