Hacker News Reader

Comment by nraynaud | Hacker News Reader

My guess is that she felt so obviously visible that she didn’t expect to be hit. From where she started crossing she had a view of all the incoming cars for the entire length of the bridge. She was probably expecting the car to just descelerate from afar to let her cross.

View on HN

no she didn't expect cars to decelerate from afar. She just didn't care

She didn't even look at the road at all, not even during the very moment of impact. She was looking the other way 100% of the time right up until the crash. She didn't even care enough to look at the road at all because "looking at the road" was WAY too much work for her.

Pretty sure she didn't bother to do some kind of "physics deceleration analysis" before she crossed the road LOL

She's probably crossed there a zillion times and never had a problem, and so has stopped caring. It's a well lit area with good sight lines, human drivers would have to fuck up to a significant degree to hit someone under similar circumstances.

I agree...how do you cross a street like this?

How can you expect and trust that a driver to see you/stop for you? Maybe he's not paying attention, maybe he's texting, etc...

I love how you contemplate the logic of the pedestrian but impute no responsibility into a potential driver. Why do people want to defend a clearly defunct AV system so much that they question the thinking process of a woman who was killed?

Not OP, but pointing at risky behaviour alone does not say anything about the drivers, the companies or the pedestrians responsibility. It's not football, so one does not have to choose sides at such issues.

no i am not defending the AV. If someone was "wrong", it was definitely the AV and not the pedestrian.

The AV should definitely have at least tried to stop, it screwed up. Pedestrian has the right of way.

Having said that, I wouldn't want folks on HN to take this as an example and say "hey I am entitled to cross the road without looking, cars would decelerate for me and will always stop for me because i am entitled to right-of-way". WRONG

You cross the road without looking, the car hits you. Sure, AV or human-driver, the car would always be wrong.

You are "right" because you are the pedestrian and have right of way. You win the logical argument, but you are the one spending a year in the hospital.

Do you want to be "right"? Is taking a quick look at the road that much work for you?

An accident like this only occurs with multiple failures: a person crossing the road somewhat carelessly. a driver not paying attention to the road, and in this case, an autopilot system that didn't do what it's supposed to do.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com