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Police Say Uber Is Likely Not at Fault for Self-Driving Car Fatality in Arizona

315 points by tlrobinson 9y ago

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
So fucking predictable.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Mtinie 9y ago
  I’m often cynical, but I have to ask...what makes this “predictable” to you? Are you commenting on the evolving narrative which shifts the responsibility from a vehicle-initiated accident to Elaine Herzberg’s actions, or are you decrying something else?
- dang 9y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here. It doesn't help, and makes this place worse.
omegaworks 9y ago
>Police believe she may have been homeless. Police: "don't worry, she was an undesirable." Next, let's watch them publicly leak her criminal background.
- Alex3917 9y ago
  They already did, she was in prison for a year on charges relating to the 'dangerous' drug marijuana. I called almost verbatim what the chief of police actually said in the other thread and had my comment downvoted and flagged for it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 9y ago
    If you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16620402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16620402, it's unclear what it means and how you meant it. I'm sure many readers took it literally.
    - Alex3917 9y ago
      I mean I did mean it literally as a factual legal statement, not as a normative statement on how society should work.
      - dang 9y ago
        Right—that was unclear, though, and if some readers took it as an endorsement I'm sure you can understand why they'd flag it.
- celim307 9y ago
  I wonder how much money Uber is pouring into Tempe and how much they promised the local government in taxes and infrastructure, to get them to bend at the knees so fast
- steveax 9y ago
  Yeah, the “may have been homeless“ line really pisses me off. Such a blatant bullcrap attempt to devalue a human life.
olivermarks 9y ago
'the incident occurred roughly 100 years from a crosswalk' - deep space?
- ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
  Yeah saw that, rather than missing the word light, it’s probably yards. Based on what’s reported (not suggesting it’s true or the full story) she basically jumped out in front in which case this indeed would have been hard to avoid.
  - portofcall 9y ago
    Given that the car apparently didn’t even start to brake, maybe she was moving at light speed? https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-driving-crash-death-homeless-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-drivin... The LIDAR probably couldn’t see with all the shadows, or maybe she teleported, literally “coming from nowhere.” I sure hope if I’m killed the filth blame it on me in less than 24 hours.
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    She definitely "jumped out in front" given no actual evidence that "she jumped out in front." I might even venture that "she lunged" given absolutely nothing to offer in supporting evidence. Carry on Uber!
- jamestimmins 9y ago
  FYI you can tweet at reporters letting them know there's a typo, and they typically make the edit quickly. They usually seem appreciative.
stefan_ 9y ago
This is just police standard operating procedure. In any kind of manslaughter where a vehicle is involved, save on paperwork and blame whichever party ended up dead before the driver has even spoken the words "she came from nowhere". Here is the police chief spelling it out for Uber: she came from the shadows I wonder what that LIDAR thinks about the shadows. I mean, this system is in place because everybody drives and so we've legalized recklessness in the pursuit of "There but for the grace of god go I" but who benefits if police declares an AI driver blameless before anyone has even downloaded the recordings?
- blakesterz 9y ago
  > I wonder what that LIDAR thinks about the shadows. I honestly don't follow these systems very close, but I thought that was one of the big selling points, LIDAR can see into tough situations and things like "the shadows" and help avoid situations where people would fail.
  - portofcall 9y ago
    And yet the speeding vehicle didn’t even attempt to stop. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-driving-crash-death-homeless-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-drivin...
    - dexterdog 9y ago
      Can we please stop calling 38 in a 35 speeding? In many places that speed would be inpeding traffic.
      - portofcall 9y ago
        In most places the driver isn’t an experimental automated vehicle. Maybe while trying new tech that can apparently fail to see a woman with LIDAR, stick to the damned speed limit? That seems fair to me.
        deleted 9y ago
blakesterz 9y ago
> “The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.” I don't know if that is supposed to make anyone feel better about this, if anything it makes it seem worse. I thought one of the big benefits of these systems was they were supposed to be better at exactly these kinds of situations? More like "autonomous cars are better than people at stopping in a flash" rather than "just like people this car didn't stop in a flash". I'm really not trying to trash these systems, I'm just surprised at this explanation. Though, I guess based on the other comments now, maybe I shouldn't be.
- halflings 9y ago
  If somebody jumped in front of the car at the last second, it would be physically impossible to break in time. I assume what people mean by "stopping in a flash" is closer to taking the right actions faster (e.g 40ms vs 800ms) when there's still a chance of changing the outcome.
  - fthssht 9y ago
    800ms is pretty slow for a sober human I think https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics
    - Trundle 9y ago
      Isn't that linking to the results of people playing a game where they're paying attention and looking for something to react to?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - vvanders 9y ago
      That's with people expecting to click, ~500ms is more realistic for a scenario where you need to recognize, decide and react.
benwilber0 9y ago
> According to the Chronicle, the preliminary investigation found the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone and did not attempt to brake. Herzberg is said to have abruptly walked from a center median into a lane with traffic. The autonomous vehicle was speeding and made no attempt to decelerate given the sudden presence of an obstruction in its path? I would expect some kind of reaction from the car within seconds, or milliseconds.
- friedman23 9y ago
  3mph above the speed limit
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  - benwilber0 9y ago
    That is speeding and also the car was inattentive to potential hazards outside of its vision. Normal human drivers slow down when they see a wild lady on the median looking like she might dart into the road. Normal people slow down when there are kids playing with a ball on the sidewalk. Do these cars do that? Do they even drive the speed limit? edit: Also accidentally killing someone with your car because of minor speeding or inattentiveness usually results in a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge. Who is getting that charge here?
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      If I'm imagining this scenario correctly, I've experienced it tons of times and never seen traffic slow down. It's a road with a median and a person attempting to cross the road has temporarily stopped in the median waiting for a break in traffic so they can cross. Maybe I've just lived in 2 crazy states, or maybe I'm not imagining this scenario correctly, but I can't recall ever having seen traffic slow down for this situation. It's possible to believe that the sensors/AI failed (no braking) while also acknowledging that the vehicle/driver is not at fault for the death. I suspect that may ultimately be the case here.
alexandercrohde 9y ago
I don't want to hear any officer's opinion on this until the video and radar is publicly released. It's unclear on what evidence the officer bases this account of events.
- jdoliner 9y ago
  Second paragraph: > Chief of Police Sylvia Moir told the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday that video footage taken from cameras equipped to the autonomous Volvo SUV potentially shift the blame to the victim herself, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, rather than the vehicle. How is that unclear?
  - mindslight 9y ago
    To answer your question, it is apparently deliberately unclear. "Potentially" is one hell of a weasel word. We're at the point where the public no longer trusts its institutions to make impartial judgments - we all know the overriding societal bias towards cars, the tendency to blame the deceased, the political incentives of wanting Uber's continued support, etc. And if this initial analysis is indeed the correct one, then it's especially in everyone's interest for such doubt to be eliminated. There are video(s). They should be publicly posted swiftly, before it can be edited down to show the most plausible narrative. Anything less feeds the ongoing breakdown in trust.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    How is it unclear that the person you're responding to wants to see the video and LIDAR data, not just take someone's word for it? "Potentially shifts the blame" as hearsay isn't good enough.
  - francisofascii 9y ago
    Well, was she already walking in road where the car should have had time to stop or did she walk in front of the vehicle at the last second? Did the car make an effort to evade?
    - brokenmachine 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
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jdc 9y ago
Surely there's a blackbox somewhere that could clear this all up.
bb88 9y ago
What bothers me is that there was no braking happening, and maybe even apparently no notification to the car that it hit something.
brian-armstrong 9y ago
So here's one thing about this incident where humans do have a system for this already. People are very good at reading body language. It's possible to gather someone's likely intentions (wrt moving) in a near instant. A defensive driver will see body language that could dart out into the street and slow down, just in case, and give more attention to the person. We are really good at this. I know you can say it was dark and therefore maybe harder to see this, but a self-driving car shouldn't take its eyes off anything anyway, so that seems irrelevant. Unless it's almost pitch black, people can read this sort of information. So what gives? Uber's self-driving system clearly lacks the full suite of decisions made by human drivers. This makes me skeptical that their cars can be significantly safer than human drivers.
- CardenB 9y ago
  How do you know that this is not possible? It is not useful to make broad generalizations about the field because of a single company, especially with so little information.
  - brian-armstrong 9y ago
