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Let's not forget a few more contributing factors to the accident. The road in question is more or less a highway, and a car in the Uber's position would've jus
by NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Let's not forget a few more contributing factors to the accident.
The road in question is more or less a highway, and a car in the Uber's position would've just come off the bridge, traveling at least 35mph, and have also passed under the very busy freeway above it. It's a bustling interchange, but it was still late on a dark, balmy Sunday night. It's basically not possible to properly illuminate the whole road in this stretch.
To the west of the road is a medium-sized, popular concert venue, where alcohol is served at shows. To the east of the road is a small but popular city park, which does not have many amenities, and it would've been closed or close to closing at this time of night.
Herzberg was found to be high on crystal meth and marijuana at the time of death. She had a criminal record and had previously been incarcerated for drug-related offenses.
Herzberg had improperly laden her bicycle with many shopping bags. It was not a vehicle at this point, but more like an unstable shopping cart. Did it have lights? This is not mentioned in the report.
There was a crosswalk available, several yards up the road. The crosswalk at the intersection is well-illuminated, and there is a traffic signal. The Uber vehicle would have been subject to any red light or pedestrian right-of-way at this point.
Herzberg was well-committed to crossing the street and it is said she had already crossed two lanes. Perhaps those are the southbound lanes: Mill Avenue is at least 4 lanes wide at the accident site, and there is also a separate right-turn lane at Curry Road.
Therefore, Herzberg should have been able to see a well-illuminated Uber vehicle with headlights on, but Herzberg was under the influence, and perhaps also under the impression that a driver would yield or stop upon noticing such a pedestrian.
Now the liability in a car vs. pedestrian accident will fall on the vehicle by default, but of course it doesn't hurt us to walk in a crosswalk and obey traffic signals, in order to preserve the innocence and be indemnified against any accusation of negligence, should an accident happen to us.
A very tragic situation, and Herzberg's Facebook page is in a memorialized state, for anyone who wishes to get to know her a little bit better, it's all still there for us to see.
- notmypenguin 3y ago[flagged]
- asah 3y agoOP buried the lede: would a human driver have avoided the victim ? If a human driver would've killed her then this isn't grounds for punishing SDCs.
- tdrgabi 3y agoPolice have released the video https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/03/21/tempe-police-release-video-of-moments-before-autonomous-uber-crash/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/03/2... I'm not sure I could have avoided her, if I was the driver and paid full attention. She came out of the dark so fast, in the middle of the lane.
- xethos 3y agoOP must've missed the driver's ed teacher pointing out that over-driving one's headlights is a very bad idea. If you as a motorist cannot stop within the distance you can see, you are objectively travelling too fast.
- censor_me 3y ago[dead]
- ben_w 3y agoGiven the human "safety" driver was watching a TV show instead of the road (and should've known this was an experimental tech) "Ban self-driving cars." seems like a status-quo knee-jerk reaction rather than a good idea.
- ben_w 3y agoThose things don't really help that (a) the human driver wasn't paying sufficient attention (the limitations of human minds are of course one of the very reasons in favour of developing self-driving cars, but in this case the human was streaming a TV show instead of doing the job); nor (b) that the AI saw the victim (the sensor suite supposedly included LIDAR and radar which could spot the victim even if the lightning conditions had been worse) but kept reclassifying them as different objects and didn't have object persistence between reclassification and therefore didn't do good path prediction until too late. Also the automated emergency braking system was disabled at the time.
- moritonal 3y agoHaving seen the video I struggle to think if I could have stopped in time. The pedestrian was practically invisible and ironically is trust a car with LIDAR better to stop in time. Question, does anyone know why the lights seem so dim?
- agos 3y agoI would hope that if you were driving with only a tiny, low dynamic range, compressed video stream as your source of information you would be driving much slower than that.
- planede 3y agoThe video may or may not be representative what you could have seen with the naked eye.
- dagw 3y agoQuestion, does anyone know why the lights seem so dim? Several people have reported that it's the video that was dim and if you actually went to the road in question it appears much brighter in real life.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoThere is a nearby overpass with a full-fledged freeway on it, and there are also trees. This was not at an intersection, and as I said elsethread, it is very difficult to properly illuminate this section of road.
- rasz 3y ago>It's basically not possible to properly illuminate the whole road in this stretch. does this : https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-victim-came-from-the-shadows-dont-believe-it/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-... need more illumination? >Herzberg was found to be high on crystal meth and marijuana she could have been an African Elephant for all law cares, dont try victim blaming in a case of car plowing thru pedestrian without even trying to use brakes.
- ASalazarMX 3y ago> dont try victim blaming in a case of car plowing thru pedestrian without even trying to use brakes But also don't make martyrs out of victims. If I were to get drunk/drugged, and decided to walk into a dangerous neighborhood, at night, and someone stabs me, I am the victim, I am in the right, and I am also an idiot for deliberately putting myself in a very dangerous situation. We should support victims, but we shouldn't normalize or overlook self-destructive behaviors. Both driver and victim were wrong, and fortunately the driver pleaded guilty, because he was much more in the wrong.