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> the person was not allowed to cross there. Have you seen the intersection in question? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYrspoFVwAAtJCs.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com

> the person was not allowed to cross there. Have you seen the intersection in question? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYrspoFVwAAtJCs.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYrspoFVwAAtJCs.jpg I think the pedestrian is very low on the list of who to blame, with the intersection designers and Uber engineers high above her.

IkmoIkmo 8y ago
I have seen it. Check streetview too, it's helpful. I really hate to defend this position because I feel terrible for her and it's quite obvious uber made some very bad calls here. (in fact I even used the very loaded word murder in another comment, see my post history). I'm definitely not arguing to put all or even most of the blame on the woman. The intersection is indeed absolutely terrible. It makes no sense. You're not allowed to cross there, there are even signs which state it on both sides, referring to a crosswalk a minute walking up ahead. i.e., there is just no way you're allowed to cross there, despite the island in the middle having the cosmetic design of a walkway, you're not supposed to get on the island or get off it or cross the roads at that location. It's a terrible design choice, both inviting people to cross (in a dangerous spot), while also saying it's illegal. With better infrastructure planning you could have railing there preventing crossing, and no island at all. That having been said, I can't for the life of me imagine crossing there and not seeing an oncoming car with its headlights on, assuming I was paying attention to the road I was illegally crossing. The fact meth is involved is a helpful possible explanation for why this kind of attention was not given. You can check out the road on google street view, it definitely helps. I think you'd agree on two things, one is that it's not allowed to cross there and two that if you were to cross there, it'd be pretty easy to see cars. The reverse isn't necessarily true if you wear dark clothing at night.
- mcguire 8y ago
  Holy, crap; it's even worse in StreetView than it is in the aerial photo: https://goo.gl/maps/PRkZercuMJ62 https://goo.gl/maps/PRkZercuMJ62
- gkya 8y ago
  AFAIU, the pedestrian who was killed has indeed part of the blame, and we probably would not feel as guilty saying that if it was a normal car that killed her. But for the topic of this general discussion, that is irrelevant; the emphasis is (and should be) on the incompetence and negligence of Uber, which lead to a person's death, albeit her negligence is at play too, and which demonstrated that (i) Uber is not capable of this sort of business as an unscrupulous and unethical company and that (ii) we should still be deeply sceptical of the capabilities of automated vehicles in responding to arbitrary reconfigurations and movements their paths.
LoSboccacc 8y ago
The “no pedestrian zone” is part of a complex set of causes and effects. Since it’s a no pedestrian zone, it has a higher speed limit posted A higher speed limit causes a linear reduction in detection time, a sensor that detects a pedestrian 2 second away at 20mph will detects a pedestrian 1 second away at 40mph Braking distance and impact energy are both quadratic and that’s part of how/why speed limits are defined There are a lot of engineering issues that will arise from the need to cope with people violating limits and restrictions around autonomous vehicles. I’m not defending uber here btw, they definitely jumped the gun deploying the system as described, just thinking out loud. There are decades of crashes that went into the driving code and road regulations, which humans kinda understand by relating to road design and getting cues from the environment that ais will need to learn

IkmoIkmo 8y ago

I have seen it. Check streetview too, it's helpful. I really hate to defend this position because I feel terrible for her and it's quite obvious uber made some very bad calls here. (in fact I even used the very loaded word murder in another comment, see my post history). I'm definitely not arguing to put all or even most of the blame on the woman. The intersection is indeed absolutely terrible. It makes no sense. You're not allowed to cross there, there are even signs which state it on both sides, referring to a crosswalk a minute walking up ahead. i.e., there is just no way you're allowed to cross there, despite the island in the middle having the cosmetic design of a walkway, you're not supposed to get on the island or get off it or cross the roads at that location. It's a terrible design choice, both inviting people to cross (in a dangerous spot), while also saying it's illegal. With better infrastructure planning you could have railing there preventing crossing, and no island at all. That having been said, I can't for the life of me imagine crossing there and not seeing an oncoming car with its headlights on, assuming I was paying attention to the road I was illegally crossing. The fact meth is involved is a helpful possible explanation for why this kind of attention was not given. You can check out the road on google street view, it definitely helps. I think you'd agree on two things, one is that it's not allowed to cross there and two that if you were to cross there, it'd be pretty easy to see cars. The reverse isn't necessarily true if you wear dark clothing at night.

mcguire 8y ago
Holy, crap; it's even worse in StreetView than it is in the aerial photo: https://goo.gl/maps/PRkZercuMJ62 https://goo.gl/maps/PRkZercuMJ62
gkya 8y ago
AFAIU, the pedestrian who was killed has indeed part of the blame, and we probably would not feel as guilty saying that if it was a normal car that killed her. But for the topic of this general discussion, that is irrelevant; the emphasis is (and should be) on the incompetence and negligence of Uber, which lead to a person's death, albeit her negligence is at play too, and which demonstrated that (i) Uber is not capable of this sort of business as an unscrupulous and unethical company and that (ii) we should still be deeply sceptical of the capabilities of automated vehicles in responding to arbitrary reconfigurations and movements their paths.

LoSboccacc 8y ago

The “no pedestrian zone” is part of a complex set of causes and effects. Since it’s a no pedestrian zone, it has a higher speed limit posted A higher speed limit causes a linear reduction in detection time, a sensor that detects a pedestrian 2 second away at 20mph will detects a pedestrian 1 second away at 40mph Braking distance and impact energy are both quadratic and that’s part of how/why speed limits are defined There are a lot of engineering issues that will arise from the need to cope with people violating limits and restrictions around autonomous vehicles. I’m not defending uber here btw, they definitely jumped the gun deploying the system as described, just thinking out loud. There are decades of crashes that went into the driving code and road regulations, which humans kinda understand by relating to road design and getting cues from the environment that ais will need to learn