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Driver hits woman in SF, then Cruise driverless car runs her over
- i8comments 3y agoMost people who are ran over by human drivers dont get articles. Are driverless cars generally safer right now? Will it be a worthwhile sacrifice to get to a point where accidents are rare?
- battles 3y agoIn this case she did get an article. Apparently she was hit and knocked down by a human driver first and then the cruise ran her over.
- RetroTechie 3y agoThat's an interesting detail! Perhaps she was lying down & the Cruise smarts didn't perceive her as a pedestrian, but more like an obstacle / 'bump' in the road? Just speculating here, but would be useful to find out. If human drivers see a pedestrian get hit or someone falling down, we instinctively know that's a human there on the pavement (and try to avoid at all costs, just like for pedestrians walking around). Or avoid human-shaped / human-sized objects just in case. If a self-driving car would lose track of a human as soon as it stops looking like a typical pedestrian, that would be a problem.
- jjfoooo5 3y agoAs per Cruise statement: >>> The initial impact was severe and launched the pedestrian directly in front of the AV. The AV then braked aggressively to minimize the impact.
- The_suffocated 3y agoWhile news media are over-reactive to accidents involving self-driving cars, if such an accident is caused some vulnerability in the driving algorithm that is not so easy to fix or improve, its impact is potentially widespread, because the same vulnerability is shared by other cars.
- jstarfish 3y agoTo be fair to Cruise, training data for situations like this is going to be sparse. Most of us will drive for an entire lifetime and never come across a body in the road.
- TheCoelacanth 3y agoAlso, what are you even supposed to do if another car strikes a pedestrian and launches them directly in front of your car? Aggressively braking to minimize the damage is probably the best you can do, and it seems like that's what the car did.
- beardyw 3y agoOnly if you are willing to be that sacrifice.
- netsharc 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog In this case the newsworthiness comes from the fact that driverless cars are new...
- 33MHz-i486 3y agoand somewhere 2 teams of Software Engineers are tasked with Test Case 7462628: a Video classifier to detect when the AV has stopped on top of human and pinned them beneath its wheels
- jqpabc123 3y agoPromoters claim self driving cars are safer than human drivers. This is based on a rosy interpretation that deflects the blame for most of the accidents they are involved in. Self driving cars are in accidents much more frequently than human drivers. However, most of these accidents are rear end collisions --- naturally blamed on the human driver. But the reason human drivers rear end self driving cars is the fact that these cars are programmed to hit the brakes any time they can't comprehend the current situation --- which apparently happens quite a bit. The reality is, human drivers can't comprehend or anticipate a driverless car hitting the brakes for no apparent reason.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Self driving cars are in accidents much more frequently than human drivers Source? (I’ll believe it for Cruise.) > human drivers can't comprehend or anticipate a driverless car hitting the brakes for no apparent reason Human drivers tailgate. If you have a safe cushion in front of you, an erratic stop won’t cause a collision.
- meristohm 3y agoYeah, the tailgating makes no sense unless preparing to pass. When I catch myself doing it it's because I'm emotional and feeling rushed, and I take a breath and remind myself to back off until it's safer to pass. During a freeway slowdown I try to dampen the brake-waves by going slow and not braking so much, but if I leave too much space in front of me (for coasting), another driver moves in and we're back to playing accordion. If all cars could sync up and move together like train cars on the freeway there'd be less brake dust and more efficient travel, but then I'd rather take a train anyway.
- cjwilliams 3y agoHeroic. I try to do this too but everyone I know thinks I'm being neurotic when I explain it to them. I still see so many people accelerating into stoplights/brake scenarios.
- nmeofthestate 3y agoHorrible - if a human had been driving they could have moved the car to stop pinning the victim, but a self-driving robot just sits there with a screaming woman stuck under it.
- andybak 3y agoWould you move immediately or get out and assess? Would you move forward or backwards? How sure are you'd get that decision right? Would you be confident that you weren't going to cause further injury by moving? Would you be confident that you weren't creating further legal liability by moving? My point is that I'm not sure a human driver would always move the car - or whether moving would always be the right thing to do.