    I never said anything like that. Did you mean to reply to another comment?
- shkkmo 9y ago
  The chief of police says: "“It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode [autonomous or human-driven] based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,”" I'm curious what you know that he doesn't.
  - hnaccy 9y ago
    It's cliche in America to absolve drivers of any culpability when killing pedestrians and cyclists let alone a case involving a local government that was actively courting a known unethical company. Until they release footage I'll be taking anything from Uber and Tempe officials with a grain of salt, they'll spin this as hard they can. P.S. I'm surprised he used the word shadows considering the car was equipped with a fancy lidar unit.
rdiddly 9y ago
Just to continue my line of unpopular opinions about this: whoever chooses to put a car on the road instead of traveling in a way that hurts others less (walking, transit, bike), is responsible at least in part for any damage, injury or death, just by being there. How many people die by wandering out in front of somebody else walking along? Nobody even has to call a cop, much less determine whose fault it was, because nothing happens.
- aetherson 9y ago
  Do you also believe that long haul trains are inherently immoral, given that they are more likely to cause bystander injuries/death than airplanes?
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    Who said anything about morality? I'm talking about responsibility. Nice attempt to misrepresent my viewpoint. I call foul. Responsibility lies with you, friend, not the machine. Besides, how many trains and planes do you pilot daily? Also a train, unlike a car, is not a frivolous convenience operated by a privileged individual who has several other less-objectionable choices available for the purpose. And ironically if everybody got out of cars and onto trains they would actually be cutting the danger to others by a large factor.
- rboyd 9y ago
  sent from your mobile phone, made possible by an 8 year old slave working in the cobalt mines.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    Where's yours sent from, an angel's ass? Anyway let me know when all my evil deeds finally make you innocent so I can take a rest.
- oxymoran 9y ago
  This is called comparative negligence. The theory being that there really is no such thing as an “accident” and that generally all parties involved share some negligence in causality. Obviously there are still freak occurrences. Courts adjust damages based on this all the time. People slip and fall and hold business liable all the time.
Karrot_Kream 9y ago
If we're not holding autonomous drivers to a higher standard than human drivers, I'm not convinced on the long term benefit of this technology.
- noobermin 9y ago
  This is a very important point. I made this point above. Someone already mentioned the car was speeding 3 mph above the speed limit and defending it because...you do it? If our we allow autonomous cars to be as reckless and dangerous as human drivers (which is already dangerous enough to make it one of the top killers in this country) then what is the point of AV's anyway?
  - asteli 9y ago
    Driving no faster than the speed limit under any circumstances causes safety issues. You get a continuous stream of cars cutting in front, some of them irate about having to accommodate the SDV's law-abiding nature. I'm relatively sure you can replicate this effect easily in most American metropolitan regions.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Long term benefit of self driving car is that I don't have to worry about the tedium of driving. I doubt uber (and most people) gives a shit about improving driving standards.
hnaccy 9y ago
>speeding >didn't engage breaks Definitely gives me confidence in self-driving cars, at least she "may have been homeless" so I can sleep easy tonight. Thanks Uber and Tempe!
- Steeeve 9y ago
  >speeding >didn't engage breaks >not ubers fault one of these things is not like the other. The basic expectation is that if people are on the edge of a roadway you slow down and pay more attention. What exactly was the person in the drivers seat doing?
  - userbinator 9y ago
    What exactly was the person in the drivers seat doing? Nothing, because the car was clearly supposed to be driving itself.
    - IncRnd 9y ago
      The car didn't have a driver's license. The driver did, regardless of the amount of assistance provided by the car. What is troubling is that the breaks were never applied.
      - dingo_bat 9y ago
        It's not that simple, I believe. Many governments have issues special registrations to self-driving cars, which waive off the requirement of an active driver to some extent. In that sense, the car actually has a "license" while the person sitting in the "driver's" seat is more of an attendant.
        IncRnd 9y ago
        That's a very good point. Thank you for pointing that out. AZ does allow self-driving cars without drivers, as long as they follow the traditional laws and rules of the road. I would argue that in this particular case, from the information that has been released, the car may have followed the laws of the road but it didn't appear to follow the traditional defensive driving rules of the road that parents teach their children, such as, "see that person with the bike standing on the median? Be careful. Don't hit them."
swang 9y ago
okay i haven't been following this deeply, but the person hit was a cyclist right? not a pedestrian. if so. how does a self-driving car not identify a bicyclist? how does a bike come out from the shadows and "surprise" a self-driving car?
- dllthomas 9y ago
  There's been conflicting reporting, but from what I've seen it was a person walking a bike.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  From the article: "Herzberg is said to have abruptly walked from a center median into a lane with traffic."
- Mtinie 9y ago
  No, the woman hit by the car was a pedestrian, not a cyclist.
akamaka 9y ago
I don’t think that the opinion of the police is at all relevant here, since they have no tools for investigating how self-driving cars react in accidents. The sensors and reaction time of a self-driving car are entirely different from a human, so it’s possible that a crash for which a human is not at fault could be averted by properly programmed self-driving car software.
- cloakandswagger 9y ago
  You don't think the opinion of the police is relevant in a homicide? The opinion of people who have investigated hundreds if not thousands of similar accidents? Who meets your criteria for expertise on saying whether the car could have stopped or not? Uber?
  - goshx 9y ago
    If there is data to be reviewed, that’s your best bet against someone who was not even there.
    - cloakandswagger 9y ago
      There is data...in the form of a video taken by the car that hit her. You don't need a team of PhDs to watch it and make a judgment call.
      - telchar 9y ago
        What about the other sensor data? Did the police watch the LIDAR pointclouds and the RADAR maps too? Or are they basing their judgement on only one sense input? Seems to be the latter which means they're spouting off without knowing what they're talking about.
      - goshx 9y ago
        But you need access to that data first.
  - akamaka 9y ago
dang 9y ago
The massive earlier discussion is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16619917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16619917, but since the current thread is rising we can let it have the next shift on the front page. Edit: some people have objected that it's biased to let the discussion shift to "Police say Uber is likely not at fault" in place of the original report about the death. That's a fair point, so we've taken the downweight off the original story. Just so it's clear: usually what we do when there's a major ongoing story is let discussion hop from an earlier submission to a later one as significant new information arises. We link to thread n-1 from thread n, so people who want to follow back can do so, but the idea is to have only one thread about the story—the latest one—on the front page at a time. In this case, though, it's debatable whether "police say" counts as significant new information. And we don't want to be biased. So we'll restore the previous thread and err and have two on the front page for a while.
danso 9y ago
> According to the Chronicle, the preliminary investigation found the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone and did not attempt to brake. Herzberg is said to have abruptly walked from a center median into a lane with traffic. Police believe she may have been homeless. I know this isn't the most pertinent issue here, but I'm surprised the self-driving AI is allowed to speed, though with further research, this seems to be the case with Google/Waymo software too: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28851996 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28851996 Though in that BBC article (which is from 2014), the stated scenario is when the self-driving car is surrounded by traffic exceeding the speed limit. It doesn't sound like this was the case for the Uber vehicle.
- drewg123 9y ago
  Not speeding would cause it to impede traffic flow. Speed limits are often set for revenue generation, not safety.
  - jcranmer 9y ago
    On a 35 mph road with no traffic to impede, there is no reason to speed.
    - hamandcheese 9y ago
      There is always a reason to speed: getting from point A to point B faster.
- ronilan 9y ago
  There can be several ways to explain this but generally speaking you are right. It shouldn’t go over the speed limit, and under no circumstances should it take the liberty drivers usually take of being within 10% above the limit. I hope no one wrote it that way.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I don't think that's true at all. There was an article posted about the subject a while ago, but the thrust of it was that researchers think they need to do more to make cars behave like (fully attentive) human drivers rather than being weird anomalies that behave in surprising/irritating (to humans) ways if they're going to actually go on the road, and I think that's completely right.
SemiTom 9y ago
Car forensics will be interesting. There will be data collected minutes/seconds before https://semiengineering.com/anatomy-of-an-autonomous-vehicle-crash/ https://semiengineering.com/anatomy-of-an-autonomous-vehicle...
trothamel 9y ago
When it comes to traffic, there's the concept of the right-of-way. I don't know about the rules in Tempe, but here's an excerpt from the rules in New York. > (a) Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway. And that kind of makes sense, because if pedestrians were able to cross wherever they chose, it would become difficulty for vehicles to move down a road with a stable velocity. (Increasing emissions, etc.)
- telchar 9y ago
