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from the darn-it-someone-must-take-the-blame dept.
Uber's self driving car program in AZ isn't out of the woods yet. The Phoenix New Times https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/claim-ducey-state-blamed-uber-self-driving-death-unsafe-policy-11205678 reported last month that lawyers representing family of Uber victim Herzberg have sued the state of AZ for $10M, fingering Governor Ducey for failing to protect the people of his state.
After quoting legal precedent about the state's responsibility to keep roadways "reasonably safe" for travelers, the claim says the state has "failed to make roadways safe, allowing autonomous vehicles to operate on public roadways in an unsafe manner."
The state's oversight of autonomous vehicles was negligent, it states, adding that Ducey's 2015 executive order facilitating the testing of self-driving vehicles was created "negligently and without sufficient investigation into the safety of Uber's autonomous vehicles. Any oversight provided by a committed, ADOT, or DPS, was wholly insufficient, and placed an unreasonably high risk of harm to the citizens of Arizona."
The claim goes on to quote Ducey's 2016 invitation to Uber, in which the governor quipped that "California put the brakes on innovation and change," but he wouldn't. "This rush to be first in the 'tech boom' era made Arizona's roadways unreasonably dangerous," the claim states.
New Times made a similar argument that Ducey was at least partially responsible for Herzberg's death in the April 12 cover story, "Ducey's Drive-By: How Arizona Governor Helped Cause Uber's Fatal Self-Driving Car Crash."
Last time Gov. Ducey appeared here on SN was back on December 03 2016, https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/12/02/2341241 He announced that Lucid would start making cars in a new plant in AZ...in 2018. Looks like he missed that prediction --
Officials from electric vehicle startup Lucid Motors, which broke cover from stealth mode in October [cnet.com], made a joint appearance today with Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Sonora, Mexico's Governor Claudia Pavlovich Arellano, to announce a manufacturing plant in Casa Grande, Arizona. The plant will begin production of Lucid's first car, an electric luxury sedan, in 2018, with parts being supplied from across the border in Sonora, Mexico.
Governor Ducey said the new plant will create 2,000 jobs by 2022 [cnet.com], and that Lucid Motors has promised to prioritize hiring among Arizona veterans.
Lucid Motors has shown a very sophisticated operation for its entry as a new automaker, with its Chief Technology Officer, Peter Rawlinson, an alumni of Tesla and Lotus, and Vice President of Design Derek Jenkins having spent time at Mazda and Volkswagen. The as-yet unnamed first model will compete with the Tesla Model S as a luxury sedan, and should boast over 300 miles of range. Lucid has also designed connected features and self-driving capability into this car.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Snotnose on Monday March 18 2019, @12:47AM (6 children)
If this is the case I think it is then the victim would not have been a victim had she just looked before crossing the road. Yeah, you can blame Uber and the twit behind the wheel. But the ultimate responsibility is the dipshit crossing the street without looking for oncoming traffic.
Newsflash: You in your dark clothes on a dark night are hard to see. A car on a dark night with headlights on is easy to see. You may have the right of way but guess what? When push comes to splat, you lose.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday March 18 2019, @01:44AM (2 children)
As I understand the report, the computer system flagged her first as unknown object, then as a vehicle, then as a bicycle, and for some reason even then delayed emergency braking, and despite flagging the need for emergency braking 1.3 seconds before the collision, still decelerated only minimally before striking her. (I believe because the system had automatic emergency braking disabled.)
If she had instead been a vehicle or some large piece of something in the road or whatever (as the system first thought but took no action) any passengers in the self-driving car could have been seriously injured or killed.
So, regardless of what percentage of blame you want to fault the victim with, the response of the computer system still showed serious issues that contributed to a bad outcome.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday March 19 2019, @12:12AM (1 child)
Doesn't matter. Anyone with an IQ over 70 looks both ways before crossing the street and, if a car is coming, they wait.
This dipshit didn't. This dipshit walked into incoming traffic and got killed. So sad, too bad, not a whole lot of sympathy here. Self driving car, drunk driver, dude coming off a 14 hour shift, wide awake mom with kids in the back seat, normal dude changing radio stations. Doesn't matter.
The driver may be legally at fault, but the asshat that can't be bothered to look for oncoming traffic IMHO got what they deserved.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 19 2019, @02:15PM
She paid with her life. How did Uber pay for it's screw up? With a suspension.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18 2019, @02:26AM
The video of the accident as provided by uber had clearly been altered. The contrast/brightness were adjusted to hide the victim until as late as possible to give the impression that the accident was unavoidable.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday March 19 2019, @04:07PM (1 child)
You are only marginally right according to Arizona driving law, at least when I lived there and was trained to drive in that state in High School.
In Arizona no vehicle ever has a right of way. Vehicles and pedestrians only have instances when they are required to yield the right of way.
So from that you're pretty much right, unlike a state like California where pedestrians always have a right of way. Municipalities also have right of way laws more restrictive than the state. Parts of Tempe have an ordinance where one may only cross at a crosswalk - all forms of jaywalking aren't allowed... I can't remember if the location where the crash happened is in that zone but I think not. I used to work right in that neighborhood and drove that road many times on patrol as a security officer.
However, for all those issues, they are counterbalanced by the "reasonable and prudent speed" law.
Any driver who has an accident while moving can be (and usually is) charged under 28-701A, failure to control speed to avoid an accident. While not a requirement to yield in name, in practice it means that if you get into an accident you are almost always at some degree at fault for failing to control your speed to avoid it. The Arizona driver must always be prepared to drive defensively and always be driving a reasonable and prudent speed to never allow oneself to get into a situation where an accident occurs. When you're at any speed, in Arizona, an accident is usually at least partially your fault.
This is where self-driving cars fail in Arizona, and ought to. There is no way to make a self-driving car completely compliant with this law because a computer can never truly be reasonable and use prudence - it can only simulate it. So "Ducey got fingered," might be entirely appropriate for allowing and encouraging vehicles to be on the roadway that can never truly be compliant with the law.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday March 19 2019, @04:19PM
Correction: California state law has never quite been that way. California, like Washington state has a law that the pedestrian always has the right of way at an intersection. All fifty states have an equivalent law that pedestrians are required to yield to vehicles outside of marked crosswalks according to here [mwl-law.com], but the document also says that Kentucky, Michigan, and Montana also have laws which recognize that drivers must be alert to pedestrian crossings outside of crosswalks, while simultaneously having the pedestrian-must-yield.
This sig for rent.