- avery17 3y agoThe last thing you should do is move the car when someone is stuck under it.... Jack it up and pull them out. Good lord, imagine getting pinned under the middle of the car and the driver hops out and sees you and is like hang on i got this and then drives over you again.
- whalesalad 3y agoif someone is trapped under your vehicle do you really think the right idea is to move? that is how you make the situation worse.
- trgn 3y agoAnother reason, why cars, the actual technology is just trash. Too heavy, too fast, completely unnecessary for the city* Can't wait to when we get off this dumb fetish. The robot car of the future is a golf cart, or a kei car, or a battery powered rickshaw. (* since this always come up, let me emphasize, for the _city_. fur trappers can keep their cars)
- justin66 3y agoFur trappers?
- kotaKat 3y agoI'd like to hear how Kyle Vogt is going to spin this one that the Cruise car is still safer overall than the humans despite continually being the ones in the spotlight as being a safety hazard that doesn't belong on the road.
- stetrain 3y agoMedia coverage of event A over event B doesn't mean event A happens more frequently or severely than event B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog Not saying Cruise is doing well or poorly statistically, just that we can't determine that by how frequently they show up in headlines.
- sparky_z 3y agoDon't forget that if your way of making sense of the world is based entirely on what's in the spotlight, then you are always at the mercy of the spotlight operator.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- netule 3y agohttps://archive.ph/4WrS9 https://archive.ph/4WrS9
- eat 3y agoWow, how disruptive!
- dv_dt 3y agoAt the very least, it seems like there should be a firefighter accessible local override for driverless vehicles. Break glass (or open a cover), take over car, control center is notified - type of thing.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tuchsen 3y agoI don't know about Cruise but Waymo has a training video[1] that shows a first responder hitting a button to contact dispatch, then explaining that they're a first responder and they need to move a vehicle, and finally being given control. It looks like the process could take 30 seconds in the best case scenario, which is likely too long in many life or death scenarios, but they do at least have a process. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dprg6r5-8Yc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dprg6r5-8Yc
- dv_dt 3y agoGood, but in a poor reception area, or in an earthquake or more conventional cell network outage situation, a link to the control center may not be accessible. This seems like pretty a straightforward, but overlooked systems engineering concern.
- tuchsen 3y agoYeah I think we're in agreement that the current solution is not very good. I can understand why they opted for it initially though, given the thing that happened with protesters putting traffic cones on AV's to disable them. Imagine if instead of doing that, protesters hijacked cars and drove them into situations where the AV couldn't easily navigate out of, like driving up onto sidewalks for instance. The bombastic headlines write themselves. In the end I bet they end up making a kind of "master key" that works with all AV's to distribute among first responders. I'm in the "it'll get sorted out eventually" camp on this one.
- robotburrito 3y agoWhat is the chance self driving cars get super popular, everyone forgets how to drive over the years, then the VC $ drys up, the enshittification happens and prices get way too high. The people with no where else to turn with few human driven cars around end up demanding safe human scale transit like bikes, trains and busses?
- andrei_says_ 3y agoNot sure this is the exact most plausible scenario but I feel fairly confident that enshittification will happen and now am curious about some other, possible ways, it might manifest. Like, faster route being more expensive? Mandatory delay at arrival with an extra fee to unlock the door immediately? Making trip info public / sharing with advertisers / employer / spouse unless a higher fee is paid? Smoother drive for a higher fee? Lots of possibilities :)
- lamontcg 3y agodunno, but transportation is up there with health care, education, child care, housing, etc as things that people can't really do without (unless you're still healthy and young and can ride a bike). it feels like it should expand to consume available income with subscription fees.
- earthling8118 3y agoUsually I hate enshittification but this could actually be a good use for it.
