Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
* Construct a test to be able to operate under day and night conditions. Periodically audit each operator to confirm they can pass this. This is essentially equivalent of a driving test but would be a controlled environment that simulates real cities. Maybe have robot humans to simulate pedestrians and obviously have other cars on the road. * Require that operators test X miles of specific scenarios (city driving, highway, etc.) each month and audit their # of disengagements in each of these scenarios. When it his a threshold, their license is revoked and they need to go back to the lab. They should also submit videos of clips for all disengagements. * Require all operators to have video on their safety operators and submit records of % of the time the operator has eyes on the road along with videos. Regulators can revoke license if they see issues with the the operator not paying attention.
We can't rely on a corporation to safely controlling their experiments, the regulators need to step up here. was uber doing anything for example, to make sure the operator was watching the road? The operator is looking down for most of the time during the crash video.
"Returning to the files, I soon found the puzzle piece. It was in a document Otto had submitted in support of its application to operate the state’s first Autonomous Technology Certification Facility (ATCF). This is an independent organization that will assess all autonomous vehicles that want to operate (rather than just test) in Nevada, checking that they comply with the state’s safety requirements and traffic laws. The application was a success, and construction of the facility is now underway in a suburb of Las Vegas. (Yes, you read that right — Uber will soon be assessing other companies’ compliance with safety rules.)"
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/how-my-public-records-request-...
Certify what, that the car passed the test track? That’s not the hard part.
The hard part is taking responsibility for the performance of the vehicle including the liability for accidents and malfunctions.
When the autonomous vehicles become a comercial reality they will be need to be treated like aircraft: regular maintenance by certified engineers and NO unapproved modifications. Gone will be the ability to pimp your ride, gone will be back yard mechanics and certainly no “jail broken” cars running modified software on the road.
I don't see why an experimental self driving taxi should be treated more leniently than that.
Many people would travel in a time of their lives like that, and I see this as much like that. Its just that this is depth over breadth, that is, exploring my beloved NYC in very fine detail excites me more than exploring the world in almost pointlessly coarse detail...
Making a few extra bucks and making myself useful rather than purely self indulgent (unlike traditional tourism) is a plus also. It's also something that comes with zero schedule commitment and no boss. It also dovetails with a longtime obsession with transportation.
That wasn't the point of my comment of course, just stating where I got this info, but I guess I piqued your curiosity.
> and an algorithm which encouraged the car to speed 3 mph over the limit when it was dark conditions
But the linked NYT article said 40 in a 45 zone.
After the bridge it changes to 45mph so it could be the Uber was also in a 10mph speed up phase in the hundreds of feet from the bridge right where the pedestrian was.
I’d expect a self driving car to be more aware of the rules and drive according to the law.
What are “reasonable” rules for autonomous vehicles? Should they stick to the limit literally, so only start accelerating after the increased limit sign? (There will need to be warning signs when a speed limit reduction is ahead to give the vehicle time to comply.)
Would a vehicle speeding up before the sign indicate a failure or error in the system?
It literally is the status quo. If I were still working on autonomous cars, I'd be much more inclined to work into the true status quo rather than imagine the status quo ought to be different and build towards that.
On the northbound side it changes from 35 mph to 45 mph right after the bridge just before the freeway. Southbound, it changes from 45 mph to 35 mph about 140 feet after Washington St, well before the freeway and bridge, and about 150 ft north of where the accident occurred.
If someone near the scene wanted to find the speed limit, and failed to consider that the two directions might have different speeds, I'd expect them to be more likely to find the southbound speed. That's because it is common to place speed limit signs shortly after intersections so that people turning onto the road won't have to go long to find out the correct speed limit. So I'd expect them to head toward the Washington/Mill intersection to start searching for a speed limit sign.
For the curious, here is the accident location on Google street view [1]. Back up 17 steps from that, continuing to face north, if you want to see the applicable speed limit sign. Or cross to the other side from the accident location and go north 8 steps to find the speed limit for the southbound road (it's on the last street light before you reach the intersection).
