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Arizona Prosecutor Says Uber Not Criminally Liable In Fatal Self-Driving Crash (reuters.com)
Uber is not criminally liable in a March 2018 crash in Tempe, Arizona, in which one of the company's self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian, prosecutors said on Tuesday. "The Yavapai County Attorney said in a letter made public that there was 'no basis for criminal liability' for Uber, but that the back-up driver, Rafaela Vasquez, should be referred to the Tempe police for additional investigation," reports Reuters. From the report: Vasquez, the Uber back-up driver, could face charges of vehicular manslaughter, according to a police report in June. Vasquez has not previously commented and could not immediately be reached on Tuesday. Based on a video taken inside the car, records collected from online entertainment streaming service Hulu and other evidence, police said last year that Vasquez was looking down and streaming an episode of the television show "The Voice" on a phone until about the time of the crash. The driver looked up a half-second before hitting Elaine Herzberg, 49, who died from her injuries. Police called the incident "entirely avoidable."
Yavapai County Attorney's Office, which examined the case at the request of Maricopa County where the accident occurred, did not explain the reasoning for not finding criminal liability against Uber. Yavapai sent the case back to Maricopa, calling for further expert analysis of the video to determine what the driver should have seen that night. The National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are still investigating.
Yavapai County Attorney's Office, which examined the case at the request of Maricopa County where the accident occurred, did not explain the reasoning for not finding criminal liability against Uber. Yavapai sent the case back to Maricopa, calling for further expert analysis of the video to determine what the driver should have seen that night. The National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are still investigating.
This is the same Yavapai County AG that is prosecuting legal medical marijuana patients for possessing cannabis concentrates that were purchased legally in a dispensary. She recently claimed that distilling extracts from cannabis was similar to making explosives with AMFO
Speaking of contributions, she got $500,000 from Insys Pharmaceuticals which markets a synthetic THC and Fentanyl lollypops, two products which are threatened by medical marijuana.
Cool story bro, check this out, Uber in fatal crash detected pedestrian but had emergency braking disabled
This is the moment, this is the checkpoint where the hype meets reality. You do not want to accept the job of 'backup driver' because you are basically taking the blame, and it doesn't pay enough. And the driverless car isn't able to do this task on its own without a driver, per the evidence of this case. The law will not protect you, per this case. Does the 'backup driver' have sufficient control to avoid dangerous situations in the first place? Are there traps they can't avoid even if they were not on their phone? Did the company sufficiently explain to the driver that they were not actually in reserve for backup duty, but that they were from the first moment the legal and primary operator of that vehicle? If not, I could understand why they were on their phone; waiting for some timely and orderly signal to pay attention and resume operation of the vehicle. If I was on the jury for that individual, I would need to know that information. This is new and unproven technology, and quite-frankly, the state allowed it. The state suddenly refers this case for prosecution of the individual?
Even if this driver wasn't watching their phone, there is a cognitive disconnect between the autopilot and the 'backup driver' that is supposed to suddenly become situationally aware in a split second. There are numerous tragedies in trains, and planes already to demonstrate this problem; and those are cases that are actually simpler from an automation perspective. Additionally, Tesla (inaptly-named ) Autopilot has its history.
Anybody's guess who would be responsible the moment that some states allow a truly driverless car. Will some hapless engineer be responsible? the person who assembled the car? The CEO? The person who hailed the car?
Maybe Google or Tesla, or xyz is a different case, but I doubt it. I suspect they will suffer from the same hype of delivering 80% of the solution and claim victory (or perpetually just 2 years away.) The last 19.999% to ensure reasonable safety and availability under all conditions may be nearly impossible and I'm not hearing much talk about it. Maybe in constrained scenarios it might be better odds, but who is responsible for those decisions?
Is lesser cases, who gets the traffic ticket when a driverless car exceeds the speed limit? (Do driverless cars pull-over if a cop car is behind them?) Will people pay for cars that refuse to speed?
> Hold up. While it's tempting to think this case is the bar we're setting. Consider the released footage of the driver for a second. [theguardian.com] Imagine any industry where you look away from a machine in motion for that long, yeah, you're at fault for your reckless behavior. Like if I was watching a show on my phone while operating a table saw, yeah, I really wouldn't have a strong case for an injury lawsuit.
You have a point, but conversely: people are really, really, really bad at vigilance tasks, where they are supposed to monitor something that almost always goes right, look for something that almost always doesn't appear, etc. Asking someone to be a vigilant backup driver for 4 hours may be a lot harder than driving for 4 hours.
Did Uber consider monitoring their backup drivers? With all the snazzy tech for a self driving car they could not fathom a low paid temporary staff might try to pass the time by doing something else besides paying attention? Basic AI could alert Uber their driver not paying attention. Seems like this would be a prerequisite before letting a car loose.
airline pilot's errors do not have Criminal proceedings most of the time.
Only because airline pilots often die due to their mistakes. And calling this a "pilot error" is disingenuous. Sorry wrong word. err. No it's absolutely fucking stupid. The person didn't make an error, they outright were not attempting to remotely do the job they were being paid to do all while operating a motor vehicle illegally.
Even if Uber was 100% liable the driver should still be charged with manslaughter for their actions.
How about "life guard" or "airline pilot." If you watch life guards, then watch for like 30 minutes or so, then switch with another guard. That's because if you stare at the same area of water for long periods of time you completely tune-out. Pilots similarly have a process where the pilot and copilot say to each other something like "scanning 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3'oclock..." because otherwise staring at an empty sky totally desensitizes you. Human brains are terrible watchdogs.