- doctorpangloss 3y agoThat is an extremely provocative photograph. Where are the Cruise PMs trotting out the video footage from the car now? In their last incident with a fire truck [1] they showed a journalist video from the vehicle. How could such footage possibly show them in a good light now? It's all very complicated. I'm not going to die on the hill of Big Autonomous Vehicle, at the end of the day, someone, somewhere will make a good AV, and maybe Cruise's in particular just suck. But if you just shared photos from Fifth through Seventh on Market, where this crash occurred, that would also be provocative. It would provide some context that a Cruise PM cannot possibly discuss. If you shared photos from lethal highway crashes, that would be extremely provocative. Surely lawmakers who put together the CPUC authority and those rules considered the possibility of lethal and provocative accidents with AVs. So nothing is going to change. I welcome David Chiu to come to Fifth and Market and deliver an intellectually honest plan to reduce mortality among people there crossing the street that involves reducing AV driving during the day. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/cruise-driverless-san-francisco-crash-18302845.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/cruise-driverless-san...
- lsaferite 3y ago> Where are the Cruise PMs trotting out the video footage from the car now? From the article: > Cruise said Monday night it was sharing the video with investigators. > according to video of the crash shown to The Chronicle by Cruise hours after the incident.
- wskinner 3y agoThe framing for these reports is always the same: the journalist refers to other recent incidents involving autonomous vehicles, ignoring the very high base rate of incidents not involving autonomous cars. Accidents that don’t involve autonomous cars are not interesting to them or their readers because they are so common. If the SF Chronicle actually wanted to inform their readers they would publish a table of all motor vehicle crashes in the city by type of vehicle.
- lancesells 3y agoCruise gets a ton of positive press from being on the road compared to self-driven cars. There are no stories about a person buying a car and driving it around their city because it's not interesting or novel. At some point it won't be news when driverless cars are involved in accidents but for now they are. Personally, I think the public should be informed about what a new technology is doing and capable of whether it's good or bad. Especially one that can kill people rather easily.
- minwcnt5 3y agoRight now Waymo is operating at a larger scale than Cruise, and driving in more difficult conditions, yet seems to have an order of magnitude fewer problems. The fact there's no way to objectively differentiate the two seems like a regulatory failure.
- coldbrewed 3y agoThe thing that stands out to me is that the driverless car parked on top of the victim until the fire department arrived and extricated the victim. There are few vehicle-pedestrian crashes where the offending vehicle parked on top of the vehicle and wouldn't be moved; screaming bystanders are usually effective at compelling a driver to roll off the victim. This isn't a simple matter of "humans good drivers, robots bad drivers"; it's an example of "humans can improvise and respond reasonably to novel situations; robots cannot reliably interpret and respond to novel situations."
- 3y ago
- nerdbert 3y ago> The horrific crash occurred at 9:35 p.m. at Market and Fifth streets after the traffic light turned green, giving the Cruise car and other car — which had been waiting side-by-side for the light — the right to enter the intersection where a woman was walking, according to video of the crash In fact, the driver of the car did not have "the right to enter the intersection" if it meant they were going to run a pedestrian over, no matter what color the light was. How did we get to the point where reflexive empathy for drivers over everyone else has completely trumped basic understanding of both the law and human decency?
- aidenn0 3y agoTechnically, it gives them the right to enter the intersection, but not the right to hit a pedestrian (or a car for that matter).
- atourgates 3y agoI've been trying to think this through a bit. The way I understand it is: There are two cars waiting to go through an intersection. The Cruise and the Human-Driven car. The light turns green, and the Cruise's pathway through the intersection is clear. A pedestrian is crossing the intersection in the path of the human-driven car, but not in the path of the Cruise. Both cars enter the intersection, the human-driven car strikes the pedestrian, who then rolls off the human-driven car into the path of the Cruise, and is run-over the Cruise. Of course, I haven't seen the accident, but if that's broadly correct, I'm not sure that this is the damning evidence of "driverless cars are unsafe" some people seem to be spinning it up to be. It is a tragedy, but it seems to be a tragedy caused primarily by a human driver who struck a pedestrian, and a human pedestrian who ignored a traffic signal. Should the bar for driverless cars be "able to predict when other vehicles will hit a pedestrian and roll that person in their path"? Would a human-driven vhicle have done any better? If the places were reversed, would the Cruise have struck the pedestrian in the first place? I think we're all right to be skeptical of machine-driven cars, but I'm not certain that this specific incident is a point against them.