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4363673,-111.9425082,3a,75y,...
A test-road intersected by a tram-track with a motorized trolly on which various test-subjects are mounted; the car drives the road (at night under controlled lighting conditions) and the tolley drives the test-subject across the car's path at various speeds and times. The car must perform an emergency-brake, swerve or other safety move depending on the test-subject (a crash-test dummy, cardboard-box, plastic-bag, fake-bird etc).
The test result data could be fed back into the machine-learning to inform simulations for further testing in virtual environments. A company with Uber's resources can afford to build such a test-track and should have. There's a gap in the market for a company to provide such testing facilities for car makers.
So, which is it? A controlled environment, or a real city? I think it is a bit naive to expect /every/ edge-case to be worked out prior to even a testing permit being given out. If you could pass a test that faithfully simulates ALL the intricacies of driving in a real city, you're well past testing phase anyway.
Further, this ignores that we may be able to incentivize this behavior (learn all the lessons you can in controlled environments before putting people at danger) in other ways, e.g. financial penalties.
I guess that description doesn't make much sense, but it would be interesting to develop a virtual testing environment for testing the algorithm package even though that doesn't address hardware and numerous other concerns.
Looks like Nvidia has turned it into a self-driving car on chip, due for release later in 2018:
https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/10/nvidia-introduces-a-comp...
The NTSB investigation should be interesting.
This would incentivise the companies (and force the drivers) to not disengage in borderline dangerous situations.
They need to go beyond periodic checks. Simply have constant video telepresence any time they are operating. Another operator monitors them to ensure they are attentive.
Most current human drivers wouldn't be able to pass a test with the conditions that resulted in the fatal crash.
I'm not usually the one to talk about conspiracy, but Tempe police had no legal responsibility to release the footage since the investigation is still ongoing. Couple this with the statement released by the Tempe chief of police defending Uber, I'm inclined to believe Uber and some state government officials are working together to sway the public opinion and minimize damage. At the end of the day, the victim is painted as an idiot who practically committed suicide. This is gross injustice.
My point though, is that I don't want self driving cars to defeat simulations or tests, I want self driving cars that can react to real driving conditions.
[1] "The program even learns how to take advantage of bugs and glitches, like timing jumps so that Mario begins falling again at the exact time that he makes contact with a Goomba. Mario's invincible when he's falling, so the touch kills the Goomba, not Mario, and it gives him a further jump boost." http://www.wired.co.uk/article/super-mario-solved
But I dont see how you can avoid having a simulation. These events are just too rare to wait until they occur in real life.
This person carelessly crossed a busy road at night! The victim practically did commit suicide. She could have just as easily been killed by a human-driving car, just like thousands of pedestrians do every year. Why are we so quick to try to blame the car? At least the car was in the right place.
Edited to add: We don't know anything about her physical or mental condition that might have made it difficult for her to perceive the car or the distance when she was crossing, so to assume that she had perfect perception and chose to cross in front anyway assumes facts not in evidence.
https://www.azleg.gov/ars/28/00793.htm
However, I still think Uber violated 28-794.1 and .3.
Notwithstanding the provisions of this chapter every driver of a vehicle shall:
1. Exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on any roadway.
2. Give warning by sounding the horn when necessary.
3. Exercise proper precaution on observing a child or a confused or incapacitated person on a roadway.
I'm fine with Uber's executives and programmers accepting the same level of culpability as an alternative to meeting higher standards than humans to get on the road. Ditto for their culpability for potential bugs which would be considered [attempted] vehicular homicide in the absence of a more logical explanation for the vehicle's actions if driven by humans. Abdicate that responsibility and you'd better be prepared for more stringent tests.
The 'driver' was not paying attention and the software failed. An attentive human driver acting alone would have easily stopped.
