4 ms·

> I have seen deer and possums by the side of the road Both of those have eyes that act as reflectors and you can see their eyes well before you can actually s

by eric_h 9y ago

> I have seen deer and possums by the side of the road Both of those have eyes that act as reflectors and you can see their eyes well before you can actually see the whole animal. This[0] suggests that the total time required for a human to avoid an incident like this is 3.6s (at 35 mph, casual googling suggests the car was doing 40). Even if we add 1 second of extra time to deal with it I'm not sure that makes the cut. 0) http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/pedestrian.html http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/pedestrian.html

walrus01 9y ago
I know what you're talking about with the eyes, I spend a lot of time driving rural WA highways at night, but no. I have seen deer that had their heads facing the other way and were standing in the shoulder/ditch area. In conditions where i can definitely make out the shape of the deer and its location but the dash cam sensor misses it entirely. Your last paragraph is a valid calculation if this were a case of a person stepping directly off a curb into the lane of traffic. However, it appears that they were probably standing on the median looking to cross, then stepped off into the left-most lane of traffic, an empty lane, proceeded across that lane towards the lane in which the car was traveling. In this sort of situation human intuition will recognize that a person standing on the median of a high-speed highway is likely to do something unusual. Particularly when you observe the visual profile of, as media has reported, a homeless person who is using the bicycle with numerous plastic bags hanging off it to collect recycling.
- sundvor 9y ago
  Driver didn't see this person because the driver was occupied with smartphone, only occasionally glancing up. Also, has anyone here talked about the effect on the eyes of watching a (typically) bright white screen vs letting them adjust to the light of the night yet? This point deserves to be brought up. Perhaps the video was intentionally darkened to simulate this effect. :P
  - mirimir 9y ago
    I wonder if the driver is liable.
    - sundvor 9y ago
      I'd like to have an interior view of what driver was actually looking at. It couldn't have been a FLIR monitor, for sure.. it seems more likely to be a phone held in the right hand? Bit hard to tell with the quality of the footage, but driver looked rather tired to boot. If so (a hand held phone), in Australia that driver would be going to jail for culpable driving causing loss of life.
      - sesqu 9y ago
        Here's a picture of the Uber car from inside. No FLIR, just GPS: https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Front-_-Rear-iPads_-On-trip-view-630x354.png https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Front-_-... A different picture from that article shows that under the GPS is the gear stick, an emergency button, and a cellphone charger.
        pinum 9y ago
        According to the filename, those are iPads, which implies they could have been displaying anything (not just GPS).
      - scoggs 9y ago
        It could have been anything readable. I got the feeling it was either a Kindle or something like that or maybe even a hardcopy of something printed or written on paper. This was just a hunch but I think it's being validated in my mind by the fact that there was no light seeming to shine on the driver's face but that's probably due to the night vision camera not picking up that type of light? I don't really know. My mind is filling in a lot of gaps here, I realize. EDIT: Upon re-watching the video a third time and really paying attention to this I don't think there is any real way for us to know without confirmation from the driver them self or an official report on the incident. My mind was definitely deciding things that just aren't discover-able from the video itself.
brianmurphy 9y ago
Other people in the thread have pointed out the woman stepped out in a darker area between where the street lights are placed. Reflecting eyes are not the only way to detect an object. A person watching the road would have seen her dark silhouette contrasting to the next patch of light. Also remember she was not a stationary object. She was in the act of crossing the road. Human eyes/brains are good at detecting motion in low light even if we can't 100% make out what the object is. I have lived in Tempe and know that part of town well. There are apartments, gas stations, hotels, strip malls, fast food restaurants and a strip club. It's not a pitch black country road.

by eric_h 9y ago

walrus01 9y ago

I know what you're talking about with the eyes, I spend a lot of time driving rural WA highways at night, but no. I have seen deer that had their heads facing the other way and were standing in the shoulder/ditch area. In conditions where i can definitely make out the shape of the deer and its location but the dash cam sensor misses it entirely. Your last paragraph is a valid calculation if this were a case of a person stepping directly off a curb into the lane of traffic. However, it appears that they were probably standing on the median looking to cross, then stepped off into the left-most lane of traffic, an empty lane, proceeded across that lane towards the lane in which the car was traveling. In this sort of situation human intuition will recognize that a person standing on the median of a high-speed highway is likely to do something unusual. Particularly when you observe the visual profile of, as media has reported, a homeless person who is using the bicycle with numerous plastic bags hanging off it to collect recycling.

sundvor 9y ago
Driver didn't see this person because the driver was occupied with smartphone, only occasionally glancing up. Also, has anyone here talked about the effect on the eyes of watching a (typically) bright white screen vs letting them adjust to the light of the night yet? This point deserves to be brought up. Perhaps the video was intentionally darkened to simulate this effect. :P
- mirimir 9y ago
  I wonder if the driver is liable.
  - sundvor 9y ago
    I'd like to have an interior view of what driver was actually looking at. It couldn't have been a FLIR monitor, for sure.. it seems more likely to be a phone held in the right hand? Bit hard to tell with the quality of the footage, but driver looked rather tired to boot. If so (a hand held phone), in Australia that driver would be going to jail for culpable driving causing loss of life.
    - sesqu 9y ago
      Here's a picture of the Uber car from inside. No FLIR, just GPS: https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Front-_-Rear-iPads_-On-trip-view-630x354.png https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Front-_-... A different picture from that article shows that under the GPS is the gear stick, an emergency button, and a cellphone charger.
      - pinum 9y ago
        According to the filename, those are iPads, which implies they could have been displaying anything (not just GPS).
    - scoggs 9y ago
      It could have been anything readable. I got the feeling it was either a Kindle or something like that or maybe even a hardcopy of something printed or written on paper. This was just a hunch but I think it's being validated in my mind by the fact that there was no light seeming to shine on the driver's face but that's probably due to the night vision camera not picking up that type of light? I don't really know. My mind is filling in a lot of gaps here, I realize. EDIT: Upon re-watching the video a third time and really paying attention to this I don't think there is any real way for us to know without confirmation from the driver them self or an official report on the incident. My mind was definitely deciding things that just aren't discover-able from the video itself.

brianmurphy 9y ago

Other people in the thread have pointed out the woman stepped out in a darker area between where the street lights are placed. Reflecting eyes are not the only way to detect an object. A person watching the road would have seen her dark silhouette contrasting to the next patch of light. Also remember she was not a stationary object. She was in the act of crossing the road. Human eyes/brains are good at detecting motion in low light even if we can't 100% make out what the object is. I have lived in Tempe and know that part of town well. There are apartments, gas stations, hotels, strip malls, fast food restaurants and a strip club. It's not a pitch black country road.