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Comment by Treblemaker | Hacker News Reader

The first question that comes to my mind watching this, is, why didn't the _pedestrian_ see the _car_? It looks as though she didn't even look up until the car was only a few feet away from here. I'm not just trying to "blame the victim". The car "should" have responded sooner. But see-and-avoid works both ways. If you're choosing to cross a road in the dark, you, too, have a responsibility to understand the drivers' limited visiblity and act accordingly. My point is that this is a teachable moment for not only SDV developers, but also for pedestrians.

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The pedestrian died, not the SDV developers. Calling this a “teachable moment ... also for pedestrians” is rather disrespectful.

The fact that the pedestrian died is precisely the point. As a frequent pedestrian, and as a person who likes people, and because people are often pedestrians, I would like to prevent pedestrian deaths. That happens by holding SDV developers to rigorous standards, but also by highlighting that crossing the street safely requires paying close attention and being careful, more so than many people do. I've seen several places where pedestrians have the right of way a lot, and many will just step directly into the street, legally mind you, when cars are traveling quickly nearby. No matter how you slice it, that yields an unacceptably high probability of death, and you can blame whoever you want but you will still be dead. There's a difference between victim blaming, and pointing out that you can avoid becoming a victim by taking sensible precautions. This is the latter. It doesn't absolve SDV developers of any carelessness they may have had in their work to point that out too.

If a pedestrian has the right of way, why should the impetus be on them to be mindful? Why shouldn't the impetus be on drivers to slow down? Why should pedestrians live in constant fear of being killed when the law should protect them?

The law asserts justice, it does not protect against negligence in the moment it is happening. In the case of crossing the road, with a many thousand pound hunk of metal vs a human being, the human will overwhelmingly bear the brunt of the immediate harm.

It seems pretty obvious to me that being a mindful pedestrian is simply a matter of self preservation

Right of way means cars are obligated to stop when you cross the street. It doesn't solve the practical issue of drivers needing at least some time to react, even if they are paying complete attention and driving at a reasonable, safe speed.

Difficulty of looking both ways and pausing for a second before you cross the street: 1 unit. Difficulty of getting getting every single driver in any area where pedestrians have the right of way to drive slow enough that they can make a safe stop assuming any pedestrian can legally dart into the street without warning: 1,000,000,000 units.

And yet I've seen plenty of people turn 90 degrees across a street at their usual walking pace with no pause and with their eyes on their phone and headphones in their ears.

If you want to spin that particular chamber of probability because legally you're technically protected, honestly I feel worse for the driver who has to live with that memory now and wonder what they possibly could have done to prevent it short of just never driving a car at all.

How exactly is it disrespectful to use this as a teaching aid for other pedestrians about the danger of crossing a road at night?

If the article were about a cyclist who, while riding without a helmet, was run over and killed by a car whose driver didn’t do a safe lane change, and I commented:

“Not trying to blame the victim... but this is a teachable moment not only for drivers, but for cyclists...”

... it would be a true statement, which is why I didn’t say the GP was making a false one, but a normal native speaker would at least recognize it as a strange thing to say.

Cyclists should wear helmets, and the cyclist certainly is partly to blame. But no one was suggesting that the cyclist is guilt-free, so the actual effect of the statement is to try and draw a false equivalence.

It’s like saying “sure, global warming is real, but let’s not forget the effects of gradual and natural cyclical climate change.” No educated person in the discussion “forgot” the second, but by phrasing it this way you’re implying we should be paying equal attention to a large effect and a much smaller one.

The pedestrian was at fault here, not the driver. This is not where you should be crossing the road in the middle of the night with no lights on.

You really think drivers have carte blanche to run down people in the road as long as they have right of way? That drivers have no responsibility to avoid killing people as long as those people aren't on crosswalks? That's what you seem to be saying here.

Legally correct, but technically wrong. When it comes to judging whether self-driving cars are safe enough to be allowed on the roads with the rest of us, incidents like this are the kiss of death. With a human driver at the wheel this woman would be alive, even though she was jaywalking. This is going to set back public acceptance of self-driving technology a ways.

That's a strong assumption to make, that a human could have done better. It was dark, night, nowhere near a normal crosswalk, and not where I as a driver would normally expect a person to be. I think it would have been hard for even the most alert driver to not hit this person in this circumstance.

The point wasn't quite "what would human do?" but "computer just drives straight over people, BAN KILLER ROBOTS NOW!!!" Public perception and its backlash is not always commensurate with the technical side.

No, as others have discussed, driving above the speed limit when it is “the middle of the light with no lights on” means the driver is at fault as well.

