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A few Soylentils wrote in to tell us about a fatal accident between a pedestrian and an autonomous Uber vehicle.
Update - Video Released of Fatal Uber - Pedestrian Accident
I debated just replying to the original story, but this seemed a pretty significant update to me:
The Uber vehicle was operating in autonomous mode when it crashed into 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg on Sunday evening. Herzberg was transported to a hospital, where she later died from her injuries, in what may be the first known pedestrian fatality in a self-driving crash.
The video footage does not conclusively show who is at fault. Tempe police initially reported that Herzberg appeared suddenly; however, the video footage seems to show her coming into view a number of seconds before the crash. It also showed the vehicle operator behind the wheel intermittently looking down while the car was driving itself.
The link shows video of the seconds just before the accident.
The pedestrian did not step out in front of the vehicle, she was essentially out in the middle of the road, and all her lateral movement was nearly irrelevant. She might as well have been a stationary object in the middle of the road. You can see the headlights bring her feet into view first, (meaning she was pretty much in the line before the headlights could see her, and then move up her body; she's already in the middle of the road in front of him when she comes into view.
If I were driving that car, I think I'd have had time to hit brakes (but not stop in time). I also think that that if the camera view is an accurate representation of what was really visible, then the car was overdriving its headlights. Although given my experience with cameras, I wouldn't be surprised if actual visibility was better than what the video shows.
This, in my opinion, is pretty damning.
Police Chief: Uber Self-Driving Car "Likely" Not At Fault In Fatal Crash
The chief of the Tempe Police has told the San Francisco Chronicle that Uber is likely not responsible for the Sunday evening crash that killed 49-year-old pedestrian Elaine Herzberg. “I suspect preliminarily it appears that the Uber would likely not be at fault in this accident," said chief Sylvia Moir.
Herzberg was "pushing a bicycle laden with plastic shopping bags," according to the Chronicle's Carolyn Said, when she "abruptly walked from a center median into a lane of traffic."
After viewing video captured by the Uber vehicle, Moir concluded that “it’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway." Moir added that "it is dangerous to cross roadways in the evening hour when well-illuminated, managed crosswalks are available."
Self-Driving Car Testing Likely to Continue Unobstructed
Self-Driving Cars Keep Rolling Despite Uber Crash
The death of a woman who was struck by a self-driving Uber in Arizona on Sunday has auto-safety advocates demanding that U.S. regulators and lawmakers slow down the rush to bring autonomous vehicles to the nation's roadways. Don't count on it.
Efforts to streamline regulations to accommodate the emerging technology have been under way since the Obama administration with strong bipartisan support. And the Trump administration's aversion to restrictions and regulations makes it even more unlikely that the accident in Tempe, Arizona, in which an autonomous Uber sport utility vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian, will result in significant new barriers, according to former U.S. officials and some safety advocates.
"Honestly, the last thing under this administration that car companies and self-driving vehicle developers have to worry about is heavy regulation," said David Friedman, a former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration administrator under President Barack Obama who's now director of cars and product policy for Consumers Union.
Who is to blame when driverless cars have an accident?
[Partial] or full autonomy raises the question of who is to blame in the case of an accident involving a self-driving car? In conventional (human-driven) cars, the answer is simple: the driver is responsible because they are in control. When it comes to autonomous vehicles, it isn't so clear cut. We propose a blockchain-based framework that uses sensor data to ascertain liability in accidents involving self-driving cars.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3 Original Submission #4
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:38PM (2 children)
I agree the video looks tampered with.
But even if it isn't if the car is using cameras that are that bad it shouldn't be driving so fast much less speeding (going over the speed limit like it was). e.g. if your eyesight at night isn't that good you shouldn't be driving that fast.
Another thing, the car didn't even show any signs of braking. That's really crap. Don't be surprised how quickly modern cars can stop once you brake. They claim the car was going 38 mph. From the video it took about TWO or even more seconds from the time the pedestrian was visible till the car hit the pedestrian. 2 seconds is enough time to stop at that speed or lower. Even if you don't stop in time if you bother braking you are likely to slow down enough to make the collision non-fatal.
So far based on the evidence the blame goes to Uber. Won't be surprised if Uber tampered with the evidence, it's Uber after all.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Thursday March 22 2018, @11:10PM (1 child)
The video looks like it's from a consumer dash cam that has poor low light performance. It can only see the pavement the headlights are directly shining on well. That's probably there as a separate hardware supplement. If that is in fact one with poor low light ability, then visibility in person in the dark areas might be fine but that can't be judged well from this footage. (and the self driving system's cameras may be able to see better)
One thing that stands out is that the headlights are pointed too far down. Also any lidar system should have seen the pedestrian as they approached from the side. It had an unobstructed view. In the video it appears to be perfect conditions for the self driving system to detect the pedestrian. Why didn't it? Is the vision system using shortcuts?
As for the fault determination, the pedestrian may have the duty to avoid the vehicle on that road. The person was still look ahead from their point of view, instead of looking towards the car at all. That's not a normal way to cross a higher speed road, especially at night while in a car's headlights. Could this have been a suicide or was the pedestrian impaired (disability or drugged)? This doesn't seem like normal behavior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @08:47AM
In no way was this a suicide. She was clearly crossing the street. She was not jumping out into the car or standing in the middle of the road trying to increase her changes of being hit. She was probably too focused on her goal of the other side. It was freezing and likely windy out. She probably kept looking straight ahead to keep her face from freezing.
Drivers also have a duty not to run people over. The driver wasn't paying attention, he was fiddling with something on his lap.
All parties (uber, driver, lady) contributed to this death. Either one could have avoided it, but all were acting stupid.