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Comment by stefan_ | Hacker News Reader

This is just police standard operating procedure. In any kind of manslaughter where a vehicle is involved, save on paperwork and blame whichever party ended up dead before the driver has even spoken the words "she came from nowhere". Here is the police chief spelling it out for Uber:

she came from the shadows

I wonder what that LIDAR thinks about the shadows. I mean, this system is in place because everybody drives and so we've legalized recklessness in the pursuit of "There but for the grace of god go I" but who benefits if police declares an AI driver blameless before anyone has even downloaded the recordings?

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You aren't kidding about it being standard operating procedure. Almost every time a pedestrian or cyclist is killed in New York City, the police come out and blame anyone but the driver. And then video will turn up afterwards showing that the driver was driving unsafely, and that the fatal accident could have been avoided. Still, no charges are filed. It's like they have an allergy to paperwork.

I want to see video of this fatal crash. Nothing else will suffice.

The difference is that in NYC the cops can get away with that just by taking the surveillance tapes from the local businesses and then destroying them. In this case presumably they know the video will eventually come out.

Are there any reports that NYC police actually do or have done that?

I wasn't saying that in jest or exaggerating for dramatic effect. It's simply reality that today, unless you are drunk or high, you can kill someone who is walking in a crosswalk with your vehicle and get away with not even a ticket:

https://twitter.com/KeeganNYC/status/530515713405231105

Afterwards, police will, as in this case, make up a story how "the little kid broke free from its grandma" and decline to charge.

According to the news reports on the case that tweet is about, the police in fact ticketed the driver. A judge dismissed the tickets later, against the recommendation of the police.

When there's a crash, all information related to the crash should be public information: all raw telemetry information collect by the car, and the logic used to evaluate that telemetry. The idea any portion of this is proprietary is dangerous. If a police officer asks a human driver questions, and they refuse to answer, they can be compelled. If they are asked if they can think of anything else relevant that hasn't been explicitly asked about the accident, and they say no, and it turns out they did and were withholding information, that's a crime.

There must be equivalents for autonomous driving. They can't be allowed to shield themselves behind "proprietary information" claims.

In the United States lying to local police is generally speaking not a crime (certain lies can be, but saying you have no further information when you do is not one of them). Also you cannot be compelled to be a witness against yourself so you have every right to not answer questions if you suspect you are under a criminal investigation.

That being said in the United States non-human persons such as corporations have no such rights.

It's standard operating procedure in SF, and not only will the police not bother to look at surveillance, but they will lie and claim they it doesn't exist [1].

[1] https://sf.streetsblog.org/2013/08/23/sfbc-finds-what-sfpd-d...

This is really scary I think!

In Denmark it is standard procedure to immediately arrest the other party and charge with manslaughter if there has been a fatality in an accident, no matter who might have been at fault. This way the police can gather information quickly from the driver and release him shortly after. An in depth investigation is always carried out to precisely map out what happened (this can take weeks), and not before that will charges be dropped depending on the result.

The difference is probably because US culture is very automobile focused and in some places downright hostile to cyclists and pedestrians, whereas in Denmark cycling is very popular.

> I wonder what that LIDAR thinks about the shadows.

I honestly don't follow these systems very close, but I thought that was one of the big selling points, LIDAR can see into tough situations and things like "the shadows" and help avoid situations where people would fail.

And yet the speeding vehicle didn’t even attempt to stop.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-drivin...

Can we please stop calling 38 in a 35 speeding? In many places that speed would be inpeding traffic.

In most places the driver isn’t an experimental automated vehicle. Maybe while trying new tech that can apparently fail to see a woman with LIDAR, stick to the damned speed limit? That seems fair to me.

I've seen people charged with a misdemeanor for going 5 over the limit where noone was harmed. If a human can be held to that standard I think a self-driving car should in the case of a fatal collision.

"Exceeding the stated speed limit by 8.5%" better for you?

Uh, but it is speeding. I can't be the only person who's gone through a town that happens to have a zealous patrol officer who brings in huge revenues for the town (seems to be common around college towns). Exceptions are generally made when it comes to maintaining flow of traffic, but it seems like the Uber vehicle was by itself?

I thought computers excelled at matching numbers?

Request denied. The sign says speed limit. What about a plain language sign are you not groking? Legally it is speeding, and it's an opinion to call it impeding traffic. And as a result of speeding, there's certainly civil liability attached because the car would not have been where it was, when it was, had it been driving at or below the speed limit.

Well the funny part is that it turns out it wasn't speeding. The limit was 45 and it was doing 38. If it had been speeding it wouldn't have been where it was when the person was jaywalking.

So? That is because the traffic is speeding. What sort of twisted logic do you have that someone has just been killed, and the point you want to make is that 3miles over is not really speeding?

This really isn't an argument. It's just saying that because someone has been killed we shouldn't be able to have rational discussion because our logic is "twisted".

It's region specific. In many regions, yes, it is speeding, and ticketable, sometimes automatically by speed cameras. I have no idea what is normal in this particular region.

+1. Calling this speeding is willful ignorance of the practical flow of traffic everywhere in the country.