  True. But if there was no crosswalk within 100m (per the article) and it wasn't a highway (only 35mph limit) it's reasonable to cross without a crosswalk. Still a pedestrian shouldn't put themselves in harm's way, but I don't think crossing off the crosswalk should be help against someone in this circumstance.
  - trothamel 9y ago
    It's not. But as the car has the right of way, it's the pedestrian's responsibility to make sure they're not hit.
    - jmiserez 9y ago
      Any reasonable human driver would try everything to not hit a pedestrian, regardless of right of way. The laws were written with common sense in mind, and if self-driving cars can’t emulate that then they’re not ready. Cars that only follow the letter of the law would be absurd.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  Legally, the driver may not have been at fault. Even so, I was taught as a child learning to drive that when I see a person in the median, watch them. They may walk out in front of you. They might even fall into the road. So, be prepared maybe even by changing lanes before that point in order to get out of harm's way. Apparently, this driver wasn't watching, choosing to let the car drive itself.
maxander 9y ago
There's going to be a bunch of these "OMG a robot car hit someone!!!" stories that then morph into "the robot actually had nothing to do with it." Perhaps it will finally cue people in to how intrinsically dangerous cars are. I mean, even if autonomous cars are x100 times safer to be around than human-driven cars, they're still orders of magnitude more of a risk factor for ordinary (U.S.) citizens than say, terrorists, or sharks.
- portofcall 9y ago
  Given just how poorly we react to terrorism and sharks, I’m not sure if that’s the direction I’d want to be headed in. I’m in favor of automation, but not with Uber’s “move fast and break things” attitude. Responsible, ethical, and careful developments of dangerous technology, even if the danger promises to be reduced compared to the norm in some future iteration, is a must. Keep in mind that some version of “killled by robots” has been in the zeitgeist of fear for decades now. In that sense, “sharks amd terrorists” might not be a bad comparison. It will not take much to ruin a good thing (automation) with typically scummy practices. The important thing to remember is that automation doesn’t require the likes of Uber playing fast and loose with it to become a reality.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    > Responsible, ethical, and careful developments of dangerous technology, even if the danger promises to be reduced compared to the norm in some future iteration, is a must. Agree. And I'd like to see an approach similar to an NTSB investigation of an air crash. Not to place blame, but to identify root causes and mitigate the chance that they recur. Air travel is exceptionally safe. Has been for many decades. Yet we still investigate any air crash because any crash means something went wrong, perhaps something that can be corrected. Self driving cars need to be treated the same way, at least for now, and until well after they have demonstrated themselves to be safer than human drivers.
    - portofcall 9y ago
      This is the way to go, and it would help (I think) to ease the calls I’ve seen around for holding individual devs responsible. The point is not to collect scalps, but prevent tragedy and malfeasance. Holding companies responsible, sure, but some random programmer who missed a bug being the scapegoat seems like a way to ensure companies avoid responsibility by foisting it off on a low totem member; thst can’t be allowed to happen with lives on the line. Like an aircraft, self driving car software is never going to be the work of a single Dev. The NTSB isn’t perfect, but as these things go, very admirable. IIRC the NTSB is investigating this case too.
danso 9y ago
FWIW, this seems to be where the accident took place, based on news photos: https://www.google.com/maps/place/N+Mill+Ave+%26+E+Curry+Rd,+Tempe,+AZ+85281/@33.4362167,-111.9423812,3a,75y,329.34h,83.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sPpo9rKyKSc6nzIT_nkVAyQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x872b0931b4d9dd05:0x5d55a20356caaf8!8m2!3d33.4377022!4d-111.9433046 https://www.google.com/maps/place/N+Mill+Ave+%26+E+Curry+Rd,... It's not completely unlighted, though I'm not sure that's supposed to matter given the AV's sensors? Even if Uber nor the human driver is not legally at fault, I'd still be interested in knowing of Uber's LIDAR and other sensors even detected the woman, and whether it's part of the algorithm to be cautious when someone is that close to the roadway at night? Can the AV's sensors even tell the difference between a person slowly loitering on a median vs stationary lightpoles and (slightly swaying) vegetation? I suppose you don't want the AV slowing down just every time it senses a solid object near the roadway, but does it make different decisions if a stationary object happens to be a human vs light post? edit: the article doesn't say what lane the Uber vehicle was in. Since the victim was walking down the median and yet managed to abruptly surprise the AV, then we can assume it was in the left lane? But don't most human drivers, on an otherwise empty road, move toward the far lane to avoid driving at full speed next to someone who is walking their bike near the road? I do that for bicyclists even when they have their own bike lane (never know when someone can abruptly fall). I would especially do that at the sight of someone walking their bike "laden with plastic shopping bags" late at night down a center median, because that is such an unusual situation.
- corny 9y ago
  There's a paved area in the median that seems pretty useless since there's no sidewalk or crosswalk that connects to the median at that point: https://goo.gl/maps/9WKX2DYEN862 https://goo.gl/maps/9WKX2DYEN862 If the Uber car was about to turn left at the upcoming intersection it might have been getting into the leftmost turning lane at the point of impact. The pedestrian would have been obscured by a slight curve in the road, vegetation, a road sign, and their bicycle.
  - danso 9y ago
    Yeah, I saw that too. It's such a weird construct since, as you say, there is no legal way for someone to follow the median paths and cross either of the streets. In fact, how are pedestrians supposed to get on the median in the first place (legally, I mean)? From the New Times: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/medical-cannabis-extracts-legal-in-arizona-or-not-10232352 http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/medical-cannabis-extract... > That spot is east of the second, western-side Mill Avenue bridge that is restricted to southbound traffic, and east of the Marquee Theatre and a parking lot for the Tempe Town Lake. It can be a popular area for pedestrians, especially concertgoers, joggers, and lake visitors. Mid-street crossing is common there, and a walkway in the median between the two one-way roads across the two bridges probably encourages the practice.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
I didn't notice it mentioned in this piece, but a different article on HN is suggesting she may have been homeless and was crossing where there was no crosswalk. Homeless individuals frequently sleep under bridges, on the sides of off ramps and other infrastructure near highways. They are often walking where no pedestrian should be at all. I would like to see the affordable housing crisis solved. Currently, there are only 30 affordable homes on the West Coast for every 100 poor families.* But it is entirely possible she did basically walk out in front of the car at a place where a driver had no reason to expect to see a pedestrian. It would be nice if people would wait to see what evidence comes forth rather than jumping to conclusions about police conspiracies to hand wave away blame. * https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-poverty-west-coast-no-30-affordable-homes/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-pove...
- Natsu 9y ago
  That intersection isn't really. There's an overpass over Mill that she may well have lived under. In that case, it would not be well lit at all.
- KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
  It's like a story out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. A society that can make self-driving cars but cannot solve homelessness.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    America seems to be poisoned by some poor mental models. People seem to see no real connection between homelessness and the lack of affordable housing. People also tell me there is no money in solving homelessness, which tells me how messed up our mental models are.
  - TulliusCicero 9y ago
    Strictly speaking, we can. We just choose not to.
- gowld 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
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jcranmer 9y ago
I've been trying to find video evidence of the crash, and have been unable to do so. The closest I've found is a myriad of news reports showing the stopped car and police scene. On reviewing this evidence however, there is one thing that sticks out: the damage to the car appears to be entirely on the passenger side. If the woman "darted out from the median," then she managed to clear at least half of the traffic lane before being struck. That makes it more likely that certain prompt evasive actions could have prevented the fatality, which does not look good on Uber's part. I, for one, am glad that NTSB is looking at the crash.
- danso 9y ago
  Video evidence hasn't been released. I don't even know if it's been said what lane the Uber vehicle was in. It's possible she walked out from the center median and far enough that the impact would be on the passenger side of the Uber AV. But that would suggest she did so at a distance that the Uber vehicle could at least begin braking, even if it was still too late (in the same way train operators can hit the brakes despite it being way too late when first seeing a car on the tracks).
- astro_robot 9y ago
  Yea, there just seems to be so many things that aren't adding up yet. The news footage also showed a damaged bicycle but there is not mention of a cyclist in the article. I hope they release footage soon.
  - mrhappyunhappy 9y ago
    There was mention of her walking her bike.
    - cjensen 9y ago
      Which means she wasn't moving quickly.
      - empressplay 9y ago
vidanay 9y ago
>"...the incident occurred roughly 100 years from a crosswalk." How slow are Uber's cars driving?
noonespecial 9y ago
At some level, at some time, we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that these machines can be dangerous in certain ways. Probably ways that are slightly different than human controlled machines. Maybe safer on the whole. But certainly different. Cars have been a menace for a century. We accept and adapt.
lhuser123 9y ago
Years of driving a big truck have taught me to take irrational behavior very seriously. And sometimes you can only anticipate that by looking at people’s faces, reactions, past behaviors, thinks like that. I wonder how do you teach that to AI.
