6 ms·

I wonder what happens when these cars get in an accident. I don't even mean in the legal sense. What happens in the immediate wake of an accident? Is there a

by slg 6y ago

I wonder what happens when these cars get in an accident. I don't even mean in the legal sense. What happens in the immediate wake of an accident? Is there a note on the car about what the other driver should do? Is there a way for someone back in the office to communicate to the other driver on the scene? Does the other driver need to wait around until some human shows up?

shajznnckfke 6y ago
Interesting. You’d definitely have some crash detection. A remote human operator could be assigned to take over when the car stops to drive around some obstacle in an unexpected situation. If a crash happened (whether or not it was remote controlled), you could have speakers/cameras/microphones allow the operator to communicate with bystanders until help arrives. Police would need to be called for a major accident, while for a fender bender you can probably just send a car with some security people to pay off the other driver and get them to sign an NDA, and drive the crashed car back to base.
- nradov 6y ago
  Remote human operation is only possible with a reliable cellular data connection. There are still dead zones in many cities, especially in tunnels.
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    For a product that’s still being tested and not fully rolled out, you could block it from operating in those spots, if you can reliably map where they are.
    - owowow 6y ago
      How do you protect against sudden dead spots or spots where cellular data is degraded? It only takes one power cut, grumpy person with a cellphone jammer, or error in the cellular modem to cause a lapse in usable connectivity.
tboughen 6y ago
Excellent question. And what if the other party, at fault or not, is not a driver? What if they are a pedestrian or a cyclist? What if they are alone, incapacitated and need medical help?
- dheera 6y ago
  > What if they are alone, incapacitated and need medical help? Although self-driving is a hard problem, automatically determining that the car may have had an accident and alerting humans in your control center is a much easier problem. I imagine the control center humans would be responsible for calling 911 if there was an injured human. They would probably be able to see out all the cameras in the car to help make that determination, or if the cameras are all malfunctioning you probably want to dispatch ambulances anyway.
  - thisisnico 6y ago
    This technology already exists. GM already has this technology: GM Onstar. OnStar Corporation is a subsidiary of General Motors that provides subscription-based communications, in-vehicle security, emergency services, hands-free calling, turn-by-turn navigation, and remote diagnostics systems throughout the United States, Canada, China, Mexico, Europe, Brazil, and Argentina
  - jonny_eh 6y ago
    What if the accident took out the cell tower and the car lost communication with HQ? Or more likely, the car was totaled and lost communication?
    - dheera 6y ago
      > What if the accident took out the cell tower and the car lost communication with HQ? Or more likely, the car was totaled and lost communication? What do you do if you are HQ in charge of an expedition team going along a pre-determined route and the team suddenly and abnormally loses communication with HQ? What do you do if a flight suddenly disappears over the ocean on air traffic control, and there happen to be some other planes and ships in the area? What do you do if a hiker doesn't come home and they left a note saying which trail they were going on for the day?
dheera 6y ago
I think the upside of this is that if you get hit by a self-driving car, due to the way the media behaves around self-driving accidents, you can be almost sure that they will deal with it professionally and pay off all damages if it's even remotely their fault. They might not leave a note on your windshield but they would surely acknowledge the accident and as a company, would have to cooperate with any investigations. It's not some random dude that if they hit and run off you will never see them again.
- sarcher 6y ago
  Elaine Herzberg is still dead. Not much upside in that scenario.
  - bdamm 6y ago
    That's kinda unfair though. She was jaywalking in the dark far from any crosswalk on a main street. On average 16 pedestrians are killed every day in the United States. While the car could have done better, it's not really clear that she would have survived if the car was driven by a human.
    - 05 6y ago
      Please stop spreading misinformation. It was only dark in the DVR footage provided by Uber. Actual photos show it was pretty well lit. https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/uber-self-driving-tempe-crash-lighting-video-driver-rafaela-vasquez-11394567 https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/uber-self-driving-tempe... > Further, the report says that as long as Vasquez met the minimum visual acuity for a driver's license under Arizona law, and with the lighting conditions at the scene, she "could have seen and recognized that a person was walking across the road from a distance of 1700 feet away with or without the Volvo’s headlights."
      - bdamm 6y ago
        Thank you for the correction.
sedatk 6y ago
I guess the same thing that happens when a pole falls down on your car? You report it to the authorities. You take pictures for the insurance, and file your claims?
mabbo 6y ago
Now that would be an interesting job... working in a call center, talking to the police remotely about an accident that took place in a state you aren't even in.
x87678r 6y ago
How's my driving? Ring 555 5555 if I hit you.
y0ssar1an 6y ago
ex-Cruise here. Cruise has an incident response team that trains for this. For a team that hasn't had any real-world accidents yet, they seemed pretty competent. They'll show up ASAP and take care of things.
- delfinom 6y ago
  After the first few lawsuits, the company will quickly fine a way to push the liability off from themselves in fine print.
  - howlgarnish 6y ago
    Uber already successfully did this in Arizona, where one of their self-driving cars killed a pedestrian, but the only person charged was the safety driver: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/arizona-prosecutes-uber-safety-driver-but-not-uber-for-fatal-2018-crash/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/arizona-prosecutes-uber...
    - koolba 6y ago
      That woman’s job was specifically to monitor the road in case the software did not work. That’s why she’s culpable.
      - owowow 6y ago
        Yet she was put in a situation where she had to regularly take her eyes off the road to enter data as part of her job. Uber is culpable for designing the job such that the risk of accidents significantly increased.
        koolba 6y ago
        Except she wasn’t doing that either. She was watching Netflix on her phone.
        6y ago

by slg 6y ago

shajznnckfke 6y ago

Interesting. You’d definitely have some crash detection. A remote human operator could be assigned to take over when the car stops to drive around some obstacle in an unexpected situation. If a crash happened (whether or not it was remote controlled), you could have speakers/cameras/microphones allow the operator to communicate with bystanders until help arrives. Police would need to be called for a major accident, while for a fender bender you can probably just send a car with some security people to pay off the other driver and get them to sign an NDA, and drive the crashed car back to base.