That's a common misconception. You will see the pedestrian in time if they are near a street light or wearing something reflective. In complete darkness, if the pedestrian is wearing bright, colorful clothing (say, a yellow jacket), you will see them from 120 feet or so; often enough to react and come to a full stop, but not if the road is slippery or the driver less than fully attentive. And a pedestrian wearing black in the darkness is a dead pedestrian, basically invisible until the vehicle is on them.
Now, some mostly older cars have terrible headlights, but that's another story. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/51/3/1 Note Uber hit someone in bluejeans and a pink bike which is not that dark: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/22/video-rel...
PS: Just Starlight aka no moon and no clouds is plenty of light to see and walk around. I can't read small text, but you really should not be blind at night.
They claim a pedestrian without reflectors can be seen from 50 m with low beams. Other source I've seen break it down by the color of clothing; white might be seen from 50 m (160 feet), yellow from 37 m (120 feet), and darker colors even worse, down to black which is visible from a distance too short to react.
High beams are a much different story, of course. And perhaps the numbers for HID lamps on a luxury car are better - at the expense of blinding and distracting the other drivers on the road.
At 45 MPH you should stop in under 50 meters in good road conditions. 50 MPH is around 53 meters +/- depending on the vehicle and road conditions.
Reflectors are very useful because they add cushion to that. And believe me that was heavy breaking situation. But, the Uber car did not even start to break.
>The Phoenix area was added a year ago, and quickly became the company’s main testing ground, with 400 employees and more than 150 autonomous cars driving local roads because of "favorable regulatory environment, favorable weather conditions,” according to a company document.
The sorts of regulations you're suggesting cost California the privilege of hosting Uber's self driving program.
Funny how the pile on is targeted at Uber and the tech, when this is a test vehicle with a human driver who was hired to be responsible to monitor, respond, and override the computer at all times.
The human failed. Blame the computer. Makes sense.
But it's obvious that riding long stretches in an automatic car is going to lead to people getting bored and distracting themselves and not paying attention. It's a HUGE topic in every discussion on self-driving cars. It's why Teslas require you to grab the wheel every 15 seconds.
Uber should have short shifts, bans on personal cell phones, attention and tiredness tracking (which IIRC Volvos already have!) etc, etc to combat this. But they don't actually care, it's just a regulatory checkmark, so they stick some minimum wage warm body in there on a full-time shift and this is what happens when it gets late.
Other safety-conscious know that humans will cut corners and hence have tricks like safety interlocks, double-checks, multiple people involved etc to combat that. In aerospace you can't just say "well the maintenance guy shouldn't have done that, 300 people died and it was all his fault" - you have redundant systems, verifications, checks, etc.
edit: from the article, Uber used to have two safety drivers in each car, but cut it down to one for whatever reason
> When Uber moved to a single operator, some employees expressed safety concerns to managers, according to the two people familiar with Uber’s operations. They were worried that going solo would make it harder to remain alert during hours of monotonous driving.
They knew this was going to be unsafe but did it anyway
There can certainly be arguments about whether the kind of miles driven are equivalent here, but with more than two order of magnitude difference it hardly matters. I expected Uber to trail behind the top a bit, but I didn't expect that kind of huge difference.
This looked bad from the start for Uber, and it's only getting worse. I can understand that tests on public roads are necessary to actually achieve the goal of autonomous driving. But that step should come after sufficient tests in controlled environments that indicate that you got the basics down.
They were forced out if California because their system didn't work so they just put it on roads in Arizona instead and killed someone.
Edit: grammar
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2016/dec/15/ube...
It seems like all information available to us suggests the polar opposite.
I actually made eye contact with the driver, and expected her to slow down (I was right in the middle of the street). Instead she sped up to get through the crosswalk ahead of me.
We have no information at all about the progress Waymo is making. All we've seen so far are a few videos produced by for PR under highly controlled conditions.
There's basically zero transparency here.
I think uber is basically pretending to develop a self driving car.