hndamien 9y ago
Maybe we could put bumpers on these cars until they are official? They don't need to look cool right now.
mnm1 9y ago
Uber's autonomous cars speed? Why?
cmurf 9y ago
I think driving 10-20% slower than the posted speed limit at night is completely sane. In Colorado we have some rural highways that are double posted with lower speed limits at night. If AI cannot make identical collision avoidance guarantees at night and during the day, then it should be law that they self limit their speed below the posted speed limit until there is separation parity.
pauldprice 9y ago
“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.” Notice how the chief of police refers to the human and AI as "they".
chapill 9y ago
The car was speeding, "the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone" End of story. Uber is at fault.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
Extremely tragic that this happened but I’ve heard of many cases where homeless people, generally mentally ill, will run into traffic. My friend almost lost his life in SF a few years ago when a homeless person ran in front of him as he was riding his motorcycle. My friend hit the homeless person and went flying off his motorcycle and broke his arm and pelvis. The homeless person ran off (not literally but they couldn’t find him).
rayiner 9y ago
The point about the woman being homeless made something click for me. If you drive in DC, you’ll see panhandlers and people who are very erratic. You have to concentrate on their body language to anticipate whether they’re about to leap into traffic. You often slow down because you’re not sure what they’re going to do. How does a self-driving car do that? It’s quite possible that a human driver going 38 wouldn’t have been able to stop in time. But could a human driver been going 25 because they saw someone acting erratically on the median?
btrettel 9y ago
Are there plans for a beacon one could place on themself to make self driving cars recognize them better? Could be a light, a radio, or something else. Perhaps there's a slippery slope before such things are required by law, but I am interested.
prawn 9y ago
Pushing a bicycle laden with plastic shopping bags, a woman abruptly walked from a center median into a lane of traffic and was struck by a self-driving Uber operating in autonomous mode. From viewing the videos, “it’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,” Moir said. The "driver" (more like attendant) had no warning until the sound of impact. The vehicle was doing 38 in a 35 zone which I would've thought was odd - would the vehicles be programmed to push the limit a little as most other drivers often do? Edit: Ignore last comment. Some have suggested the limit was actually 45 mph per signage.
- oska 9y ago
  It may have been difficult to avoid the collision but if they were driving at a lower speed the collision may not have been fatal. I do not mean 3mph lower to be within the speed limit. I mean significantly lower if passing in close proximity to a pedestrian who may step out onto the road.
- avs733 9y ago
  Apparently my stored links on this topic are dead but two worhtwhile pieces of information on that point 1) drivers who consistently drive below the average speed of other drivers on a road (i.e., who religiously drive the speed limit) are more likely to be involved in crashes 2) More accidents are caused by speed differential than by speed by itself.
  - oska 9y ago
    Your assertion (true or not) is irrelevant to this case. This was a car impacting a pedestrian, not another car on the road. In any impact between a car and a pedestrian the speed of the car is critical in determining whether the pedestrian will be killed.
    - avs733 9y ago
      I didn't mean to suggest that it was relevant in this case. I was merely providing some context for the parent post's observation about an automous car exceeding the speed limit
r_klancer 9y ago
My takeaway from the comments in this thread: self-driving Ubers don't drive defensively, almost surely can't "read" pedestrian behavior, and even with lidar may never have seen Elaine Herzberg. Oh, and they speed. This sounds like straight out of the "hell" scenario for driverless cars: "we cannot accept responsibility for what happens to pedestrians and cyclists foolish enough to stray out of their designated safe zone". I'm referencing Robin Chase (the Zipcar founder)'s "heaven or hell" framing - https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/04/will-world-driverless-cars-be-heaven-or-hell/8784/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/04/will-world-dr... For a recent, thoughtful talk about the damage self-driving cars might do to the city if we are not careful, see this Congress for the New Urbanism talk about "Autonomous Vehicles & The Good City" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utnPEbDNbrE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utnPEbDNbrE It's also worth mentioning that there's a bill (AV START, or S. 1885) in the current Senate that would actually preempt local and state regulation of autonomous car safety, but it has been put on hold.
- isaachier 9y ago
  I think you might be confusing "defensively" with perfectly. There are situations even defensive driving cannot prevent. For example, any car going 35 mph will need a few feet to brake if something jumps directly in front of it. Defensive driving just accounts for one's surroundings and likely outcomes. Seeing as the cars have been on the road in Arizona for a while, and this is the first we are hearing about a pedestrian collision, it seems the algorithm is pretty safe.
  - hnaccy 9y ago
    >Seeing as the cars have been on the road in Arizona for a while, and this is the first we are hearing about a pedestrian collision, it seems the algorithm is pretty safe. One fatality in 4 million miles is safe? Humans are 20 times better than that.
    - invisible 9y ago
      I wonder what the margin of error is on that one in 4 million rate since the sample size is one. Also of note: > Arizona has experienced a surge of pedestrian fatalities recently, with more than 10 in a single week of March in Phoenix alone. The state has the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities in the United States.
digitalantfarm 9y ago
I read the person was homeless (and had a shopping cart). Wouldn't be surprised if she tried to get hit, seeing it was an Uber driverless car. I want to see the dash-cam footage.
nerpderp83 9y ago
> Police believe she may have been homeless. Move along folks, Arizona cops said Uber and the victims story matches, victim isn't gonna sue, case closed.
oska 9y ago
I think it's worth referencing Sweden's Vision Zero [1] here, a project which aims to reduce all fatalities from automobiles to zero. They have a system of maximum traffic speeds for different zones depending on what impact risks there are in those zones. For the zone where there are possible conflicts between pedestrians and cars the maximum speed is 19mph. The rationale for this is that below that speed the risk of a fatality from an impact between a car and a pedestrian is low but above that speed the risk of fatality rises very quickly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero
- joquarky 9y ago
  I wonder if it is not a coincidence that the speed at which it starts to become fatal is around the maximum speed that humans can run.
rdlecler1 9y ago
It’s interesting that so many people in the earlier post first reporting on this topic were very quick to rush to judgement.
ConcernedCoder 9y ago
I only have one question: Why didn't the software controlling the vehicle detect the pedestrian and attempt to brake or avoid collision?
TomMckenny 9y ago
Odd the damage should be on the passenger side if she darted from the center median. Odd they see the need to add the conjecture that she may have been homeless. Curious too is that the center divider where she likely was has has a nice walkway on it with a street lamp[2] I'm suddenly quite curious about what is going on. Accident site: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4369934,-111.9429875,3a,75y,81.51h,84.45t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scUyILaxFs5z63AL2SupCJw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4369934,-111.9429875,3a,75y,... from https://imgur.com/a/QH98H https://imgur.com/a/QH98H [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4366949,-111.9427747,3a,75y,184.83h,75.55t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swPFHH-feIAv6b5u-nH58JA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4366949,-111.9427747,3a,75y,...
- oliwarner 9y ago
  You appear to be suggesting that multiple levels of police watched the videos, GPS tracking, lidar scene, all recorded by the on-board systems and have deliberately suppressed what really happened. I can believe an Uber employee being paid to cover this up but whatever your views of the police, I don't believe they would suppress something that could so obviously be a major public health issue. And it's common in police reports to identify the victim and where they're from. The point about the carrier bags and the homelessness is that they've been unable to verify her sitation; they're explaining why. Nothing strange here. But I guess there's no convincing you without providing you the snuff film of it all happening.
  - brynjolf 9y ago
    Because historically money has had massive influence over the decisions made in the states. I side with the human over the faceless multi billion company.
  - TomMckenny 9y ago
    I believe there a multiple layers involved: a bizarre decisions about median divider design that attracts jay walking. a governor with a stake in this subject. an inexplicable disinterest in even minimal government oversight of the tests. a company with a history of bad behavior. a possibly reckless race to get a new technology market where trade secrets outweigh sharing safety results. Clearly the data was not closely reviewed before issuing the statement. But I doubt the data retrieval is done by a police officer. More likely by an Uber employee; yet another potential issue. The police report could easily be perfectly normal. Or perhaps there was call from the Governor. Or perhaps the police saw the data Uber wanted them to see. Perhaps the city doesn't want to be sued about it's median divider. I honestly have no idea what is going in in such a complex and invisible system but I sure am curious.
whiddershins 9y ago
Looking at the google street view I am astonished someone thought it was a good idea to allow a bunch of random plants to grow in the median. It makes visibility insanely complicated, especially at night.
- DanBC 9y ago
  You're just saying the driver is even more to blame - going faster than the speed limit even though visibility is reduced should increase, not decrease, culpability.
candiodari 9y ago
Once again Futurama predicted the future entirely correctly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qBlPa-9v_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qBlPa-9v_M

