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According to this article on MSN:
Police in Tempe, Arizona said evidence showed the "safety" driver behind the wheel of a self-driving Uber was distracted and streaming a television show on her phone right up until about the time of a fatal accident in March, deeming the crash that rocked the nascent industry "entirely avoidable."
A 318-page report from the Tempe Police Department, released late on Thursday in response to a public records request, said the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, repeatedly looked down and not at the road, glancing up just a half second before the car hit 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who was crossing the street at night.
According to the report, Vasquez could face charges of vehicle manslaughter. Police said that, based on testing, the crash was "deemed entirely avoidable" if Vasquez had been paying attention.
Police obtained records from Hulu, an online service for streaming television shows and movies, which showed Vasquez's account was playing the television talent show "The Voice" the night of the crash for about 42 minutes, ending at 9:59 p.m., which "coincides with the approximate time of the collision," the report says.
It is not clear if Vasquez will be charged, and police submitted their findings to county prosecutors, who will make the determination.
(Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday June 23 2018, @04:46PM (9 children)
He was a test driver. The whole reason he was employed was because the self-driving car is still in development and therefore not yet assumed to be safe for unsupervised operation. It was his job to prevent accidents like this.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by frojack on Saturday June 23 2018, @04:49PM (3 children)
I know its all the rage these days to be gender fluid, but the police said the safety driver was a she.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @07:10PM
which is particularly annoying, because it would not be politically correct to emphasize that we're dealing with a woman driver here.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday June 23 2018, @09:08PM (1 child)
Damn, dog!
I thought a SECOND uber car must have hit poor Elaine, because i would have testified the first driver was a man.
D.A.M.N!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @02:01PM
> i would have testified the first driver was a man.
i would have testified the first driver was male.
To be a man, he would have to man-up and apologize publicly(?)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by EETech1 on Saturday June 23 2018, @06:17PM (4 children)
Need a +1 exactly mod for this!
I used to do integration testing of a certain Marine drive-by-wire system with various aftermarket autopilots, and while it was really nice to sit in the breeze while being driven around the area on an endless scenic tour, there's countless things that constantly go wrong, especially during active development. It could be an entirely different vehicle after lunch. Same drivers seat, steering wheel, buttons etc. But deep inside there, the software running it all was changed (release notes FTW) so this time around the lake is not like the last!
Even out on the open water, there's still hazards, and driving in navigation channels is crazy dangerous because boats can go anywhere.
My number one responsibility was to make sure it was safe. Safe from itself, safe from others, safe from its surroundings.
My number two responsibility was to put it in difficult situations, and try to make it screw up.
I had to have a much higher level of situational awareness than a normal boater. Anything could happen, and too late doesn't wait. Lives are at stake when you are assigned responsibility for testing such a vehicle!
Perhaps autonomous cars are good enough to navigate roads, and need to spend a few years on a closed course with planned hazards and trained humans before they really know enough about how they are going to react to turn them loose on an unsuspecting public.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @10:26PM (2 children)
There is already good equipment available for non-destructive testing off the highway, for example, here are some little electric robot "sleds" that are not damaged when driven over. They can roam all over a proving ground coordinated externally and can hold either a person manikin or even a "bicycle" manikin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7-SS1LxjPw [youtube.com] Same company also sells larger platforms that carry dummy cars, with correct light and radar reflectivity--they come apart when hit and snap back together. Originally developed for ADAS testing (advanced driver assist system), they work equally well for AV testing.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:33AM (1 child)
That's all nice, but the problem with those is that if you prearrange tests, then you test only what you thought of. At some point youhave to go out and test it in the real world, as only that will tell you how well the car copes about unexpected situations.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @02:07PM
Of course. But a dummy/person jaywalking obliviously (with or without pushing a bicycle) across a wide road would be one of the obvious test cases for proving ground debugging. Early recognition by the AV AND a speed and/or path change to miss the pedestrian trajectory would be one reasonable result.
I have no idea what kinds of development testing Uber has done off the public roads, but it appears they didn't do this one.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Monday June 25 2018, @04:30AM
You have to keep in mind though, that this is Uber we're talking about. Not exactly a company well known for trying to "do things right" but rather "do it cheap, then improve only if you HAVE to".
They would be paying bottom dollar for the "tester" and giving the minimum training required to get what they think is needed to put the car on the road. Their entire existence thus far could be summed up by "scale of economy and try to overpower anything else in court". This is just another bump in their lawyers billings - and with all likelihood, they will try to throw their "tester" under the bus (oh, the irony of that statement) to get out of paying extra damages or having any additional restrictions placed on their driverless testing programme.