nradov 6y ago
Remote human operation is only possible with a reliable cellular data connection. There are still dead zones in many cities, especially in tunnels.
- shajznnckfke 6y ago
  For a product that’s still being tested and not fully rolled out, you could block it from operating in those spots, if you can reliably map where they are.
  - owowow 6y ago
    How do you protect against sudden dead spots or spots where cellular data is degraded? It only takes one power cut, grumpy person with a cellphone jammer, or error in the cellular modem to cause a lapse in usable connectivity.

tboughen 6y ago

Excellent question. And what if the other party, at fault or not, is not a driver? What if they are a pedestrian or a cyclist? What if they are alone, incapacitated and need medical help?

dheera 6y ago
> What if they are alone, incapacitated and need medical help? Although self-driving is a hard problem, automatically determining that the car may have had an accident and alerting humans in your control center is a much easier problem. I imagine the control center humans would be responsible for calling 911 if there was an injured human. They would probably be able to see out all the cameras in the car to help make that determination, or if the cameras are all malfunctioning you probably want to dispatch ambulances anyway.
- thisisnico 6y ago
  This technology already exists. GM already has this technology: GM Onstar. OnStar Corporation is a subsidiary of General Motors that provides subscription-based communications, in-vehicle security, emergency services, hands-free calling, turn-by-turn navigation, and remote diagnostics systems throughout the United States, Canada, China, Mexico, Europe, Brazil, and Argentina
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  What if the accident took out the cell tower and the car lost communication with HQ? Or more likely, the car was totaled and lost communication?
  - dheera 6y ago
    > What if the accident took out the cell tower and the car lost communication with HQ? Or more likely, the car was totaled and lost communication? What do you do if you are HQ in charge of an expedition team going along a pre-determined route and the team suddenly and abnormally loses communication with HQ? What do you do if a flight suddenly disappears over the ocean on air traffic control, and there happen to be some other planes and ships in the area? What do you do if a hiker doesn't come home and they left a note saying which trail they were going on for the day?

dheera 6y ago

I think the upside of this is that if you get hit by a self-driving car, due to the way the media behaves around self-driving accidents, you can be almost sure that they will deal with it professionally and pay off all damages if it's even remotely their fault. They might not leave a note on your windshield but they would surely acknowledge the accident and as a company, would have to cooperate with any investigations. It's not some random dude that if they hit and run off you will never see them again.

sarcher 6y ago
Elaine Herzberg is still dead. Not much upside in that scenario.
- bdamm 6y ago
  That's kinda unfair though. She was jaywalking in the dark far from any crosswalk on a main street. On average 16 pedestrians are killed every day in the United States. While the car could have done better, it's not really clear that she would have survived if the car was driven by a human.
  - 05 6y ago
    Please stop spreading misinformation. It was only dark in the DVR footage provided by Uber. Actual photos show it was pretty well lit. https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/uber-self-driving-tempe-crash-lighting-video-driver-rafaela-vasquez-11394567 https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/uber-self-driving-tempe... > Further, the report says that as long as Vasquez met the minimum visual acuity for a driver's license under Arizona law, and with the lighting conditions at the scene, she "could have seen and recognized that a person was walking across the road from a distance of 1700 feet away with or without the Volvo’s headlights."
    - bdamm 6y ago
      Thank you for the correction.

sedatk 6y ago

I guess the same thing that happens when a pole falls down on your car? You report it to the authorities. You take pictures for the insurance, and file your claims?

mabbo 6y ago

Now that would be an interesting job... working in a call center, talking to the police remotely about an accident that took place in a state you aren't even in.

x87678r 6y ago

How's my driving? Ring 555 5555 if I hit you.

y0ssar1an 6y ago

ex-Cruise here. Cruise has an incident response team that trains for this. For a team that hasn't had any real-world accidents yet, they seemed pretty competent. They'll show up ASAP and take care of things.

delfinom 6y ago
After the first few lawsuits, the company will quickly fine a way to push the liability off from themselves in fine print.
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  Uber already successfully did this in Arizona, where one of their self-driving cars killed a pedestrian, but the only person charged was the safety driver: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/arizona-prosecutes-uber-safety-driver-but-not-uber-for-fatal-2018-crash/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/arizona-prosecutes-uber...
  - koolba 6y ago
    That woman’s job was specifically to monitor the road in case the software did not work. That’s why she’s culpable.
    - owowow 6y ago
      Yet she was put in a situation where she had to regularly take her eyes off the road to enter data as part of her job. Uber is culpable for designing the job such that the risk of accidents significantly increased.
      - koolba 6y ago
        Except she wasn’t doing that either. She was watching Netflix on her phone.
        6y ago