Uber self-driving test car ...pedestrian death

[wizechatmgr]

That or they'll protect us from ourselves by driving us into the nearest river.

Anyone see the Sarah Connor twitter post on it? It was hilarious in that the gal didn't even know about the terminator franchise... People started talking about skynet and all the usual expected banter...

[93Regina]

Velodyne says their LIDAR system that appears to be installed atop the vehicle absolutely should have imaged the pedestrian pushing a bicycle even in the dark. But it is up to Uber's software, that Velodyne isn't involved with, to interpret the data and make decisions.

John Krafcik, chief executive officer of Waymo, formerly Google’s autonomous vehicle project, said Waymo’s cars are intensively programmed to avoid such calamities.

“I can say with some confidence that in situations like that one with pedestrians — in this case a pedestrian with a bicycle — we have a lot of confidence that our technology would be robust and would be able to handle situations like that,” Krafcik said Saturday during a panel at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in Las Vegas.

[93Regina]

Arizona governor suspends Uber from autonomous testing

Monday, March 26, 2018

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey suspended Uber's self-driving vehicle testing privileges Monday in the wake of a pedestrian fatality in a Phoenix suburb last week.

Ducey said in a letter to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi that video footage of the crash raised concerns about the San Francisco-based company's ability to safely test its technology in Arizona. He said he expects public safety to be the top priority for those who operate self-driving cars.

"The incident that took place on March 18 is an unquestionable failure to comply with this expectation," Ducey said.
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On Friday, The New York Times reported that the company's own documents showed the testing program was rife with issues. They included trouble driving through construction zones and requiring far more human intervention than competing companies.

[mrbrian200]

The Volvo city safety system worked in that it identified he bicycle and called for emergency braking. But the system was disabled. ~1 second of full braking @ 40mph might have saved the pedestrian's life. I'm thinking the speed at impact might have been reduced from 40mph to somewhere between 20-30.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/se ... 0fc845e16a

[93Regina]

Uber driver was streaming Hulu show just before self-driving car crash: police report

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Police in Tempe, Arizona said evidence showed the “safety” driver behind the wheel of a self-driving Uber was distracted and streaming a television show on her phone right up until about the time of a fatal accident in March, deeming the crash that rocked the nascent industry “entirely avoidable.”

A 318-page report from the Tempe Police Department, released late on Thursday in response to a public records request, said the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, repeatedly looked down and not at the road, glancing up just a half second before the car hit 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who was crossing the street at night.
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[93Regina]

Update: Uber’s self-driving cars are returning to public streets—in manual mode
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There will now be two people—known as "mission specialists"—in each car. One of them will be responsible for driving the vehicle (or, later, monitoring the vehicle as it drives itself). The other person will "document notable events"—providing data and feedback that Uber engineers will later be able to use to improve the cars' performance.
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Perhaps most importantly, Uber says it will no longer disable the collision avoidance systems on its Volvo vehicles. At the time of the March crash, Uber had reportedly disabled this software, relying on the human driver to brake if the car was on a collision course.

[matthew1]

"This time, we'll have two people watching videos instead of only one."

Ok bad joke. (The crash driver was watching a video.)

[josephmlovretovich]

[spam link deleted, user deleted ] gather more information on the debate on uber self-driving in California.

Read here..... [spam link deleted, user deleted]

[93Regina]

...debate on ....self-driving...

I'm not sure there is a "debate." Essentially, all OEMs perceive a paradigm shift is coming, where autonomous vehicles (electric ridesharing, taxi, and personal vehicles) exist. But, a 5G wireless or satellite-based infrastructure must be in place. US government is subsidizing 5G wireless efforts, and in Europe, they too are thinking along these lines.

Some OEMs, like GM and Ford, are downsizing their fleets, due to lower sale volumes...which in US, is due to younger consumers not having enough disposable income. In cost saving news,

"VW plans to increase productivity of its factories by 30 percent by 2025 by building more vehicles from different brands on the same production line. It wants to lower the carmaker’s research and development ratio at the group’s automotive division to six percent of revenues from 2020 onward.
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Jobs are under threat because a combustion engined car has 1,400 components in the motor, exhaust system and transmission, while an electric car’s battery and motor has only 200 components, according to analysts at ING. "
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GM To Shutter Ontario Car Plant To Focus On Hybrids/EVs

GM plans to shut down its auto assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, in
order to focus on hybrids and zero emissions vehicles, resulting in
around 2,500 job cuts, according to reports that began circulating on
Sunday.
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Hence, the transition to electric vehicles will save OEMs billions and billions, and with more consumers using ridesharing and taxi means, with fewer personal vehicles being sold, there will be a push towards automated (self-driving) vehicles.

[93Regina]

Jml law

Footnote - Lawyer is blowing smoke, and did not do his homework. Uber disconnected Volvo's system, which would have prevented that accident.