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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @10:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @10:04PM (#656360)

    While I don't do it very often, I can keep within 1 mph of any speed limit on a reasonably flat straight road. Oftentimes even on curves and differing grades if I have the patience and attention. A robot has none of these limitations and having worked on cars from the 90s through late 2000s, I can tell you almost all of them have both the sensors and the ECU/ABS speedometer accuracy to hold speed at tenths of a mph within the vehicles operating range, and that is on MANUAL cars. Automatic cars with ABS, TCS, throttle and steering by wire should have no problems under conditions outside of 5mph or 5 percent grade in holding their speed steady at or below the posted speed limit. Furthermore having had a discussion about this just the other day: Most of the modern net-enabled GPS navigation systems have sign-accurate speed limit markers including with their navigation service, to notify you to slow down/speed up on a stretch of road. Given that, there really is no excuse for an autonomous car to not be driving almost exactly the speed limit. The entire point of autonomous vehicles is to provide better safety, reliability, and reproducability than human drivers can. If they aren't doing that then they fail at autonomous cars.