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Comment by chirau | Hacker News Reader

Out of curiosity, what's with the emphasis on the pedestrian wearing black? Was it a night accident or something?

Yes. The video from the internal camera shows a pitch black night with almost no light and a black clad figure appearing out of nowhere. However this footage is quite disputed as this level of darkness would suggest that the car had basically no lights to speak of and that the roadside lightning did not work either, none of which were of course true.

They had Blue Jeans on and where moving a pink bike that had reflective surfaces. The dash cam was very deceptive, a normal driver would have easily seen this a long way off if the driver had been paying attention. On top of that Uber disabled the cars built in safety system that likely would have also worked.

> top of that Uber disabled the cars built in safety system that likely would have also worked.

What safety system? I haven't read anything saying this, so any source would be appreciated!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/uber-disa...

Re: sibling comment - they moved to a single lidar on the roof with their new vehicles. It has a ~3 meter blindspot around the car

At 45MPH you can't stop within 3 meter's. The car needed to break 20+ meters away to avoid hitting them.

A 3 meter blind spot around the car doesn't necessitate it can't see beyond 3 meters. Just as you have blind spots in your vision around your body (like you can't see your legs when looking directly forward) but you can see long distances.

The LIDAR is on the roof. I can see the roof blocking some things close to the car depending on how tall they are.

However, my point is what happens within 3 meters is irrelevant, the car needs to look ahead and brake much sooner than the last 15 feet to avoid hitting stuff.

I think we both agree then, I just mis-interpreted the emphasis of your point.

The dash cam doesn't show a figure appearing out of nowhere. It shows a person crossing the street in a slow and predictable manner as if she has no concern that the car speeding toward her will fail to see her and slow down. Her white shoes and blue jeans stand out in the video.

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