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> A source close to Uber’s operations says its engineers watched the intersection where Uber’s cars were said to have run the red light, and that this text refe

• paul6987 9y ago
  Don't forget illegally running autonomous tractor trailers in Palo Alto and on the roads of Nevada. These guys are criminals... total disregard for human life (but their own) in every shape and way there is. From potentially killing people, too treating everyone is who not their BRO like trash; drivers, employees, customers, business partners, etc, etc, etc... GROSS!
  • furioussloth 9y ago
    Your comments come off as if you are more bitter about some company you can just choose to ignore than benchamark is about Travis.
    • eropple 9y ago
      Are you saying that we should ignore companies that act badly?
    • kbenson 9y ago
      > bitter about some company you can just choose to ignore This is not about some product you buy, or some service you pay for, it's about sharing the road, and whether the other people/entities on the road with you operating multiple thousand pound machines at 24-65 Mph have a legal right to be there and are safe. That's not something you can necessarily "ignore" without consequence.
      • furioussloth 9y ago
        I am only referring to this person's tone being unlike most of the people on this forum. "GROSS" "burn Uber down to ground". It is concerning how angry this person is. Also yes the car ran the signal, it was bad they should be fined and what not. This is not L5 autonomy so the driver is also responsible for not breaking at that signal . Stop making this sound like the car ran over someone or did not stop for pedestrian.
        • paul6987 9y ago
          Yes Travis continues to meddle with Uber and be involved he may just well burn it to the ground out of pure ignorance and hubris. Only hold the ashes he built then burnt! Their behavior is so GROSS it's almost illegal. As for concerning that's funny ... Uber stole my money and laughed, then caused other ppl I know financial harm and then all this stuff comes out in the press about them. I loathe Uber that is all ... no more no less. Why do you care so much ... what skin in the Uber game do you have?
          • paul6987 9y ago
            21 ppl upvoted my comment at the top.
    • totalZero 9y ago
      If you ever walk through a crosswalk, ride a bicycle (or motorcycle), or drive a car, you may pay with your life for ignoring self-driving cars that violate traffic laws and/or fail to react intelligently to unusual situations.
    • paul6987 9y ago
      I am very bitter after Uber pretty much laughed at my Uber account being hacked and thus $1k stolen from me. These hacks were happening about a dozen or more a day for months and years and did they respond properly by alerting users that they should change their password? No, their PR blamed it on the users saying those getting hacked should have used a stronger password or something to that extent. Further, thousand of us aspire to reach Kalanick's heights and to see all lack of graciousness and humility for his position is disgusting! His persona is one of a greedy BRO who thinks he's king one who needs to be kicked off his horse and learn humility! Thankfully it looks like this is slowly happening!!! Give it up Travis and save Uber or continue being your greedy BRO king self and in turn burn Uber to the ground.
    • harry8 9y ago
      Just had a look at furioussloth's comments. Every single one is an Uber related story and an Uber related comment. Reminder to us all to please declare your interests if you have them. even if it's only: Full disclosure: I quite like Uber. For me, full disclosure, I do actually, quite like Uber. (Although not everything they do, or endorse all their policies or individual employee abhorrent behavior etc).
      • furioussloth 9y ago
        Being pro-Uber here is like being a downvote magnet so yes I do maintain an account for non-technical comments. Also I do not try to condone their bad behavior; I am very amazed by what they had achieved by disrupting the taxi industry. I sometimes feel people have such knee-jerk reaction to certain things which are not really that scandalous or incriminating.
        • harry8 9y ago
          No it isn't. Declare your interests.
• furioussloth 9y ago
  weren't they suspended? Also i doubt they coded it in their software to break the signal , can't believe you just implied that. It surely was a bug in software and I hope they got fined for it and took steps to fix it. Testing self-driving cars is not trivial, pretty much everyone who is testing them have screwed up here and there. That's the reason the person behind the wheel should be vigilant.
  • swang 9y ago
    i'm not sure why you reached that conclusion but i didn't say they coded anything into their software. also they weren't suspended insomuch as the vehicle registration of the cars they were using were revoked. at that point i'm assuming at that point uber stopped messing around with the ca dmv.