- 3y ago
- pb7 3y agoNot a single top level comment condemning the moron that hit a person and drove off which speaks volumes about how low the bar is for human drivers. Waymo can’t expand soon enough.
- peteradio 3y agoGoes without saying really since we already have proper prosecution of persons. Driverless cars killing people seem like they will inevitably trade lives for fines.
- pb7 3y agoI’m not convinced that it does go without saying. As a victim, I don’t think I would care whether the entity that hurt me is now in prison or short of a few dollars knowing that the probability of it happening again is the same. Self driving cars will reduce the rate of accidents which is the important part.
- peteradio 3y ago> Self driving cars will reduce the rate of accidents which is the important part. So says the people trying to get various municipalities to sanction the experiment. How do you think the first Walmart was sold to a town? Do you think they said up front that it was going to be a giant fucking rugpull?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- m3kw9 3y agoIt would have been worse if it drove off instead of stopping. Having training data for this scenario seem difficult, likely need some sort of reworking for this edge case.
- justin66 3y agoIt's truly weird how quickly this dropped from the first page to page # 5.
- sottol 3y agoI think society ends up judging new technology by the worst-case failures, and as far as that goes this isn't too good. I think that's just how our brains work for the most part, black and white, at least in areas that the general public is not overly familiar with yet.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sillywalk 3y agoFor some reason this makes me think of ED-209.
- TheCoelacanth 3y agoAfter being hit by another car that pushed her into the path of the driverless car.
- snarkypig 3y agoCouldn't figure out the cookies page
- Animats 3y ago"The video from the autonomous vehicle showed the front and left side camera angles and started when the AV is stopped at a red light, to the right of the suspect car, at the intersection of 5th and Market Streets. The light turned green and both cars proceeded through the intersection and approached a crosswalk. As the two cars approached the crosswalk, a woman was seen walking across the crosswalk despite the oncoming cars. She unsuccessfully tried to beat the manned green vehicle to the left side of the AV." "When the pedestrian was hit by the green car, she landed on the hood of the car, flipped over the roof and rolled off the right side of the car. She slammed onto the pavement and landed right in front of the AV. The AV brakes engaged as soon as she hit the pavement and then stopped on top of her. She landed parallel to the lanes. It’s unclear from the video if the front tires ran over her or if she just ended up underneath the car."
- ilyt 3y agoThe editor tried REALLY hard to get that driverless thing in front in the title... fucking scum. "Woman, on red light, gets hit by human driver and gets yeeted onto autonomous vehicle", ah, yes, make the article about autonomous car that just stood there.
- ypeterholmes 3y agoThis headline should be illegal.
- iancmceachern 3y agoThis comment should be illegal
- ypeterholmes 3y agoNote that I was being sarcastic. The headline was extremely misleading, to the point of propaganda. I'm not actually saying it should be illegal- lying is legal.
- Vecr 3y agoUnder what reading of the First Amendment is that allowed? Some historical argument based on the Alien and Sedition act, because criticizing self driving cars is a threat to national security?
- ypeterholmes 3y agoNote that I was being sarcastic. The headline was extremely misleading, to the point of propaganda. I'm not actually saying it should be illegal- lying is legal.
- foxyv 3y agoI love how the media doesn't care at all about pedestrians until a driverless car is involved. Then again, CNN will have trouble running their car and truck advertisements if they reported on the actual damage that these companies have done to our country.
- djohnston 3y agoThe slant on these articles is so wild. It's probably more noticeable because I'm generally a fan of AVs. But wow, if you're a journalist writing this go take a look in the mirror and ask what happened. She was literally hit by another human driver who then fled the scene of the accident. I'm sure we'll find out more about the AV, since you know, it didn't flee the scene, but it's so funny to see this article focusing on the AV.
