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Why? They crossed a 35 mph (so in Tempe this is a “slow” road) at a corner (unmarked corners are also crosswalks, legally) on a well lit road. Where the car was
by mjmahone17 9y ago
Why? They crossed a 35 mph (so in Tempe this is a “slow” road) at a corner (unmarked corners are also crosswalks, legally) on a well lit road. Where the car was many seconds away when she started crossing.
Would a human driver be deemed at fault in a court of law? Usually not (though in this case, maybe) unless they kept going after the collision, or were under the influence. But that’s because we give human drivers a lot of leeway to kill people. Not because it isn’t their fault.
- bendauphinee 9y agoAs a pedestrian, it's still our responsibility to make sure approaching vehicles are actually stopped before we start crossing. She did not, or she would be alive.
- lutorm 9y agoIt's certainly prudent to do so, and any amount of self-preservation says you should, but is not checking if you're about to be run over actually negligent? Edit: Also, if you as a pedestrian, stand at a 35mph road, at night, and wait for all approaching cars to stop before you start crossing, you will be standing there a very long time indeed.
- sokoloff 9y agoOne legal definition of negligence is A failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances. If you've established that doing so is "certainly prudent", then I think it's reasonable that not doing so is negligent.
- stevesimmons 9y agoAccidents in complex systems usually happen because multiple safeguards have failed. We can agree the pedestrian had some degree of negligence by walking across the road in a less than perfectly safe manner. But the same assessment also applies for Uber, for not reacting to an obstacle that probably should have been detected. The question right now is what degree of negligence does Uber bear...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sokoloff 9y agoI don't live there, but this article suggests that there is signage for "no pedestrians" at the location where she was struck: https://www.curbed.com/transportation/2018/3/20/17142090/uber-fatal-crash-driverless-pedestrian-safety https://www.curbed.com/transportation/2018/3/20/17142090/ube... This twitter stream suggests the same with more details: https://twitter.com/EricPaulDennis/status/975889922413551616/photo/1 https://twitter.com/EricPaulDennis/status/975889922413551616... It appears to me that they did not cross at a corner, and the corners "nearby" in the references above all have marked crosswalks. If that's the case, I don't see how one could assign 0% negligence to the pedestrian.
- mjmahone17 9y agoAh I missed the part where there was a sign saying “no pedestrians”. In that case I’d agree it’s not 0 responsibility on the walker, but I don’t think I’d assign the woman full responsibility, either. If the driver attempted to slow down and still hit her, the driver (in this case the car) probably wouldn’t really be at fault. But a collision at 40 in a 35 zone is really bad for a driver.
- Piskvorrr 9y agoThe road where the accident took place is @ 45 MPH; the "35 MPH" figure came from confusing it with the road in opposite direction (they are separate there).