To be fair, Uber is not necessarily acting badly -- especially since AZ doesn't appear to care either way -- having the safety driver is ostensibly supposed to make the AV at least as safe as if it were a regular human-driven car. I hope during the investigation we find out whether Uber made it clear to its human drivers that they had to be at least as alert as if they were driving a normal car.
A quick Google[1] suggests the average stopping distance of a human traveling 35mph is 95 feet (including reaction time.) The promise of autonomous is 60 feet. If the human decides to stop at 60 feet, it's too late. If they stop before that, how do they know if the vehicle is working properly?
Horribly horrible drivers here.
Summertime, not so bad -- nobody willingly comes to Phoenix when it's 117° except the conventioneers who don't have a lot of money to burn and get a discounted rate on hotels and the convention centers.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-state-has-the-wor...
Google is playing chess, uber is playing checkers. Dont be fooled just because the board looks the same.
For reference’s sake, here are the disengagement ratios for the companies who operate in California, which requires such disclosures:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/...
Waymo averaged more than 5,000 miles per disengagement, fwiw. Though as the link mentions, the definition of “disengagement” can vary
No wonder Uber stopped driving in California, they didn't want people to see in what disastrous state their technology is. It's honestly ridiculous how reckless they are, all in the name of "winning" and being first.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disen...
Also of note from [1]: apparently California is just weeks away from allowing AVs with no human operators. I'm guessing Uber wouldn't have been ready to try that out in any reasonable scale (if the state of the program is as bad as the internal docs say), though the cynical person in me thinks that, if the AZ fatality hadn't happened, they might have had a non-human-assisted AV in SF just to get some slice of the publicity.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14062926/uber-self-drivi...
[1]
The most important components, like the Lidar systems, are all third party and non-exclusive.
And the likely current market leader in the tech - Waymo - has made many indications that they see their largest opportunity as providing the technology through partnerships.
Heck there's even been noise recently that Uber IS trying to license Waymo's tech (1)
And then you have major auto manufacturers are also pouring BILLIONS into the space because guess what - they still want to sell cars without having to pay a Waymo tax!
Today Uber owns 70 - 80% of the current US ride sharing market and are in ~700 other international cities (2).
And they have thousands of employees that act as local stewards of ride sharing etc, real infrastructure on the ground & politically that should give them some cushion to sort things out.
So yes, maybe Uber's valuation would take a hit if they relied on Waymo, or an auto manufacturer.
But maybe Travis' infamous quote about "I have to be tied for first at the least." needs another look or revision at this point? (3)
Maybe it's ok for Waymo to be first in a field of their own if it means not killing fucking pedestrians?
(1) https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/05/uber-waymo-partnership-f...
(2) http://www.businessofapps.com/data/uber-statistics/
(3) http://www.businessinsider.com/travis-kalanick-interview-on-...
This is very likely to be the plan.
That is now. But at the time Uber made its decision to develop self-driving cars, the auto manufacturers had just gone through a bruising financial crisis and were skeptical about this new self-driving technology. Uber recognized it as an existential threat before anyone else and did not want to rely on an industry with a poor reputation for management and technology investment.
Arizona should consider improving their regulations to try to avoid additional fatalities.
I think they also spent $500M to make their own maps when you could use any of the popular mapping APIs out there.
My feeling is that if someone else has self driving technology, Uber has no way of adding value. Tesla, Waymo, whoever - will simply run a taxi service themselves and reap more profits.
It's possible that a smaller self driving company might not have the capital to start an actual fleet, but I feel like investors would go for it as it'd be a pretty sure bet, provided the technology is solid.
I think Uber outright acquiring another company that has the technology is more likely - again, that company would probably also just start their own taxi service, but it might work if they have different goals - the owners may simply be looking for a short term payout.
Uber knows that. All they have is a userbase with an app installed, which isn't of as much value as it is for say, a social media app, because there's no network effect. You don't have to use the same taxi service as your friends do. People will be more than happy to switch to a different service if the price is competitive and it doesn't have a bad reputation.
