This seems like a simple case. I would have expected the driver assist in my 2017 Subaru to have reacted to something in the road. I'm surprised that the much more sophisticated self driving system did not.
If Uber can't match a $25,000 off-the-shelf floor model mass-market midsized sedan for collision avoidance, it's hardly a self-driving car.
Driving is all about predicting the future. Think of every time you've been able to tell that someone is going to change lanes even though their blinker is off, or slowed down when a ball bounces into the street because you know there's going to be a kid following it. If the car isn't capable of that, it's not ready for public streets.
Actually many states now require by law that you get as far as possible from a lane with a disabled vehicle, as many human accidents have happened.
I am convinced uber has been basically pretending to do the mountains of careful and sophisticated crap waymo actually has gone to great lengths to do, and is just racing to put anything out so they can keep stringing investors along as far as they can before the jig is up. Well the jig is up now.
Back to Uber, the number I hear is that they are striving to go better than 13 miles/intervention to prevent an incident. For Waymo this is over 5000 miles. I'm convinced too.
I am obviously no AI expert, just what I know from loosely following the field. But things like this cross my mind from time to time.
I've got a 2013, and am thinking about trading in.
The other thing this system does is to provide adaptive cruise control. If I'm behind a vehicle that results in slowing down and then switch lanes (to where there is another vehicle in front of me) the car seems to think it can resume speed and slip between the two vehicles. I've come to expect that too and disengage the speed control before switching lanes.
It also provides a warning when approaching the lane markings (unless I have indicated a lane change.) Occasionally it triggers on seams in the pavement. It also provides steering input if the land deviation increases. I've only experienced when I tested it in purpose. I'm not sure it would reliably keep the vehicle in the lane.
Overall the system seems to be pretty good and though not perfect, is a net asset.
I've got to side with the people who want no auto-driving until we have always-better-than-human auto-driving. When cars only have back seats, and no driver controls beyond a way to state your destination, auto-driving will be acceptable.
Insurance fraud, possibly. Depending on jurisdiction if you rear-end someone you could automatically be 100% at fault (assuming the fraud is not discovered/proven)
The automatic cruise control is great for freeway and some street driving, but don't expect it to brake very smoothly / like a human. I consider it outsourcing part of my concentration.
Lane assist is nice, but it won't auto-center -- if you were take your hands off the wheel on a straightaway it would "ping-pong" back and forth. I mostly like it on long drives, reduces the amount of effort on bends.
like travelling down a virtual tube