A self-driving Uber killed a woman. The backup driver pleaded guilty
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
https://youtu.be/zdKCQKBvH-A?t=742
I wouldn't trust any of the others like Tesla and Uber that think self-driving is easy. And Tesla with their cost-saving no LIDAR nonsense.
These companies should be fined hefty amounts and barred from testing out in public.
And if that request included "All tests will be done under supervision of a driver that will intervene in case of issues", then... why not?
Plus, if California didn't approve it, these big companies would move their operations to a state that did approve it.
It's the opposite of a safety system like ABS that monitors brakes and wheels at all times and kicks in immediately if a human does something stupid.
EDIT: May actually have been this very accident - I can't find the link though
But the driver wasn't paying attention. They were watching stuff on their phone and killed someone. They were responsible for the car, not Uber and its self-driving systems - that she was responsible for testing and overseeing.
I'm kinda happy for her that her punishment is fairly mild - I mean after all she'll have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life - but she's definitely responsible for it.
This is an odd statement. She killed someone. Feeling bad about it is irrelevant imo. And living with guilt is not the equivalent of time served.
I agree with your point about the driver but disagree with this. Tesla is testing it's product on people without their consent. In this case, their technology failed and it resulted in the death of someone who did not consent to being part of a autonomous vehicle test.
You mentioned that people see better than cameras in scenarios like this, but I think there's a broader point to be made: Do not over-drive your headlights. If a driver cannot stop within the distance they can see ahead, they are objectively going too fast.
This person on the bike stepped in from the side.
That said, DOT headlights are significantly worse than ECE headlights when it comes to illuminating the road in a way that I am comfortable. Even with high-beams on the throw of the light for DOT lights is significantly less than for ECE.
And I've driven the same car with the same lights on both continents (BMW 3-series w/ LED).
What seems odd to me, is the lady pushing her bike across the road, takes over 2seconds from when the lights first illuminate her shoes, to the point she turns her head to face the car.
Dont know if alcohol et al was a factor, but in some incidences the UK police would have possibly have labelled this as "death by misadventure" or something to that effect. She just doesnt react.
Either way I wouldnt have been on my phone like the driver was, I've had a person release an animal in front of me at night from a central reservation of a dual carriageway with me nearest the armco barriers. The two cars behind me which I had previously overtaking that were now blocking the road slowing up the traffic also alerted me to something being up before I saw the block in the central reservation crouched down.
I thought it was odd to see someone crouched down and then I saw the what looked like a munctjac deer being released so I wasnt going to hang around for what seemed like a life threatening trap which could have been security services.
And I say that because I met Parker, Evans, and Rimmington, Parker in one walking location years ago and then Evans and Rimmingtom together whilst out hill walking in another location. Their driver who dropped them off from a black ford galaxy or vw sharon type vehicle kind of alerted me to something being up as I watched them from a distance.
Those who authorised testing this on public roads should also go to jail.
They removed safety features that could have prevented this from the car so they could cram more gadgets in. Their software didn't detect pedestrians unless there was a crosswalk. This machine had no business being on the road, the people that made the decision to do it anyway knew it would kill people, did a cost benefit analysis and a risk assessment, determined that the number of people it would kill was acceptable and continued on. They put people at keyboards as fall guys. 1000%, the executives and managers who green lit this should he in prison for it right now.
The road in question is more or less a highway, and a car in the Uber's position would've just come off the bridge, traveling at least 35mph, and have also passed under the very busy freeway above it. It's a bustling interchange, but it was still late on a dark, balmy Sunday night. It's basically not possible to properly illuminate the whole road in this stretch.
To the west of the road is a medium-sized, popular concert venue, where alcohol is served at shows. To the east of the road is a small but popular city park, which does not have many amenities, and it would've been closed or close to closing at this time of night.
Herzberg was found to be high on crystal meth and marijuana at the time of death. She had a criminal record and had previously been incarcerated for drug-related offenses.
Herzberg had improperly laden her bicycle with many shopping bags. It was not a vehicle at this point, but more like an unstable shopping cart. Did it have lights? This is not mentioned in the report.
There was a crosswalk available, several yards up the road. The crosswalk at the intersection is well-illuminated, and there is a traffic signal. The Uber vehicle would have been subject to any red light or pedestrian right-of-way at this point.
Herzberg was well-committed to crossing the street and it is said she had already crossed two lanes. Perhaps those are the southbound lanes: Mill Avenue is at least 4 lanes wide at the accident site, and there is also a separate right-turn lane at Curry Road.
Therefore, Herzberg should have been able to see a well-illuminated Uber vehicle with headlights on, but Herzberg was under the influence, and perhaps also under the impression that a driver would yield or stop upon noticing such a pedestrian.