It's not impossible they'd licence self driving tech, but I doubt the economics of it.
They have no history of operating in that market. It's a major undertaking to compete across the globe. The other transportation companies will now be their competitor, and will refuse to buy their cars. They may not be successful because of marketing, positioning, etc.
If they refrain from that.. they can sell their cars to Uber, Lyft, et al.. which we already know the manufacturer is good at. They can sell their cars to multiple transportation companies that can offer varying levels of premium features; differentiate themselves with marketing; etc. And they can sell a large number of cars to Uber more immediately, since Uber is already in so many cities. They also won't need to deal with cab regulators in each city, etc.
Manufacturers sell their cars to dealerships who stock their cars on their lot until they sell.. this lets the manufacturer turn over inventory faster. If they built a transportation network, they would need to maintain those assets on their books.
If it were simple, I think we would see more manufacturers operating rent a car services. But we don't.
Proves my point. Having expertise in building cars, doesn't translate over into running a transportation company. They're two separate enterprises.
Uber isn't going to go out of business just because someone else produces the cars.
I'm not saying setting up and running a company like Uber is an easy task, and I acknowledge that not every company vertically integrates everything they possibly could, but I don't feel like the hurdles to running a taxi app are as significant for a car company as they would be for entering other related markets.
Uber and Lyft don't even have taxi stands, drivers have to come from a much larger distance than even cabs, yet their usage is some multiple of taxis even with the inconvenience.
With SDC, having access to monopoly power locations will be less of an issue. And with Mercedes and BMW already sprinkled throughout an area, cars are usually close.
I think there is merit in someone having learned all of the issues with running a transportation company, but it isn't a billion dollar lesson, it is a low tens of millions of dollar lesson.
But I don't think being first has much merit, I think the margins will quickly shrink to zero within 5 years of SDCs and we will see a couple major auto manufactures go bankrupt. Ironic if the self driving car of the future is a bipedal android that makes any car a self driving car. Turning a 15k Hyundai electric into an autonomous vehicle.
That's true, but then Uber can just run at a loss until someone else develops self-driving tech and sells it to Uber.
Instead we get a weak story about "pressure building before the CEO visit" and a bunch of blame on the unknowing scrubs Uber has "test-driving" them.
Yes, I know hindsight is 20/20, but that's exactly why an incoming CEO is brought in. Everyone was saying autonomous vehicles was Uber's only possible future... he saw the internal reports, he knew his (or should have) talent (was it "techbros" or computer scientists?).
I feel this is the real inflection point for Uber.
Their expertise is in UI, routing algorithms, and business development. There is nothing in their background that indicates they should have any competitive advantage in building autonomous vehicles over Google/Waymo, the proverbial 800-pound gorilla of everything AI, or GM/Cruise, with experience in safety-critical engineering and oodles of capital to throw at the problem.
Sure, base your business model on the eventual development of driverless cars, but buy the damned things from the professionals, eh?
Really? Who can sit for even 30 minutes with their arms out in front of them without getting sore?
However fast they were progressing towards real AVs they'll be progressing slower now. And even then it looks like they are behind their competitors.
If I could short Uber I would.
> When a navigation system performs well over extended periods, drivers may no longer feel they need to pay close attention. Indeed, many psychological studies show people have trouble focusing their attention when there is little or nothing to attend to. In such situations, they tend to reduce their active involvement and simply obey the automation. There is already ample evidence drivers disengage from the navigation task when the automation is programmed to lead the way. But how pervasive is this? Casner and Schooler found even well-trained airline pilots report engaging in copious amounts of task-unrelated thought, or "mind wandering," when an advanced navigation system is being used and all is nominally going to plan.
It may be reasonable to ban night-city autonomous near the beginning of the technology's public introduction driving, regardless of how well the car can see at night.
