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posted by martyb on Saturday June 23 2018, @03:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the unfortunate dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Saturday June 23 2018, @09:53PM (2 children)

    by Gaaark (41) on Saturday June 23 2018, @09:53PM (#697362) Journal

    Fully and completely agree.

    Either let me drive or make me not criminally (or anywise) responsible. DO NOT make me a passive assist driver who has to take control when the car comes upon a situation it can't figure out.
    The LIDAR saw her six seconds out (LIDAR doesn't care how light or dark the roadway is): unless the driver is at the point of almost driving the vehicle themselves, the person still would have been at least injured, probably.

    UBER should be banned from doing this and there should be criminal proceedings against them for 'tuning' the software.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:41PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:41PM (#697654)

    LIDAR isn't magic though. Even if someone is within view of the LIDAR, there is some serious Computer Vision involved in segmenting and "detecting" that person amid all the noise and things you don't want to detect.

    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:10PM

      by Gaaark (41) on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:10PM (#697787) Journal

      But it's also Ubers fault for turning it down so it wouldn't brake for things it couldn't identify.

      As @Apparition(?) said elsewhere, they should have had the driver identifying everything the car braked for.

      Have a heads-up display show what it was braking for and have the driver identify it for later research, BUT brake first.

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