Now the liability in a car vs. pedestrian accident will fall on the vehicle by default, but of course it doesn't hurt us to walk in a crosswalk and obey traffic signals, in order to preserve the innocence and be indemnified against any accusation of negligence, should an accident happen to us.
A very tragic situation, and Herzberg's Facebook page is in a memorialized state, for anyone who wishes to get to know her a little bit better, it's all still there for us to see.
Also the automated emergency braking system was disabled at the time.
Question, does anyone know why the lights seem so dim?
Several people have reported that it's the video that was dim and if you actually went to the road in question it appears much brighter in real life.
does this : https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-... need more illumination?
>Herzberg was found to be high on crystal meth and marijuana
she could have been an African Elephant for all law cares, dont try victim blaming in a case of car plowing thru pedestrian without even trying to use brakes.
But also don't make martyrs out of victims. If I were to get drunk/drugged, and decided to walk into a dangerous neighborhood, at night, and someone stabs me, I am the victim, I am in the right, and I am also an idiot for deliberately putting myself in a very dangerous situation.
We should support victims, but we shouldn't normalize or overlook self-destructive behaviors. Both driver and victim were wrong, and fortunately the driver pleaded guilty, because he was much more in the wrong.
Why would this entirely predictable occurrence during a self-driving testing program have shocked Uber?
I'm always aghast at this, we call things that happen on the road "accidents" as if it's "oops, I killed you, sorry". The language of reporting isn't on the drivers "car killed pedestrian", rather than "driver killed pedestrian".
The deaths by vehicles is astonishing, last year in the USA 42,795 people died in road traffic incidents ( https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crash-death-est... ), in the UK the number is 1,695 ( https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... ).
In the USA alone, that's 117 people per day.
Virtually no-one who owned the set of decisions that led to those deaths face any consequence of any kind... for ending someone's life.
When the article says "Getting behind the wheel of a car is a serious responsibility"... there are no real consequences for the individuals involved for their choices, and choices should have consequences.
Driving too fast in rural areas, not paying attention, not keeping your car in good repair, being under the influence... these are all choices, and choices should have consequences.
The consequences should be significant enough that they disincentivise that behaviour in everyone else, which means never being able to drive again, jail time, significant and meaningful financial penalties (with a large portion paid to the victims family).
3y probation, as an outlier exceptional example of consequences, shows the priority is on vehicle use rather than people's lives.
I'm not sure whether this was your point, but USA population is just under 5 times the UK population, but that US road deaths figure is more than 25 times the UK one.
Of course, the nature of UK city centres and geographic size means that there is bound to be more travelling by car in the US in the first place. But at least part of the difference has to be a different emphasis on road safety in the UK compared to the US.
per 100k per 100k per 1 billion
inhabitants motor vehicles vehicle km
per year per year
---------- -------- ----------
UK 2.9 5.7 3.8 (in 2010)
USA 12.9 16.1 8.3 (in 2022)Perhaps per unit time spent driving would be closer, but still not there.
But that's all to say, I think the UK numbers are better than the USA ones by an even larger factor than they appear.
Well, the numbers I gave only concern "deaths by vehicles", not "accidents". ("Accident" is a misnomer as it's a marketing term used to normalize car collisions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident#Accidents_by_vehicle .)
The death rate increases with speed, and I think US policies encourage higher speeds than the UK. UK cars also tend to be smaller and lighter, which reduces the size of the blind spots and the fatality rate of collisions.
We can surely do better than my stats as there are a lot of publications on this topic.
New York State, which similiar to the UK in regards to one massive metropolis, several large cities, and then lots of rural areas, has 5.8 deaths per 100k.
Mississippi, which even its big cities are completely car dominated has 26.2 deaths per 100k.
It comes down to a lot of things. When less of your population is driving, you're going to have less death. Big city streets are usually congested which slows vehicle speeds which in turns reduces deaths, and its politically difficult to slow cars down in a car dependent culture, as most people want to speed. I'll also point out that for a lot of the south and midwest, you drive to the bar and you drive away from the bar. They make bars with 50+ parking spots and then say "Don't drive drunk!".
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...
An ambulance in the UK is never more than 8 minutes away from you, an ambulance in the US can be miles from you.
So when looking at the deaths metric, yes the US looks bad, but sometimes, you might be kept alive in the most horrific condition here in the UK.
I've asked around the ambulance service to see if they have anything to identify the person and then decide if it would be nicer to be swiftly put out of my misery, sadly nothing exists. The default position to keep people alive hell or high water is order of the day!
That's psychological torture the British govt is carrying out on me and there aint no law for that!
I have certain metrics, that if they occurred, I'd like to be euthanised on the spot, but the govt via the NHS and ambulance service wants to carry on experimenting with me and millions more, like a preface to the story and film Terminator.