Police write tickets for being 3mph over the speed limit. Can’t speak for other states but California DMV test does not give any kind of allowance to go over the speed limit. So why is this “ignorance”?

The DMV might not give any allowance but enforcement is no where as harsh in California. The i-5 in Southern California is filled with people cruising at 80 (even the highway patrol!), 15 miles above the limit and no one gets a ticket.

The same could be said for the 85 and 101 in the Bay, where the cruising speed is 75-80 during low traffic and almost always in the carpool lanes.

I wasn’t claiming that enforcement was strict or consistent. Just that it is patently absurd to say that 38mph in a 35mph isn’t “speeding”. I don’t care what your personal anecdotal experience is, we’re talking about what a court can penalize you on and what is written in the legal code.

And yes, I go over the speed limit plenty of times myself. I remember in HS how my friend was let go even after being caught at +10mph because he told the officer he was late to our calculus study group. Cops, and all human entities, make tons of allowances and exceptions.

I think your parent post was being sarcastic since indeed LIDAR isn't suppose to be affected by "shadows"

Well LIDAR certainly doesn't care it's dark.

I think he is saying that she probably would have died even if a human were driving.

Sure, but presumably that's because a human wouldn't be able to see the pedestrian in the dark; you would expect LIDAR to be able to detect them and so the autonomous car should have had the same chances to spot this person in the daytime or the nighttime.

LIDAR indeed doesn't care about ambient light, but it can get confused by certain surfaces. I've seen LIDAR not be able to see a clean black car. The light just got absorbed and there wasn't enough return for it to register.

>before anyone has even downloaded the recordings

The second paragraph of the article states "video footage taken from cameras equipped to the autonomous Volvo SUV potentially shift the blame to the victim herself."

It's video footage from cameras at night! Of course on the footage the victim comes from the shadows because cameras become notoriously useless at night when you still want to hit reasonable framerates (and you do).

That's why that thing has a very expensive LIDAR on top.

The point of that persons comment was that you asserted nobody has looked at videos. Clearly they have.

Modern dashcams have very good low light capability. Here's a cruise self driving video at night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSRPmng1cmA

In France, the car is always at blame whatever the cyclist or pedestrian did. This the jurisprudence as set by a case where a drunk cyclist, driving at night without any light in the wrong lane and against traffic was hit by a car coming by. Though the driver obviously wasn't at fault, the decision was to always protect the vulnerable and feeble, i.e. the cyclist.

I came here to say the same, if a car ever hits a pedestrian the car is always at fault. Pedestrians follow the laws of physics, they don't just "come out of the shadows". It amazes me that Police could even think about issuing this statement, and also that people take it at face value. Guys, if you ever see a pedestrian in your path and you are not able to avoid them, you were driving too fast, simple as that.

And I would disagree with you that the driver was not at fault. He may have attenuating circumstances, but he was there to survey the environment and override the machine just in cases like that. The situation required him to lower the speed in order to avoid hitting a potential person "coming out of the shadows" and he did not do that. Once the person did show up, maybe it was too late for him to react, but he should have acted before. And let me take that back, he should at least hit the brakes; maybe it was too late to avoid the collision, but not hitting the brakes at all? Definitely at fault.

> if you ever see a pedestrian in your path and you are not able to avoid them, you were driving too fast, simple as that.

That flies in the face of biology and physics.

In the scenario where someone rapidly moves into the traffic from behind a parked car or some other visual obstruction: It takes up to 500ms for a human to take note (not react, just take note) of an obstacle, add reaction time to that and you'll arrive at a mean of over 1 second[0], usually more[1], before a driver can react to a new obstacle and this is for attentive drivers under good visibility.

Your argument relies on the fact that slower speeds result in shorter braking distances but braking distances are always non-zero, therefore it stands that there is a distance at which someone could move in front of the car and get hit even if the reaction time was 0ms, instead of ~1300.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274973324_Braking_R...

[1]http://copradar.com/redlight/factors/index.html

Pedestrians don't teleport in front of your car. It takes them time to cover the distance from the sidewalk to the middle of your lane. At the normal walking speed (3 mph) it takes 2.73 seconds to cover the width of a lane (12 feet). No matter how "out of the shadows" someone comes, no way that distance is less than 6 feet, that's 1.36 seconds. Situations where the distance a pedestrian has to cover to go from invisible to in front of your car are numerous, like people crossing the street in front of a stopped bus. But that's when you slow down, and instead of 38 mph, you do 5 mph.

Look, you can quote science, and studies, or you can talk to anyone who has a driver license. In case you yourself have one, then all I'm saying here should not be news to you, or unreasonable.

You are referring to someone walking from the sidewalk. The parent is referring to someone leaping from behind a parked car or visual obstruction.

The distance to travel in the parent’s situation is basically zero, and is incredibly common in most cities with a parking lane.

Arizona is in bed with Uber on this, they were enthusiastic about getting this on the road, so political cover is much needed. I read this like a joint press release by the Governor and Uber.

Your comments on this heated topic stand out as being particularly unsubstantive and flamebaity. Could you please not do that here? It isn't just that they're bad comments for HN, it's that they encourage worse.

If you'd (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart when commenting here, we'd appreciate it.

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