315 points by tlrobinson 9y ago

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago

So fucking predictable.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Mtinie 9y ago
I’m often cynical, but I have to ask...what makes this “predictable” to you? Are you commenting on the evolving narrative which shifts the responsibility from a vehicle-initiated accident to Elaine Herzberg’s actions, or are you decrying something else?
dang 9y ago
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here. It doesn't help, and makes this place worse.

omegaworks 9y ago

>Police believe she may have been homeless. Police: "don't worry, she was an undesirable." Next, let's watch them publicly leak her criminal background.

Alex3917 9y ago
They already did, she was in prison for a year on charges relating to the 'dangerous' drug marijuana. I called almost verbatim what the chief of police actually said in the other thread and had my comment downvoted and flagged for it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 9y ago
  If you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16620402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16620402, it's unclear what it means and how you meant it. I'm sure many readers took it literally.
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    I mean I did mean it literally as a factual legal statement, not as a normative statement on how society should work.
    - dang 9y ago
      Right—that was unclear, though, and if some readers took it as an endorsement I'm sure you can understand why they'd flag it.
celim307 9y ago
I wonder how much money Uber is pouring into Tempe and how much they promised the local government in taxes and infrastructure, to get them to bend at the knees so fast
steveax 9y ago
Yeah, the “may have been homeless“ line really pisses me off. Such a blatant bullcrap attempt to devalue a human life.

olivermarks 9y ago

'the incident occurred roughly 100 years from a crosswalk' - deep space?

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
Yeah saw that, rather than missing the word light, it’s probably yards. Based on what’s reported (not suggesting it’s true or the full story) she basically jumped out in front in which case this indeed would have been hard to avoid.
- portofcall 9y ago
  Given that the car apparently didn’t even start to brake, maybe she was moving at light speed? https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-driving-crash-death-homeless-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-drivin... The LIDAR probably couldn’t see with all the shadows, or maybe she teleported, literally “coming from nowhere.” I sure hope if I’m killed the filth blame it on me in less than 24 hours.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  She definitely "jumped out in front" given no actual evidence that "she jumped out in front." I might even venture that "she lunged" given absolutely nothing to offer in supporting evidence. Carry on Uber!
jamestimmins 9y ago
FYI you can tweet at reporters letting them know there's a typo, and they typically make the edit quickly. They usually seem appreciative.

stefan_ 9y ago

This is just police standard operating procedure. In any kind of manslaughter where a vehicle is involved, save on paperwork and blame whichever party ended up dead before the driver has even spoken the words "she came from nowhere". Here is the police chief spelling it out for Uber: she came from the shadows I wonder what that LIDAR thinks about the shadows. I mean, this system is in place because everybody drives and so we've legalized recklessness in the pursuit of "There but for the grace of god go I" but who benefits if police declares an AI driver blameless before anyone has even downloaded the recordings?

blakesterz 9y ago
> I wonder what that LIDAR thinks about the shadows. I honestly don't follow these systems very close, but I thought that was one of the big selling points, LIDAR can see into tough situations and things like "the shadows" and help avoid situations where people would fail.
- portofcall 9y ago
  And yet the speeding vehicle didn’t even attempt to stop. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-driving-crash-death-homeless-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-drivin...
  - dexterdog 9y ago
    Can we please stop calling 38 in a 35 speeding? In many places that speed would be inpeding traffic.
    - portofcall 9y ago
      In most places the driver isn’t an experimental automated vehicle. Maybe while trying new tech that can apparently fail to see a woman with LIDAR, stick to the damned speed limit? That seems fair to me.
      - deleted 9y ago

blakesterz 9y ago

> “The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.” I don't know if that is supposed to make anyone feel better about this, if anything it makes it seem worse. I thought one of the big benefits of these systems was they were supposed to be better at exactly these kinds of situations? More like "autonomous cars are better than people at stopping in a flash" rather than "just like people this car didn't stop in a flash". I'm really not trying to trash these systems, I'm just surprised at this explanation. Though, I guess based on the other comments now, maybe I shouldn't be.

halflings 9y ago
If somebody jumped in front of the car at the last second, it would be physically impossible to break in time. I assume what people mean by "stopping in a flash" is closer to taking the right actions faster (e.g 40ms vs 800ms) when there's still a chance of changing the outcome.
- fthssht 9y ago
  800ms is pretty slow for a sober human I think https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics https://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/statistics
  - Trundle 9y ago
    Isn't that linking to the results of people playing a game where they're paying attention and looking for something to react to?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - vvanders 9y ago
    That's with people expecting to click, ~500ms is more realistic for a scenario where you need to recognize, decide and react.

benwilber0 9y ago

> According to the Chronicle, the preliminary investigation found the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone and did not attempt to brake. Herzberg is said to have abruptly walked from a center median into a lane with traffic. The autonomous vehicle was speeding and made no attempt to decelerate given the sudden presence of an obstruction in its path? I would expect some kind of reaction from the car within seconds, or milliseconds.

friedman23 9y ago
3mph above the speed limit
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- benwilber0 9y ago
  That is speeding and also the car was inattentive to potential hazards outside of its vision. Normal human drivers slow down when they see a wild lady on the median looking like she might dart into the road. Normal people slow down when there are kids playing with a ball on the sidewalk. Do these cars do that? Do they even drive the speed limit? edit: Also accidentally killing someone with your car because of minor speeding or inattentiveness usually results in a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge. Who is getting that charge here?
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    If I'm imagining this scenario correctly, I've experienced it tons of times and never seen traffic slow down. It's a road with a median and a person attempting to cross the road has temporarily stopped in the median waiting for a break in traffic so they can cross. Maybe I've just lived in 2 crazy states, or maybe I'm not imagining this scenario correctly, but I can't recall ever having seen traffic slow down for this situation. It's possible to believe that the sensors/AI failed (no braking) while also acknowledging that the vehicle/driver is not at fault for the death. I suspect that may ultimately be the case here.

alexandercrohde 9y ago

I don't want to hear any officer's opinion on this until the video and radar is publicly released. It's unclear on what evidence the officer bases this account of events.

jdoliner 9y ago
Second paragraph: > Chief of Police Sylvia Moir told the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday that video footage taken from cameras equipped to the autonomous Volvo SUV potentially shift the blame to the victim herself, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, rather than the vehicle. How is that unclear?
- mindslight 9y ago
  To answer your question, it is apparently deliberately unclear. "Potentially" is one hell of a weasel word. We're at the point where the public no longer trusts its institutions to make impartial judgments - we all know the overriding societal bias towards cars, the tendency to blame the deceased, the political incentives of wanting Uber's continued support, etc. And if this initial analysis is indeed the correct one, then it's especially in everyone's interest for such doubt to be eliminated. There are video(s). They should be publicly posted swiftly, before it can be edited down to show the most plausible narrative. Anything less feeds the ongoing breakdown in trust.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  How is it unclear that the person you're responding to wants to see the video and LIDAR data, not just take someone's word for it? "Potentially shifts the blame" as hearsay isn't good enough.
- francisofascii 9y ago
  Well, was she already walking in road where the car should have had time to stop or did she walk in front of the vehicle at the last second? Did the car make an effort to evade?
  - brokenmachine 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jdc 9y ago

Surely there's a blackbox somewhere that could clear this all up.

bb88 9y ago

What bothers me is that there was no braking happening, and maybe even apparently no notification to the car that it hit something.

brian-armstrong 9y ago

So here's one thing about this incident where humans do have a system for this already. People are very good at reading body language. It's possible to gather someone's likely intentions (wrt moving) in a near instant. A defensive driver will see body language that could dart out into the street and slow down, just in case, and give more attention to the person. We are really good at this. I know you can say it was dark and therefore maybe harder to see this, but a self-driving car shouldn't take its eyes off anything anyway, so that seems irrelevant. Unless it's almost pitch black, people can read this sort of information. So what gives? Uber's self-driving system clearly lacks the full suite of decisions made by human drivers. This makes me skeptical that their cars can be significantly safer than human drivers.