When I watch Andy Murray walking onto centre court at Wimbledon lawn tennis club, I have the theme tune to Terminator[1] playing in my head, because I know he has an artificial hip. I also know how to avoid those and it costs less, than the GDP inducing cost of artificial joints.
Still I'm sure the surgical process will be streamlined into a factory process and possibly even automated for the battle field to get those little soldiers back up and fighting fit as quickly as possible in the future.
So is it any wonder Motability is the largest fleet provider in Europe, the largest buyer of cars in the UK, buying 10% of all cars on the road.[2]
If they disappeared, do you think the country would hit all its transport targets for pollution and numbers on the road?
Surprising how the taxpayer is used to fund its own problems dont you think?
Do you think the British govt via Motability is lowering the bar for self driving cars here in the UK?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRRmT5aBZzY
[2] https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/motability-a-brie....
Good.
If I were in such an accident, I would want to be kept alive until such time as I could make decisions for myself; I absolutely do not want to be in a place where first responders are expected to decide for me while I'm unconscious.
> like a preface to the story and film Terminator.
???
Edit: read the profile, can't tell if psychosis, Markov chain, or trolling.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/ambulance-response... says 8 minutes is the average response time for the "Category 1: Life-threatening" category, with the 90 percentile at 15 minutes. Less serious categories have longer times.
An ambulance in the UK can be miles away from you too, along narrow country roads. In both the UK and US, the places the most distant from ambulance service also tend to have very low populations and fewer call for ambulance services.
Here are statistics for the US specifically "for Patients With Suspected Stroke" published 2022: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/STROKEAHA.121.037509 . The numbers are in the supplementary data at https://www.ahajournals.org/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10... .
Median response time is 7 minutes with 90-percentile at 14 minutes.
About the same as the UK.
On the point of remote area's the RAF will fly helicopters (typically Seakings) over popular area's like Mount Snowdon in Wales, to ping peoples phones and get a handle who is in the places with no cell tower signal.
Quite surprised to see the US beating the UK on this metric!
And yet you see these secret service vehicles turn up out of nowhere on youtube video's and people still disappear never to be seen again. Most odd.
Both the UK and US have different requirements for remote areas.
In the supplementary data for the paper about the US, I previously referenced Table II. "Median and 90th percentile prehospital time intervals in minutes for ground transports". Table III is "Median and 90th percentile prehospital time intervals in minutes for air transports", giving an overall time of "20 (13-28)" minutes for median and "35" minutes for 90th percentile.
While I can't find a recent UK source, I did find https://www.jems.com/equipment-gear/response-times-myths44-m... :
> A national standard (including both urban and rural areas) was established in 2001. The most critical emergency calls, referred to as “Category A” calls, have a response time requirement of eight minutes and zero seconds, with a 75% compliance requirement, and the additional stipulation that 95% of these calls must be reached within 14 minutes in urban areas and 19 minutes in rural areas.
I don't know what the current requirements are, and I don't know what the current times are - my point was only to show that those have different requirements.
In any case, where there are fewer people there's also (outside of tourist areas like Snowdon) proportionally less need for emergency services. I doubt the UK has ever had to send an air ambulance to Rockall, though certainly HM Coastguard have needed to rescue someone from there.
I don't know what you refer to with "secret service vehicles", much less how it's relevant.
I was watching a youtube video that was on teh front page of youtube, and it was some bloke somewhere in the US, a rural location, he was filming a piece on his phone and all of a sudden all these secret service cars turned up which shocked him, because he thought he was on his own in a rural location. I dont know if it was near anything of importance or not.
How does he know they are secret service, and not FBI or other organization?
Camp David, the country retreat for the President of the United States, is in rural Catoctin Mountain Park. Was he there, or some place similar (like near where Cheney was hunting)?
So many questions, and I don't see why answering any or all of them have any bearing on the topic.
Most US road traffic deaths happen in cities and towns. Time to ambo is a factor, but it's not nearly as significant as you say.
> The default position to keep people alive hell or high water is order of the day!
This is a bizarre claim and it is untrue, and evidence free.
> I have certain metrics, that if they occurred, I'd like to be euthanised on the spot, but the govt via the NHS and ambulance service wants to carry on experimenting with me and millions more, like a preface to the story and film Terminator.
Most countries in the world do not allow euthanasia. I'd recommend you look at Advance Directives which is currently the closest you'll get in England. https://compassionindying.org.uk/how-we-can-help/living-will...
> This is a bizarre claim and it is untrue, and evidence free.
Have you been trained in first aid? The law used to be that first aid needed to be given until a doctor declared the person dead.
One of my red cross trainers, told us how he got into trouble with a judge at coroners court, when someone suicided in front of train ending up in parts spread quite a distance. They had to gather what they could, but there was no way first aid could have been administered, but they did their best to collect the parts. Ambulance or doctor turned up declared the person dead.
