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Comment by wiradikusuma | Hacker News Reader

From the video, it seems that the woman didn't even look at the street (the direction where the car came). Actually, she didn't even seem to look at the street before she crossed.

I do believe that autonomous vehicle should have prevented this kind of accidents (since they are 100% aware, unlike humans), but why did she act like that? Is it common there to just cross the road and expect cars to stop?

The reason I ask is culture difference. From my experience, in some countries (e.g. Indonesia), people cross the road like they have superpowers. They use their hand to signal the car to stop while taking time to cross. In Malaysia, even if you pay attention to the road, the drivers _seem_ to want to run over you when you cross (they go faster).

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I can't speak to Arizona in particular, but in all the parts of the USA I've been to, the common wisdom has always been to look both ways before crossing the road no matter what, because regardless of who has the right of way, there's always the possibility of some idiot, drunk driver, or other hazard that ignores right of way rules.

Common wisdom isn't necessarily followed. I've see many people cross the street blind especially on college campuses. Worse, where I currently live (Ann Arbor) I have seen people do this when they very clearly do not have the right of way.

Michigan is funny, in that a crosswalk is defined loosely as any portion of a road with a sidewalk on either side. Pair that with the precedent that pedestrians always have the right of way and you'll have to come to the conclusion that, annoying as it might be, the pedestrians crossing roads in Ann Arbor actually are in the right.

> From the video, it seems that the woman didn't even look at the street (the direction where the car came). Actually, she didn't even seem to look at the street before she crossed.

IME, at least in places I've driven, this is not at all uncommon for apparently-homeless people in urban and often suburban environments, at points that are not legal crosswalks and at points that are controlled crosswalks but against the controls (also, of course, at proper crosswalks without or consistent with controls, though that's less remarkable.)

> From the video, it seems that the woman didn't even look at the street (the direction where the car came). Actually, she didn't even seem to look at the street before she crossed.

You saw the pedestrian _enter_ the street in that video? I saw nothing of the sort when I watched it.

I think the point the poster is trying to make is that if the pedestrian was looking while crossing the street, they would have ample time to react to the oncoming car.

Car headlights can be seen from over 1000 feet away, and at the speed the Uber car was traveling, the pedestrian had 20 seconds to see & and react to the vehicle coming at her.

From the video, it's clear they were not looking for oncoming vehicles while crossing the road.

Tangential but I find it interesting that countries so geographically similar would have such a different custom in handling that situation.

In India itself, Hyderabad is like @dragonwriter described Indonesia - the traffic keeps flowing and pedestrians walk across anywhere - the vehicles will just weave around you. Bangalore is like Malaysia is described - if a driver sees you attempt to cross, he or she will actively speed up.

Funny, I have seen what you describe about Indonesia in Malaysia.

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