CardenB 9y ago
How do you know that this is not possible? It is not useful to make broad generalizations about the field because of a single company, especially with so little information.
- brian-armstrong 9y ago
  I never said anything like that. Did you mean to reply to another comment?
shkkmo 9y ago
The chief of police says: "“It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode [autonomous or human-driven] based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,”" I'm curious what you know that he doesn't.
- hnaccy 9y ago
  It's cliche in America to absolve drivers of any culpability when killing pedestrians and cyclists let alone a case involving a local government that was actively courting a known unethical company. Until they release footage I'll be taking anything from Uber and Tempe officials with a grain of salt, they'll spin this as hard they can. P.S. I'm surprised he used the word shadows considering the car was equipped with a fancy lidar unit.

rdiddly 9y ago

Just to continue my line of unpopular opinions about this: whoever chooses to put a car on the road instead of traveling in a way that hurts others less (walking, transit, bike), is responsible at least in part for any damage, injury or death, just by being there. How many people die by wandering out in front of somebody else walking along? Nobody even has to call a cop, much less determine whose fault it was, because nothing happens.

aetherson 9y ago
Do you also believe that long haul trains are inherently immoral, given that they are more likely to cause bystander injuries/death than airplanes?
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Who said anything about morality? I'm talking about responsibility. Nice attempt to misrepresent my viewpoint. I call foul. Responsibility lies with you, friend, not the machine. Besides, how many trains and planes do you pilot daily? Also a train, unlike a car, is not a frivolous convenience operated by a privileged individual who has several other less-objectionable choices available for the purpose. And ironically if everybody got out of cars and onto trains they would actually be cutting the danger to others by a large factor.
rboyd 9y ago
sent from your mobile phone, made possible by an 8 year old slave working in the cobalt mines.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Where's yours sent from, an angel's ass? Anyway let me know when all my evil deeds finally make you innocent so I can take a rest.
oxymoran 9y ago
This is called comparative negligence. The theory being that there really is no such thing as an “accident” and that generally all parties involved share some negligence in causality. Obviously there are still freak occurrences. Courts adjust damages based on this all the time. People slip and fall and hold business liable all the time.

Karrot_Kream 9y ago

If we're not holding autonomous drivers to a higher standard than human drivers, I'm not convinced on the long term benefit of this technology.

noobermin 9y ago
This is a very important point. I made this point above. Someone already mentioned the car was speeding 3 mph above the speed limit and defending it because...you do it? If our we allow autonomous cars to be as reckless and dangerous as human drivers (which is already dangerous enough to make it one of the top killers in this country) then what is the point of AV's anyway?
- asteli 9y ago
  Driving no faster than the speed limit under any circumstances causes safety issues. You get a continuous stream of cars cutting in front, some of them irate about having to accommodate the SDV's law-abiding nature. I'm relatively sure you can replicate this effect easily in most American metropolitan regions.
dingo_bat 9y ago
Long term benefit of self driving car is that I don't have to worry about the tedium of driving. I doubt uber (and most people) gives a shit about improving driving standards.

hnaccy 9y ago

>speeding >didn't engage breaks Definitely gives me confidence in self-driving cars, at least she "may have been homeless" so I can sleep easy tonight. Thanks Uber and Tempe!

Steeeve 9y ago
>speeding >didn't engage breaks >not ubers fault one of these things is not like the other. The basic expectation is that if people are on the edge of a roadway you slow down and pay more attention. What exactly was the person in the drivers seat doing?
- userbinator 9y ago
  What exactly was the person in the drivers seat doing? Nothing, because the car was clearly supposed to be driving itself.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    The car didn't have a driver's license. The driver did, regardless of the amount of assistance provided by the car. What is troubling is that the breaks were never applied.
    - dingo_bat 9y ago
      It's not that simple, I believe. Many governments have issues special registrations to self-driving cars, which waive off the requirement of an active driver to some extent. In that sense, the car actually has a "license" while the person sitting in the "driver's" seat is more of an attendant.
      - IncRnd 9y ago
        That's a very good point. Thank you for pointing that out. AZ does allow self-driving cars without drivers, as long as they follow the traditional laws and rules of the road. I would argue that in this particular case, from the information that has been released, the car may have followed the laws of the road but it didn't appear to follow the traditional defensive driving rules of the road that parents teach their children, such as, "see that person with the bike standing on the median? Be careful. Don't hit them."

swang 9y ago

okay i haven't been following this deeply, but the person hit was a cyclist right? not a pedestrian. if so. how does a self-driving car not identify a bicyclist? how does a bike come out from the shadows and "surprise" a self-driving car?

dllthomas 9y ago
There's been conflicting reporting, but from what I've seen it was a person walking a bike.
shkkmo 9y ago
From the article: "Herzberg is said to have abruptly walked from a center median into a lane with traffic."
Mtinie 9y ago
No, the woman hit by the car was a pedestrian, not a cyclist.

akamaka 9y ago

I don’t think that the opinion of the police is at all relevant here, since they have no tools for investigating how self-driving cars react in accidents. The sensors and reaction time of a self-driving car are entirely different from a human, so it’s possible that a crash for which a human is not at fault could be averted by properly programmed self-driving car software.

cloakandswagger 9y ago
You don't think the opinion of the police is relevant in a homicide? The opinion of people who have investigated hundreds if not thousands of similar accidents? Who meets your criteria for expertise on saying whether the car could have stopped or not? Uber?
- goshx 9y ago
  If there is data to be reviewed, that’s your best bet against someone who was not even there.
  - cloakandswagger 9y ago
    There is data...in the form of a video taken by the car that hit her. You don't need a team of PhDs to watch it and make a judgment call.
    - telchar 9y ago
      What about the other sensor data? Did the police watch the LIDAR pointclouds and the RADAR maps too? Or are they basing their judgement on only one sense input? Seems to be the latter which means they're spouting off without knowing what they're talking about.
    - goshx 9y ago
      But you need access to that data first.
- akamaka 9y ago

dang 9y ago

The massive earlier discussion is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16619917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16619917, but since the current thread is rising we can let it have the next shift on the front page. Edit: some people have objected that it's biased to let the discussion shift to "Police say Uber is likely not at fault" in place of the original report about the death. That's a fair point, so we've taken the downweight off the original story. Just so it's clear: usually what we do when there's a major ongoing story is let discussion hop from an earlier submission to a later one as significant new information arises. We link to thread n-1 from thread n, so people who want to follow back can do so, but the idea is to have only one thread about the story—the latest one—on the front page at a time. In this case, though, it's debatable whether "police say" counts as significant new information. And we don't want to be biased. So we'll restore the previous thread and err and have two on the front page for a while.

danso 9y ago

> According to the Chronicle, the preliminary investigation found the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone and did not attempt to brake. Herzberg is said to have abruptly walked from a center median into a lane with traffic. Police believe she may have been homeless. I know this isn't the most pertinent issue here, but I'm surprised the self-driving AI is allowed to speed, though with further research, this seems to be the case with Google/Waymo software too: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28851996 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28851996 Though in that BBC article (which is from 2014), the stated scenario is when the self-driving car is surrounded by traffic exceeding the speed limit. It doesn't sound like this was the case for the Uber vehicle.

drewg123 9y ago
Not speeding would cause it to impede traffic flow. Speed limits are often set for revenue generation, not safety.
- jcranmer 9y ago
  On a 35 mph road with no traffic to impede, there is no reason to speed.
  - hamandcheese 9y ago
    There is always a reason to speed: getting from point A to point B faster.
ronilan 9y ago
There can be several ways to explain this but generally speaking you are right. It shouldn’t go over the speed limit, and under no circumstances should it take the liberty drivers usually take of being within 10% above the limit. I hope no one wrote it that way.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I don't think that's true at all. There was an article posted about the subject a while ago, but the thrust of it was that researchers think they need to do more to make cars behave like (fully attentive) human drivers rather than being weird anomalies that behave in surprising/irritating (to humans) ways if they're going to actually go on the road, and I think that's completely right.