1) the person needs to be qualified as a true test driver (experienced auto engineer, professional driver with sufficient experience)
2) physical fitness, especially ability to stay awake and documented measured reaction times
3) strict rules on distractions, random checks
4) engineering measures for staying alert (sounds, tasks etc.)
5) limits on driving times, documented work logs and much more
and plenty more. Someone in Uber should have had the tasks making sure the tests are done as safe as possible. That person would have needed the qualifications and authority to affect the test execution.
The biggest problem is imho. that Uber does not have to produce self driving technology but only needs to be seen as working on the leading edge of it to sustain their financial storyline.
Maybe put a bunch of them in a test track area like this one in Concord, California. Gomentum is Silicon Valley's secretive test track for self-driving cars:
https://www.cnet.com/videos/inside-silicon-valleys-secretive...
I do agree that there needs to be a minimum requirement you should reach before being allowed to drive on public roads. Companies should not be alpha testing with human lives.
The test bed should have the 'average moving car density' equivalent to that of an SF/NYC neighborhood.
Let the robots test themselves and risk their 'lives' first before putting real human lives in the mix!
But yeah some sort of random pedestrian/animal/debris in the road testing seems like it will be crucial to prevent this sort of accident from happening again.
As I thought, it seems extremely likely that Uber is going to cancel the project now. Ethically there would have to be some kind of meticulous safety audit which would put them even further behind the competition. Even if they wanted to continue, there's hardly any point.
Then there’s the tech-focused issue of why Uber’s AV could not stop or even slow down when encountering a human-shaped object that seems to have been visible for several seconds before impact. Part of Uber and other companies’ pitch for AV is that it has better than human reaction and detection time.
Not sure if the human with bicycle was sprinting across the road either.
From the NYT article it seems that Uber's self-driving car systems may have terrible performance. Worse than humans performance is very likely at this point, especially when they seem to have this attitude towards self-driving cars:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17144090/uber-car-acciden...
Also, either Uber may have potato cameras worse than a smartphone camera, or someone made that Uber video look so dark:
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-...
Self driving car hardware is trivially capable of detecting a person walking in the road 80 feet in front of you. We should set our standards based not just upon meeting human performance, but also upon doing extra things that are well within the system capability.
Every driver (or equivalent) has a responsibility, be it legal or moral, to use all reasonable means to avoid crashes, injuries, and loss of life.
No one will accept autonomous vehicles that do anything less. If anything, an autonomous vehicle may be expected to avoid risk to humans by suffering self-damage.
Dash cams are of low quality, which means such low light situations are hard for dash cams, but easy for the human eye. That means, if the drive should have take attention, the situation could have been prevented.
Second, every modern technology can cope with this situation, except Uber. A regular Volvo XC90 would have enganged emergency braking, which is called City Safety.
But speaking as a sometime camera enthusiast and photographer, I don't believe there any digital camera yet that comes close to capturing the dynamic range of the human eye.
Look at a still from the video. The exposure is such that the street lights are basically pinpoints that seem to illuminate little more than the patch of ground immediately beneath them. Anyone who has seen municipal street lights (or even the shitty ones on a country road) should be able to tell that that can't possibly be the actual amount of light at the scene [1]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XOVxSCG8u0
a screenshot directly comparing the two images, appologies for the dumb meme crap
https://i.imgur.com/eSre3hL.png
There is absolutely no way the uber video is an accurate potrayl.
But that was before I saw this thread and realized it wasn't even dark. If it couldn't even see a human in that lighting to even slow I don't know why this shouldn't be considered murder by negligence (whatever the legal term is) at every level from uber, engineers, the driver. And why the police chief is not being asked to explain his comment and defense of Uber.
I also find it in bad taste to blame this woman for her own death. There may have been a good reason she didn't see the car coming, but we won't ever know, will we?
Not only, it shifts focus from the actual issue.
Once said that the poor woman, may she R.I.P., may or may not have concurred to the accident, the focus should be on the actual performance of the driving system.