I think the only circumstance where a pedestrian can cross a road without watching for cars is when protected by a traffic light, and even then that's not wise. A pedestrian crossing a road outside of any crosswalk at night and not watching for cars is playing russian roulette. Doesn't mean the driver (or self-driving system) shouldn't have spotted it as well to prevent the accident. But it is clearly a key driver enabling that accident.

> I think the only circumstance where a pedestrian can cross a road without watching for cars is when protected by a traffic light, and even then that's not wise.

You are definitely correct about even then you should check. And once you check and see it is clear...keep checking as you cross.

An acquaintance of mine from college was killed crossing Colorado Blvd in Pasadena, California late on a Friday afternoon, in a crosswalk at a fully controlled intersection, with the cross traffic having a red light.

Colorado Blvd is a major street, and late on a Friday afternoon would have a fairly high density of cars.

The car that hit him was going something like 80 mph. At the time he started crossing, that car would have been 3 blocks away. Even if it had been the only car on the road, at that distance there would be no way to judge the speed, and any car that far away traveling anywhere near legal speeds would be far enough away to not be a danger to any normal pedestrian crossing.

With the other cars that were on the road on a late Friday, it probably would not even be possible to see the car that hit him when he entered the crosswalk. There would have been several cars stopped at the intersection obstructing his view, plus cars at the intersections further up the road, or in transit between the intersections.

His only chance would have been to keep checking oncoming cars as he crossed, even after all the cars actually at or near his intersection at stopped.

Almost no one does that. Mostly once we see everyone nearby stop we just concentrate on cars that are turning and so might enter the crosswalk even though the light is red (assuming we are in a right turn on red jurisdiction).

Lesson #1: Treat each step as you cross the street as if it is your first step into the street. Do your full "is it safe to cross" scan constantly.

Lesson #2: Cars very far away at the time you start to cross can make it to you before you finish, even if traffic seems heavy enough that there is no way they could go fast enough to reach you. Your scan needs to look out farther than you think it needs to.

> and even then that's not wise.

The girl who ran a red light three feet in front of me while looking at her phone would agree with you -- that is, if she even realized she had done it. (I was in the crosswalk and I stopped when it became apparent that she wouldn't)

I see a lot of people who cross the street without looking. I definitely don’t get it. I constantly check everywhere even when I clearly have the right of way. But that’s how people are.

These people need to watch more videos of people getting run right the hell over before it finally sinks in. I’ve watched enough that I never walk close alongside any road, and keep a good distance from an intersection while waiting for the cars to stop, because sometimes they don’t!

And I wouldn't be surprised if many of these people are really concerned about the threat of terrorism or of flying while ignoring an imminent lethal risk that is many orders of magnitude higher.

Just remember, it's very likely that many of these people do the same thing when driving.

A theory that occurred to me last night is that if she was homeless, she may also have had an untreated eye condition such as myopia.

Articles claim she’s from Mesa, AZ. There’s nothing that suggests she’s homeless.

I recall reading somewhere that "she was well-liked" by people interviewed at a nearby homeless camp.

What about sound? Also, with myopia you should still be able to see a light source traveling towards you.

I sometimes have trouble figuring out what lane an oncoming car is on, with glasses, in daytime. It wouldn't surprise me if she was absent-mindedly taking a familiar route to her homeless camp and mistakenly thought the car was on the left lane.

As if which lane the car was in matters...

There was a car coming. She shouldn't have been in the road, period.

If that car was on the left late it have passed her by as she carried on crossing the right lane.

She probably had untreated mental illness as well.

> If you're choosing to cross a road in the dark, you, too, have a responsibility to understand the drivers' limited visiblity and act accordingly.

You have a self-responsibility, which most people act on (self-preservation). But as a driver you have a responsibility to pedestrians who can be killed by the machine that you are driving. That is the greater responsibility and why active care for pedestrians should be one of the highest regards of a driver (or autonomous driving system).

If you're choosing to cross a road in the dark, you, too, have a responsibility to understand the drivers' limited visiblity and act accordingly.

No kidding. This might be a somewhat controversial opinion, but I think the elephant in the room here is this general "pedestrian has right of way" notion. It's much easier for pedestrians to watch out for and evade cars than the other way around, and yet we seem to insist the opposite? That seems rather backwards and contrary to the laws of physics.

THere are several lanes free with plenty of room for the car to pass without issue. I think the pedestrian assumed this was just an inconsiderate driver not slowing down and driving around me... as there is no way on earth that a human would ever have hit her! the video is totally unrepresentative, and if it was representative then the car should have been doing half the speed.

Easy, the pedestrian had to cross sometime, and they couldn't predict which of the many lanes the car would move into.

Maybe it was her exam week. /s

Saying "I'm not trying to do X" doesn't absolve you from doing exactly that. Nice try though. Not trying to be rude ;)

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