SemiTom 9y ago

Car forensics will be interesting. There will be data collected minutes/seconds before https://semiengineering.com/anatomy-of-an-autonomous-vehicle-crash/ https://semiengineering.com/anatomy-of-an-autonomous-vehicle...

trothamel 9y ago

When it comes to traffic, there's the concept of the right-of-way. I don't know about the rules in Tempe, but here's an excerpt from the rules in New York. > (a) Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway. And that kind of makes sense, because if pedestrians were able to cross wherever they chose, it would become difficulty for vehicles to move down a road with a stable velocity. (Increasing emissions, etc.)

telchar 9y ago
True. But if there was no crosswalk within 100m (per the article) and it wasn't a highway (only 35mph limit) it's reasonable to cross without a crosswalk. Still a pedestrian shouldn't put themselves in harm's way, but I don't think crossing off the crosswalk should be help against someone in this circumstance.
- trothamel 9y ago
  It's not. But as the car has the right of way, it's the pedestrian's responsibility to make sure they're not hit.
  - jmiserez 9y ago
    Any reasonable human driver would try everything to not hit a pedestrian, regardless of right of way. The laws were written with common sense in mind, and if self-driving cars can’t emulate that then they’re not ready. Cars that only follow the letter of the law would be absurd.
IncRnd 9y ago
Legally, the driver may not have been at fault. Even so, I was taught as a child learning to drive that when I see a person in the median, watch them. They may walk out in front of you. They might even fall into the road. So, be prepared maybe even by changing lanes before that point in order to get out of harm's way. Apparently, this driver wasn't watching, choosing to let the car drive itself.

maxander 9y ago

There's going to be a bunch of these "OMG a robot car hit someone!!!" stories that then morph into "the robot actually had nothing to do with it." Perhaps it will finally cue people in to how intrinsically dangerous cars are. I mean, even if autonomous cars are x100 times safer to be around than human-driven cars, they're still orders of magnitude more of a risk factor for ordinary (U.S.) citizens than say, terrorists, or sharks.

portofcall 9y ago
Given just how poorly we react to terrorism and sharks, I’m not sure if that’s the direction I’d want to be headed in. I’m in favor of automation, but not with Uber’s “move fast and break things” attitude. Responsible, ethical, and careful developments of dangerous technology, even if the danger promises to be reduced compared to the norm in some future iteration, is a must. Keep in mind that some version of “killled by robots” has been in the zeitgeist of fear for decades now. In that sense, “sharks amd terrorists” might not be a bad comparison. It will not take much to ruin a good thing (automation) with typically scummy practices. The important thing to remember is that automation doesn’t require the likes of Uber playing fast and loose with it to become a reality.
- ams6110 9y ago
  > Responsible, ethical, and careful developments of dangerous technology, even if the danger promises to be reduced compared to the norm in some future iteration, is a must. Agree. And I'd like to see an approach similar to an NTSB investigation of an air crash. Not to place blame, but to identify root causes and mitigate the chance that they recur. Air travel is exceptionally safe. Has been for many decades. Yet we still investigate any air crash because any crash means something went wrong, perhaps something that can be corrected. Self driving cars need to be treated the same way, at least for now, and until well after they have demonstrated themselves to be safer than human drivers.
  - portofcall 9y ago
    This is the way to go, and it would help (I think) to ease the calls I’ve seen around for holding individual devs responsible. The point is not to collect scalps, but prevent tragedy and malfeasance. Holding companies responsible, sure, but some random programmer who missed a bug being the scapegoat seems like a way to ensure companies avoid responsibility by foisting it off on a low totem member; thst can’t be allowed to happen with lives on the line. Like an aircraft, self driving car software is never going to be the work of a single Dev. The NTSB isn’t perfect, but as these things go, very admirable. IIRC the NTSB is investigating this case too.

danso 9y ago

FWIW, this seems to be where the accident took place, based on news photos: https://www.google.com/maps/place/N+Mill+Ave+%26+E+Curry+Rd,+Tempe,+AZ+85281/@33.4362167,-111.9423812,3a,75y,329.34h,83.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sPpo9rKyKSc6nzIT_nkVAyQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x872b0931b4d9dd05:0x5d55a20356caaf8!8m2!3d33.4377022!4d-111.9433046 https://www.google.com/maps/place/N+Mill+Ave+%26+E+Curry+Rd,... It's not completely unlighted, though I'm not sure that's supposed to matter given the AV's sensors? Even if Uber nor the human driver is not legally at fault, I'd still be interested in knowing of Uber's LIDAR and other sensors even detected the woman, and whether it's part of the algorithm to be cautious when someone is that close to the roadway at night? Can the AV's sensors even tell the difference between a person slowly loitering on a median vs stationary lightpoles and (slightly swaying) vegetation? I suppose you don't want the AV slowing down just every time it senses a solid object near the roadway, but does it make different decisions if a stationary object happens to be a human vs light post? edit: the article doesn't say what lane the Uber vehicle was in. Since the victim was walking down the median and yet managed to abruptly surprise the AV, then we can assume it was in the left lane? But don't most human drivers, on an otherwise empty road, move toward the far lane to avoid driving at full speed next to someone who is walking their bike near the road? I do that for bicyclists even when they have their own bike lane (never know when someone can abruptly fall). I would especially do that at the sight of someone walking their bike "laden with plastic shopping bags" late at night down a center median, because that is such an unusual situation.

corny 9y ago
There's a paved area in the median that seems pretty useless since there's no sidewalk or crosswalk that connects to the median at that point: https://goo.gl/maps/9WKX2DYEN862 https://goo.gl/maps/9WKX2DYEN862 If the Uber car was about to turn left at the upcoming intersection it might have been getting into the leftmost turning lane at the point of impact. The pedestrian would have been obscured by a slight curve in the road, vegetation, a road sign, and their bicycle.
- danso 9y ago
  Yeah, I saw that too. It's such a weird construct since, as you say, there is no legal way for someone to follow the median paths and cross either of the streets. In fact, how are pedestrians supposed to get on the median in the first place (legally, I mean)? From the New Times: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/medical-cannabis-extracts-legal-in-arizona-or-not-10232352 http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/medical-cannabis-extract... > That spot is east of the second, western-side Mill Avenue bridge that is restricted to southbound traffic, and east of the Marquee Theatre and a parking lot for the Tempe Town Lake. It can be a popular area for pedestrians, especially concertgoers, joggers, and lake visitors. Mid-street crossing is common there, and a walkway in the median between the two one-way roads across the two bridges probably encourages the practice.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

I didn't notice it mentioned in this piece, but a different article on HN is suggesting she may have been homeless and was crossing where there was no crosswalk. Homeless individuals frequently sleep under bridges, on the sides of off ramps and other infrastructure near highways. They are often walking where no pedestrian should be at all. I would like to see the affordable housing crisis solved. Currently, there are only 30 affordable homes on the West Coast for every 100 poor families.* But it is entirely possible she did basically walk out in front of the car at a place where a driver had no reason to expect to see a pedestrian. It would be nice if people would wait to see what evidence comes forth rather than jumping to conclusions about police conspiracies to hand wave away blame. * https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-poverty-west-coast-no-30-affordable-homes/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/every-100-families-living-pove...

Natsu 9y ago
That intersection isn't really. There's an overpass over Mill that she may well have lived under. In that case, it would not be well lit at all.
KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
It's like a story out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. A society that can make self-driving cars but cannot solve homelessness.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  America seems to be poisoned by some poor mental models. People seem to see no real connection between homelessness and the lack of affordable housing. People also tell me there is no money in solving homelessness, which tells me how messed up our mental models are.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  Strictly speaking, we can. We just choose not to.
gowld 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jcranmer 9y ago

I've been trying to find video evidence of the crash, and have been unable to do so. The closest I've found is a myriad of news reports showing the stopped car and police scene. On reviewing this evidence however, there is one thing that sticks out: the damage to the car appears to be entirely on the passenger side. If the woman "darted out from the median," then she managed to clear at least half of the traffic lane before being struck. That makes it more likely that certain prompt evasive actions could have prevented the fatality, which does not look good on Uber's part. I, for one, am glad that NTSB is looking at the crash.

danso 9y ago
Video evidence hasn't been released. I don't even know if it's been said what lane the Uber vehicle was in. It's possible she walked out from the center median and far enough that the impact would be on the passenger side of the Uber AV. But that would suggest she did so at a distance that the Uber vehicle could at least begin braking, even if it was still too late (in the same way train operators can hit the brakes despite it being way too late when first seeing a car on the tracks).
astro_robot 9y ago
Yea, there just seems to be so many things that aren't adding up yet. The news footage also showed a damaged bicycle but there is not mention of a cyclist in the article. I hope they release footage soon.
- mrhappyunhappy 9y ago
  There was mention of her walking her bike.
  - cjensen 9y ago
    Which means she wasn't moving quickly.
    - empressplay 9y ago

vidanay 9y ago

>"...the incident occurred roughly 100 years from a crosswalk." How slow are Uber's cars driving?

noonespecial 9y ago

At some level, at some time, we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that these machines can be dangerous in certain ways. Probably ways that are slightly different than human controlled machines. Maybe safer on the whole. But certainly different. Cars have been a menace for a century. We accept and adapt.

lhuser123 9y ago

Years of driving a big truck have taught me to take irrational behavior very seriously. And sometimes you can only anticipate that by looking at people’s faces, reactions, past behaviors, thinks like that. I wonder how do you teach that to AI.

hndamien 9y ago

Maybe we could put bumpers on these cars until they are official? They don't need to look cool right now.

