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Comment by ironic_ali | Hacker News Reader

> The car had the right of way, it was not acting maliciously, and she walked right in front of it. According to AZ law, asking the car to make what might be a dangerous last second swerve into another lane or slamming on the breaks to avoid hitting her is not a legal obligation as these are unsafe maneuvers

My mother has dementia and until she was put into a secure home she had a habit of wandering. On three occasions she was picked up by police after midnight crossing the road.

Your defense of laws protecting drivers is fine, but doesn't cover outliers like my mother who would have been knocked down at least, killed at worst. Is that ok for laws to protect the driver/AI driver from running over pedestrians who have lost their personal safety faculties?

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> but doesn't cover outliers like my mother who would have been knocked down at least, killed at worst

So would it be ok if that self driving car did see the pedestrian walking down the freeway, tried to avoid the collision, looses control and end up running into the car coming the other way, killing all the passengers in both cars?

The car was traveling at high speed down a dual carriage way (i.e. freeway) in the middle of the night.

In a situation like that any sudden reaction by the on board computer is never going to end well.

So in Arizona after running over and killing a careless pedestrian, human drivers just drive on at the same speed with all care and attention and don't slam on the brakes in fear and panic and usually spin?

The car was traveling at 44mph. A speed reduction to even 14mph would have probably made the collision survivable. If your argument is that the car was unable to drop 30mph over several seconds without causing an accident or swerving into opposing traffic, I don't know - maybe the self driving isn't there and shouldn't be on the road at all.

That's a valid point to make in the general case, for times when you have no good option, and hitting the pedestrian in the crosswalk may be the lesser evil.

But in this case, hard breaking would have been plenty fine and with little downside risk (beyond the general problem of excessive unnecessary braking). The car's computer was aware of an obstacle in sufficient time, as would a human driver have been.

> hitting the pedestrian in the crosswalk may be the lesser evil.

I would not go so far as to say that, only because if that had been the situation then the car and it's onboard system would have to take the all the blame.

But in this case, based on the footage I saw the car was travelling down a freeway at high speed and at night.

Now some of the blame might be attributably to the car, but the real cause of the accident was the pedestrian walking down a freeway, so it seems clear most of the blame hast to be attributed to the pedestrian.

> But in this case, hard breaking would have been plenty fine and with little downside risk

Except to any cars that might be following behind that then end up ploughing into the back of that hard breaking car.

No offense but the problem here is your mother walking right out in the street. A car should absolutely not be liable for accidentally hitting someone or having to risk their own life just because someone confused and unobservant walks out right in front of it.

> someone confused and unobservant walks out right in front of it

You can spot such situations pretty easily if you pay attention.

> or having to risk their own life

Reducing speed and not hitting someone cannot be compared to risking your own life. You're turning the argument around and adding unneeded emotions to this.

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