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from the it-is-everybody-else-you-have-to-watch-out-for dept.
More bad news for Uber: one of the ride-hailing giant's self-driving Volvo SUVs has been involved in a crash in Arizona — apparently leaving the vehicle flipped onto its side, and with damage to at least two other human-driven cars in the vicinity.
The aftermath of the accident is pictured in photos and a video posted to Twitter by a user of @FrescoNews, a service for selling content to news outlets. According to the company's tweets, the collision happened in Tempe, Arizona, and no injuries have yet been reported.
Uber has also confirmed the accident and the veracity of the photos to Bloomberg. We've reached out to the company with questions and will update this story with any response. Update: Uber has now provided us with the following statement: "We are continuing to look into this incident and can confirm we had no backseat passengers in the vehicle."
TechCrunch understands Uber's self-driving fleet in Arizona has been grounded, following the incident, while an investigation is undertaken. The company has confirmed the vehicle involved in the incident was in self-driving mode. We're told no one was seriously injured.
Local newspaper reports suggest another car failed to yield to Uber's SUV, hitting it and resulting in the autonomous vehicle flipping onto its side. Presumably the Uber driver was unable to take over the controls in time to prevent the accident.
Source: TechCrunch
(Score: 2) by driven on Monday March 27 2017, @04:37PM (1 child)
Some scenarios that I doubt an automated car would handle in time:
- avalanche/mud slide
- falling rocks
- emergency landing of a small aircraft on the road
All of these scenarios are potentially something you can see happening in the distance giving you enough time to react.
By the time a self-driving car notices, would it be too late?
How about situations where you have to get through something bad to avoid something worse? Would the car just stop and do nothing?
Seems that paying attention to the road even with a fully self-driving car is a good idea and that manual controls will always be necessary. At some point, however, I suspect that pressure for cost savings will result in cars without manual controls.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday March 27 2017, @05:59PM
Or maybe all of those classic racing simulations will be correct in that you can drive with the arrow keys :)