mnm1 9y ago

Uber's autonomous cars speed? Why?

cmurf 9y ago

I think driving 10-20% slower than the posted speed limit at night is completely sane. In Colorado we have some rural highways that are double posted with lower speed limits at night. If AI cannot make identical collision avoidance guarantees at night and during the day, then it should be law that they self limit their speed below the posted speed limit until there is separation parity.

pauldprice 9y ago

“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.” Notice how the chief of police refers to the human and AI as "they".

chapill 9y ago

The car was speeding, "the Uber car was driving at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone" End of story. Uber is at fault.

pfarnsworth 9y ago

Extremely tragic that this happened but I’ve heard of many cases where homeless people, generally mentally ill, will run into traffic. My friend almost lost his life in SF a few years ago when a homeless person ran in front of him as he was riding his motorcycle. My friend hit the homeless person and went flying off his motorcycle and broke his arm and pelvis. The homeless person ran off (not literally but they couldn’t find him).

rayiner 9y ago

The point about the woman being homeless made something click for me. If you drive in DC, you’ll see panhandlers and people who are very erratic. You have to concentrate on their body language to anticipate whether they’re about to leap into traffic. You often slow down because you’re not sure what they’re going to do. How does a self-driving car do that? It’s quite possible that a human driver going 38 wouldn’t have been able to stop in time. But could a human driver been going 25 because they saw someone acting erratically on the median?

btrettel 9y ago

Are there plans for a beacon one could place on themself to make self driving cars recognize them better? Could be a light, a radio, or something else. Perhaps there's a slippery slope before such things are required by law, but I am interested.

prawn 9y ago

Pushing a bicycle laden with plastic shopping bags, a woman abruptly walked from a center median into a lane of traffic and was struck by a self-driving Uber operating in autonomous mode. From viewing the videos, “it’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,” Moir said. The "driver" (more like attendant) had no warning until the sound of impact. The vehicle was doing 38 in a 35 zone which I would've thought was odd - would the vehicles be programmed to push the limit a little as most other drivers often do? Edit: Ignore last comment. Some have suggested the limit was actually 45 mph per signage.

oska 9y ago
It may have been difficult to avoid the collision but if they were driving at a lower speed the collision may not have been fatal. I do not mean 3mph lower to be within the speed limit. I mean significantly lower if passing in close proximity to a pedestrian who may step out onto the road.
avs733 9y ago
Apparently my stored links on this topic are dead but two worhtwhile pieces of information on that point 1) drivers who consistently drive below the average speed of other drivers on a road (i.e., who religiously drive the speed limit) are more likely to be involved in crashes 2) More accidents are caused by speed differential than by speed by itself.
- oska 9y ago
  Your assertion (true or not) is irrelevant to this case. This was a car impacting a pedestrian, not another car on the road. In any impact between a car and a pedestrian the speed of the car is critical in determining whether the pedestrian will be killed.
  - avs733 9y ago
    I didn't mean to suggest that it was relevant in this case. I was merely providing some context for the parent post's observation about an automous car exceeding the speed limit

r_klancer 9y ago

My takeaway from the comments in this thread: self-driving Ubers don't drive defensively, almost surely can't "read" pedestrian behavior, and even with lidar may never have seen Elaine Herzberg. Oh, and they speed. This sounds like straight out of the "hell" scenario for driverless cars: "we cannot accept responsibility for what happens to pedestrians and cyclists foolish enough to stray out of their designated safe zone". I'm referencing Robin Chase (the Zipcar founder)'s "heaven or hell" framing - https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/04/will-world-driverless-cars-be-heaven-or-hell/8784/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/04/will-world-dr... For a recent, thoughtful talk about the damage self-driving cars might do to the city if we are not careful, see this Congress for the New Urbanism talk about "Autonomous Vehicles & The Good City" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utnPEbDNbrE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utnPEbDNbrE It's also worth mentioning that there's a bill (AV START, or S. 1885) in the current Senate that would actually preempt local and state regulation of autonomous car safety, but it has been put on hold.

isaachier 9y ago
I think you might be confusing "defensively" with perfectly. There are situations even defensive driving cannot prevent. For example, any car going 35 mph will need a few feet to brake if something jumps directly in front of it. Defensive driving just accounts for one's surroundings and likely outcomes. Seeing as the cars have been on the road in Arizona for a while, and this is the first we are hearing about a pedestrian collision, it seems the algorithm is pretty safe.
- hnaccy 9y ago
  >Seeing as the cars have been on the road in Arizona for a while, and this is the first we are hearing about a pedestrian collision, it seems the algorithm is pretty safe. One fatality in 4 million miles is safe? Humans are 20 times better than that.
  - invisible 9y ago
    I wonder what the margin of error is on that one in 4 million rate since the sample size is one. Also of note: > Arizona has experienced a surge of pedestrian fatalities recently, with more than 10 in a single week of March in Phoenix alone. The state has the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities in the United States.

digitalantfarm 9y ago

I read the person was homeless (and had a shopping cart). Wouldn't be surprised if she tried to get hit, seeing it was an Uber driverless car. I want to see the dash-cam footage.

nerpderp83 9y ago

> Police believe she may have been homeless. Move along folks, Arizona cops said Uber and the victims story matches, victim isn't gonna sue, case closed.

oska 9y ago

I think it's worth referencing Sweden's Vision Zero [1] here, a project which aims to reduce all fatalities from automobiles to zero. They have a system of maximum traffic speeds for different zones depending on what impact risks there are in those zones. For the zone where there are possible conflicts between pedestrians and cars the maximum speed is 19mph. The rationale for this is that below that speed the risk of a fatality from an impact between a car and a pedestrian is low but above that speed the risk of fatality rises very quickly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero

joquarky 9y ago
I wonder if it is not a coincidence that the speed at which it starts to become fatal is around the maximum speed that humans can run.

rdlecler1 9y ago

It’s interesting that so many people in the earlier post first reporting on this topic were very quick to rush to judgement.

ConcernedCoder 9y ago

I only have one question: Why didn't the software controlling the vehicle detect the pedestrian and attempt to brake or avoid collision?

TomMckenny 9y ago

Odd the damage should be on the passenger side if she darted from the center median. Odd they see the need to add the conjecture that she may have been homeless. Curious too is that the center divider where she likely was has has a nice walkway on it with a street lamp[2] I'm suddenly quite curious about what is going on. Accident site: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4369934,-111.9429875,3a,75y,81.51h,84.45t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scUyILaxFs5z63AL2SupCJw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4369934,-111.9429875,3a,75y,... from https://imgur.com/a/QH98H https://imgur.com/a/QH98H [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4366949,-111.9427747,3a,75y,184.83h,75.55t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swPFHH-feIAv6b5u-nH58JA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4366949,-111.9427747,3a,75y,...

oliwarner 9y ago
You appear to be suggesting that multiple levels of police watched the videos, GPS tracking, lidar scene, all recorded by the on-board systems and have deliberately suppressed what really happened. I can believe an Uber employee being paid to cover this up but whatever your views of the police, I don't believe they would suppress something that could so obviously be a major public health issue. And it's common in police reports to identify the victim and where they're from. The point about the carrier bags and the homelessness is that they've been unable to verify her sitation; they're explaining why. Nothing strange here. But I guess there's no convincing you without providing you the snuff film of it all happening.
- brynjolf 9y ago
  Because historically money has had massive influence over the decisions made in the states. I side with the human over the faceless multi billion company.
- TomMckenny 9y ago
  I believe there a multiple layers involved: a bizarre decisions about median divider design that attracts jay walking. a governor with a stake in this subject. an inexplicable disinterest in even minimal government oversight of the tests. a company with a history of bad behavior. a possibly reckless race to get a new technology market where trade secrets outweigh sharing safety results. Clearly the data was not closely reviewed before issuing the statement. But I doubt the data retrieval is done by a police officer. More likely by an Uber employee; yet another potential issue. The police report could easily be perfectly normal. Or perhaps there was call from the Governor. Or perhaps the police saw the data Uber wanted them to see. Perhaps the city doesn't want to be sued about it's median divider. I honestly have no idea what is going in in such a complex and invisible system but I sure am curious.

whiddershins 9y ago

Looking at the google street view I am astonished someone thought it was a good idea to allow a bunch of random plants to grow in the median. It makes visibility insanely complicated, especially at night.

DanBC 9y ago
You're just saying the driver is even more to blame - going faster than the speed limit even though visibility is reduced should increase, not decrease, culpability.

candiodari 9y ago

Once again Futurama predicted the future entirely correctly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qBlPa-9v_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qBlPa-9v_M