• Afforess 9y ago
  Normal humans also run red lights when the yellow-to-red light time is too short. Transit guidelines generally state that yellow lights should stay lit 1 second for every 10mph of the speed limit. When the yellow light is shorter than this, it's easy to get caught in the middle of a red.
  • josh2600 9y ago
    Have you seen the video? It's way more jacked up than what you're implying: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pzzQ42D9Srw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pzzQ42D9Srw Watch that and tell me that it's reasonable or caused by a short yellow...
    • austinprete 9y ago
      I saw his reply as adding "too short of yellow to red time" to the list of "not paying attention" and "being an asshole" for human reasons to run red lights. I'm not sure why you're attacking him for a claim he didn't appear to make.
      • Tushon 9y ago
        I don't think this was an attack; rather, an example furthering the case of "too short".
    • x0x0 9y ago
      Holy cow. With a pedestrian in / on the edge of the crosswalk. And there was even another car that had been moving just a few seconds earlier stopped there too...
      • valuearb 9y ago
        You don't think it was going to stop if the pedestrian stepped out in front? If autonomous cars can't do that, they can't do anything.
        • 9y ago
• tannhauser23 9y ago
  Uber is saying that this text doesn't mean Uber knew that its self-driving cars were running the red light - instead, it refers to Uber engineers recording normal, human-driven cars running the light.
• revelation 9y ago
  Given there is no further context in the messages released I humbly submit that this "explanation" provided by the unbiased source at Uber is full and utter bullshit Like, they are standing there taping other people running red lights? And Kalanick cares how, exactly? No, this is them taping their own cars running red lights. Which is a very likely scenario since they are 1) testing on a small subset of streets and 2) if it makes the mistake once, bet on a computer to make it again.
  • aeontech 9y ago
    No, if their car is not running any lights under normal circumstances, but has ran it even once at a particular intersection, you bet I will send my engineers there with some cameras to tape the intersection so we can analyze it and see what is happening. If the intersection is poorly designed/timed, why would it be implausible to happen to catch human drivers make the same mistake?
    • boomboomsubban 9y ago
      >If the intersection is poorly designed/timed, why would it be implausible to happen to catch human drivers make the same mistake? Unless they had already pulled the self driving cars, which the timeline presented suggests they haven't, why would that data be important enough to text back without the corresponding number of Uber violations?
      • aeontech 9y ago
        I'm saying there's not enough context in the released messages to declare this unambiguously bullshit, and provided a reason why they would record the intersection, as parent comment asked "why in the world would they be taping it". The number of Uber's violations could have been communicated previously, or could have been implicit in the context of the conversation (at least 1 violation, causing the investigation) - either of these 3 explanations seems equally likely. Considering how dangerous this is, I really doubt they would run a red light SIX times through the SAME intersection purposefully, risking the life of REAL PEOPLE around them each and every time. Uber's management and engineers may be irresponsible, but I don't think they're that evil, and I would hope no self-respecting engineer or human being would go along with that. "Oh, that's funny, let's try that again" works for software development, it's emphatically not how real world testing involving danger to life and limb works. As to "why would this be important enough to text back", that's pure speculation, but if I was tasked with investigating this, I would be pretty relieved to see that this is a location that's confusing human drivers as well, not just my software, and would be pretty likely to communicate that back to my team.
• stickfigure 9y ago
  This is a cartoonishly uncharitable interpretation of "Quick update on that special intersection in SF, we taped 6 red car violations within 2 hours". A more reasonable interpretation is: A techie pointing out that this is a really confusing intersection, and trying to ease his boss' concerns that the software isn't going to work. Surprise surprise, people have trouble with it too.
• coldtea 9y ago
  >normal humans run red lights because they're either not paying attention or they're assholes. how is a machine safer or better if it can't pay attention (or even worse, is an asshole). Obviously a machine can be safer if it doesn't pay attention (can't recognize the light being red) on a smaller rate than humans. I.e. if humans cross red lights 2% of the time because they don't pay attention, and a machine 1%, then the machine is safer -- despite still crossing red lights.
• frubar 9y ago
  > if so, are they so dense in not understanding how normal people running red lights is less of an issue here than a machine running that red light? I disagree. A machine might be able to completely verify that it's safe to ignore the light. I wouldn't trust a person to do that.