Where I live it is common (not every-day common, but every-couple-weeks or every-month common) that while I drive home at night (plain, normal country road, with speed limits between 60 and 90 km/h) and far less public lighting than what is seen in the Uber video that any of:
1) deer/roebuck
2) boar
3) porcupine or other smaller animals such as cats, foxes, weasels
suddenly decide they want to go to the other side of the road just when I am passing.
I never happened to hit any of them, but it happens from time to time to find in the morning some of the smaller animals killed on the road.
Collisions with deers and boars as well do happen but they are maybe 1/100th or 1/1000th or 1/10000 of the "crossings", I remember having seen in several years only a handful of these accidents.
For the record, the boars are usually more predictable, you can often see them on the side of the road before they cross whilst deers and roebucks simply appear out of nothing before your car.
Even if it is a single anecdata with "vague" numbers, my experience is that on average human drivers don't hit "suddenly crossing" living creatures very often, and even when that happens/happened I have always seen evident signs of braking.
Even if we value 0 the life of these wild animals, the damage to the car when one of the large animals is hit is not trivial and then there is the shock, the risk of the car be driven off road by the impact, some (hopefully minor) injuries to the drivers or passengers.
All in all, while it would be unrealistic to expect "perfection" from an autonomous car driving system, the possibility of someone/something suddenly crossing the road in front of the vehicle should be part of the testing with some solid evidence that the reaction of the software is on average not worse than the average of human drivers, and possibly much better.
I can't speak for Uber and its engineering team, but I doubt they find it flattering when people defend their AV performance by comparing it to 70-year old grandmas.
In any case, it's less about the law or even who is at fault, and more about level of safety expected from self-driving vehicles and how to improve it. This is going to be investigated like an airline crash would, and the investigation should show what needs to be fixed.
In the USA laws vary by state -- in California it is typically almost always incumbent on the driver to avoid pedestrians.
I've also traveled to countries like Jordan where the driver is always at fault, and fatally striking a pedestrian would have lifelong consequences for a driver.
Maybe you should reconsider the law.
I want self driving car accidents to evolve like airline crash investigations not traffic fatality ones.
A selfdriving car should be able to stop a lot faster than a train, and has instruments that is supposed to be able to see an obstacle even in bad light.
https://www.azleg.gov/ars/28/00793.htm
However, I still think Uber violated 28-794.1 and .3.
Notwithstanding the provisions of this chapter every driver of a vehicle shall:
1. Exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on any roadway.
2. Give warning by sounding the horn when necessary.
3. Exercise proper precaution on observing a child or a confused or incapacitated person on a roadway.
1. that they perceive the situation in the same way you do
2. that their interpretation and application of the rules to the current situation is the same as yours
3. that they are currently able to control their body and vehicle sufficiently to follow the rules
4. That their vehicle does not malfunction
Can we accept that people walking across streets is a common occurrence? A driver, be it software or wetware, must be able to handle this.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/pedestrian-cross...
The pedestrian had the right-away in this particular situation.
EDIT :: Looks like I read that first sentence wrong (my apologies)... "Vehicles must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians within a crosswalk that are in the same half of the roadway as the vehicle or when a pedestrian is approaching closely enough from the opposite side of the roadway to constitute a danger"
Growing up in AZ I was always told that pedestrians ALWAYS have the right away - something I always thought was strange.
I do stand correct however.
If a pedestrian is inside a crosswalk they almost always have the right of way. Outside a crosswalk it is not the case.
"Pedestrians must yield the right-of-way to vehicles when crossing outside of a marked crosswalk or an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. Where traffic control devices are in operation, pedestrians may only cross between two adjacent intersections in a marked crosswalk."
"Vehicles must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians within a crosswalk that are in the same half of the roadway as the vehicle or when a pedestrian is approaching closely enough from the opposite side of the roadway to constitute a danger"
Growing up in AZ I was always told that pedestrians ALWAYS have the right away - something I always thought was strange.
I do stand correct however.