At the coroners court, the red cross first aider was giving their account to the judge, and made the mistake of referring to the person as dead before the ambulance or doctor had declared them dead. The judge tore him another arsehole!
Now this is going back a few decades, different train designs like european hgv trailers have underbelly side impact bars, but that red cross trainer told us, how we have to be careful how we word things, if we end up in a situation which needs to go to court.
I doubt that red cross trainer is alive today, but it stuck with me all these decades and I owe it to them to make administering first aid less traumatic when those situations arise. They were dam good people!
This is what makes the law an ass, and treats the public as assets.
I've looked into the Lions things, and others like what you describe.
Most people have a mobile phone and whilst its got the emergency number facility where someone can call one or more of the emergency numbers on it, the security services know where everyone is. This was demonstrated when Lee Rigby was killed, but because it was military outside a barracks, ergo a potential premature act that could have been more like 911, every phone in the country was pinged to workout where everyone was. So the security services can work out who the likely victim is even before the ambulance staff have turned up.
So why cant the govt let people state in advance which can be updated at will, in the event of X, do this, and in the event of Y, do that.
If I was involved in an accident, there are some things I would want to refuse and just be euthanised.I have been Red cross trained in rescue situations, like earthquakes, mine shafts etc, but not up to date.
Everyone is going to be different, but with the technology and surveillance that exists today, I dont see why people have to be kept alive just because the law demands it, it removes our autonomy.
That loss of autonomy is how the legal system is ruining my mental health and I dare say others who wont speak out because its their job on the line! So how is that fair if the law is supposed to be there to protect us, when its causing some people mental health issues?
I'm also aware of police procedures to split a party up in the event of an accident which could be life threatening in order to find out if it was murder or not by someone in the group, in a scenario of someone falling down the side of a mountain. I'm also aware of how employees of the state use their kids as well, like the police using their kids to go check stuff out to spy on people!
Had it done to me at school by the police!
Sorry if that's a bit blunt. It would definitely be better if people were more safety aware.
Maybe making people watch videos like this as part of (re)training of drivers would be more effective?
I guess an analogy for this is that I don't change my behaviour after I buy a lottery ticket. Sure it is not technically impossible that I will be a millionaire soon. But I don't take the precaution of lining up a lawyer and a tax accountant because the chances of it coming to pass are so tiny...
Consequences should exist, and should be a deterrence against unsafe behaviour no matter the party. Consequences for corporations should be more significant than for individuals IMHO.
If Uber contributed to this in their training of their safety driver, the equipment in use, disabling built-in safety features, and so forth... then they should have penalties severe enough to adjust their behaviour too.
My thinking is that the more vulnerable a road user, the greater the ownership is on the less vulnerable, meaning the greater the consequences of their choices.
What I didn't do is limit "their" to just a driver / safety driver.
You need train and trams.
People kill each other with vehicles all the time, because apes that attempt to drive 2-ton metal canisters at 100 kph around other apes doing the same, and some apes on bicycles or walking by, will inevitably do something catastrophic.
I don't really blame the apes at the wheel, since they're trapped in a system that is much larger than them.
After a year or two of intentional driving experience leading to muscle memory, ape brains are wired to fall into comfortable inattention in these scenarios.
What can you do, other than give up driving and give up walking where cars go? We weren't designed to do this safely.
Against how many passenger miles or hours?
Even engineers become confused by LLM and think that it's so quirky that ChatGPT "hallucinates" when that's the nature of the technology. So how would you expect a layperson to actually know when they should apply the brake pedal in a moving vehicle that's supposed to drive itself (maybe)?
This is a bit more complicated than driving drunk and I'm fairly certain that the company responsible for the death did not seek a safety expert to copilot the vehicle, but rather any warm body willing to take an easy dead-end job.
I'd argue no, manganese needs to be quantified in the blood stream when drunk driving imo, the state doesnt do that, but might if the doctor is called to take a blood sample having refused a breath test at the road side and/or in the police station.
Manganese has a half life of 10seconds in the blood stream, and alcohol is very good at releasing it into the blood stream for elimination and thus deficiency. When is a drunk person or a baby or toddler, not suffering from manganism which can be likened to Parkinsons?
Plus there are some gut bacteria which will produce ethanol from sugars, which is why some people always blow positive for drink driving even when they have not been drinking.
Simply measuring alcohol is not enough, and if you happen to be able to blow you own trumpet, then many musicians will know that they can do a rebreathing trick, which means they will never fail a breath test, even if they fall out of the vehicle!
This normalization of huge, heavy cars on the road gets to me.
Isn't Ford a US company? Do you have evidence of this happening?
To others - this isn't true.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/ford-to-stop-selling-every...