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Uber allegedly ignored safety warnings before self-driving fatality
Just days after Uber announced its plans to resume testing of its self-driving taxis, new information reveals that a whistleblower had made the company aware of the technology's safety failures before the incident in Arizona last March, which saw a pedestrian struck and killed by one of Uber's vehicles, and which led to the suspension of all testing activity.
According to The Information, Robbie Miller, a manager in the testing-operations group, sent a cautionary email to a number of Uber's executive and lawyers, warning that the vehicles were "routinely in accidents resulting in damage. This is usually the result of poor behavior of the operator or the AV technology."
It appears the email was prompted by an incident in Pittsburgh, where just a few days before Miller sent the message an Uber prototype swerved completely off the road and onto the sidewalk, where it continued to drive. According to Miller's email, the episode was "essentially ignored" for days, until Miller raised it with other managers. He also noted that towards the end of 2017, it took two weeks for engineers to investigate the logs of a separate Arizona incident, in which an Uber vehicle almost collided with another car.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Thursday December 13 2018, @04:54PM
Interesting. Blinking lights seem to be more common around here for rear bicycle lights and I personally feel they are much better for me to register as a bicycle on the road at night. Steady red (bicycle) lights never appear very bright and seem to blend in with the large number of red lights that show up everywhere at night. When I see a blinking red light I immediately slow down and start watching for a bicycle. I never ever trust any bicyclist at night not to do something stupid and I make sure I am very aware of where they are at all times. I have run up on dim steady red lights at night and not realized there was a bike there until the last second. In fact, the clue more often in those cases is the reflectors on the bike pedals moving that catch my eye first.