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Uber Pulls Self-Driving Cars After First Fatal Crash of Autonomous Vehicle

posted by Fnord666 on Monday March 19 2018, @10:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the bound-to-happen dept.

vux984 writes:

A self-driving Uber SUV struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. It was in autonomous mode at the time of the collision, with a vehicle operator behind the wheel. Uber has suspended testing of its self-driving cars.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-autonomous-car-fatal-crash/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-driverless-fatality.html
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/self-driving-uber-kills-arizona-171055918.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/19/594950197/uber-suspends-self-driving-tests-after-pedestrian-is-killed-in-arizona
https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-suspends-driverless-car-program-after-pedestrian-is-struck-and-killed-1521480386
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17139518/uber-self-driving-car-fatal-crash-tempe-arizona
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-test-car-involved-in-accident-resulting-in-pedestrian-death/

I couldn't find any good analysis of the liability situation here.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by acid andy on Tuesday March 20 2018, @01:01AM (5 children)

    by acid andy (1683) on Tuesday March 20 2018, @01:01AM (#655218) Homepage Journal

    You're so right.

    People keep saying self-driving cars only need to be better than the average human.

    And those people consist mainly of astroturfing shills and those who've been brainwashed by them. We'll need more details of this accident but imagine how an owner of the autonomous vehicle would feel in such a situation, if it was an accident they felt sure they could have avoided had they been driving instead. They don't just need to be better than average, they at least need to be better than most drivers that want to buy one.

    Also, we need to be careful what we mean by "better than average". It's no good if your self-driving car is better than average for the first five years you use it and then turns out to be lethally dangerous in a rare situation you happen to encounter in the sixth year. For the long term owner's safety, it needs to be at least as good as them in all circumstances.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @01:14AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @01:14AM (#655220)

    They could also allow worse and worse human drivers to get licenses in order to lower the standard.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @02:33AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @02:33AM (#655234)

      Hard to lower the standards for getting a driving license much further than they are currently in much of the USA. Other parts of the world have much more stringent tests.

      Same for registering cars--some parts of the world (like Japan & Germany) have very rigorous inspections for used cars more than a few years old. Much of the USA has no annual safety inspection at all, old cars may be driving behind you that have no brakes (for one extreme example).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @02:37AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @02:37AM (#655237)

        Fine, then raise the standards to revoke them. Same thing, except that can get you more votes.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @03:38AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @03:38AM (#655260)
    It needs to be much better since you are giving up control and your genes have a much reduced influence over what happens. Having a wide spread potential lethal danger where the DNA doesn't have much influence on survival is not so good for the species. Maybe in toughness and recovery but that's it.

    This is why elevators have to be much safer than the stairs and why airplanes, trains and self-driving cars have to be much safer than you driving a car for yourself.

    p.s. that's also why it's great for the species to have young guys do crazy stupid potentially fatal stunts. Guys are far more expendable (you just need the males for a few minutes, you need the females for nine months), so evolution has made the males more keen to push the limits in all sorts of stuff. If some fail and die it's good for the species. If they succeed they might have something to contribute to the gene pool. That's why you see more guys in "fail" and "awesome" videos.

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 20 2018, @04:12PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday March 20 2018, @04:12PM (#655447)

    > to be lethally dangerous in a rare situation you happen to encounter in the sixth year

    Haven't you been paying attention to the companies designing those? They won't get safety updates after three years, five at most.
    "Your autonomous car is no longer supported, have you looked at our latest model?"
    "But, it's still in good shape, I want to keep using it!"
    "You're on your own, maam. We have to disable the self-driving for liability reasons. You may buy our Steering Wheel package for $15000, and you get 50% off the pedals at $5000"