- junofan 3y agoHalf the article is about the EV. I’d encourage the curious to read it. There’s a lot of info about how the Cruise vehicle responded and how people had to work around the vehicle’s response.
- lsaferite 3y agoI mean, the police directed Cruise to leave the vehicle in place. What exactly would you expect them to do when directed to not move? From the article: According to Cruise, police had directed the company to keep the vehicle stationary, apparently with the pedestrian stuck beneath it. Each car contains a speaker through which Cruise staff can communicate with passengers or with law enforcement trying to give instructions. While spokespeople for the Police Department did not have an officer’s report Tuesday morning to clarify exactly when police made the order, they said it is standard procedure not to move cars at the scene of wrecks — regardless of whether a human is operating them. “When it comes to someone pinned beneath a vehicle, the most effective way to unpin them is to lift the vehicle,” Sgt. Kathryn Winters, a spokesperson for the department, said in an interview. Were a driver to move a vehicle with a person lying there, “you run the risk of causing more injury.”
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoThis is why you don't let robots roam without a safety barrier.
- novia 3y agoBoth of the cars were stopped beside each other at a stoplight when the pedestrian was crossing the road. Here is what a human driver could have done in this situation that the Cruise car did not: 1) Look over at the other driver for whom the coast is not clear. Are they paying attention? Do they see the pedestrian? Are they texting on their phone? 2) Be aware that sometimes distracted drivers will start moving their car again when they see that the car beside them has started to drive. 3) If the other driver is distracted, wave to try to get their attention. Roll down your window. Yell "hey!" and point to the pedestrian. As a last resort you can use your car horn, but that may make them lurch forward into the pedestrian. 4) If your attempts to make sure the other driver is paying attention have failed, you should NOT go, even if the light has turned green, until you have assured that the pedestrian has safely crossed the road. You should be prepared to motion to other drivers that come after that they also need to stop to prevent the pedestrian from being run over by multiple cars. I get it, all this situational awareness stuff is difficult to code, but it's an important part of driving.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fuzzfactor 3y agoEven more difficult to code would be actual driving courtesy. Just another one of the things that lots of regular drivers don't seem to think is essential either :-/
- yieldcrv 3y agoridiculous we should make an international headline with the make and model of the human driven car too
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- olliej 3y agoI’m generally anti “self driving” as it’s demonstrably not safe in the general case, but this particular case seems like something that anyone could have done, and possibly impossible to have avoided (the self driving car braked immediately). If you’re following a car around a corner, and that car hits someone and does not stop, your first indication that there’s a person would be a ground level pedestrian momentarily appearing after the car had finished running them over. This is actually an ideal case for self driving tech as their camera positioning gives them a lower vantage point, and it’s possible the victim would not ever be visible to a human driver.
- jeisc 3y agoself-crashing and/or moving-disaster cars are a pointless and stupid innovation beyond the curiosity factor and research. AI should just be an aid not a driver
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago[dead]
- elforce002 3y agoListen, driverless cars have an uphill battle that I frankly doubt will win. From job displacement to things like this, they will encounter opposition every on step of the road (no pun intended). The other thing is that if a driver were to do a thing like this, he'd be accountable for his/her actions. With driverless cars, the company could get a way with this by paying a fine or giving money to the family effectively putting a "price tag" on human life. Heck, facebook and google don't even seem to care anymore when some government hit them with fines. Now, imagine a mainstream driverless car company. We'll get shock at first, but when convenience starts setting in our daily lives, the shock factor will start dwindling until we see these events as part of "things that happen when we hit the road". Interesting times.
- paul7986 3y agoWhy is it always Cruise in the headlines... it didnt hit the woman but it did run her over ...pinning her to the ground where instead of a human driving taking action right away no EMTs had to contact Cruise for them to disengage self driving and allow EMTs to get the woman out from under the Cruise car. Those seconds to minutes of agony with a car on top of her for the sake of robot AI self driving progress disgusting ... i guess Cruise might have learned something and changed their algorithm at the expense of her mangled body yet hopefully she survives.