Tempe police investigating self-driving Uber car involved in deadly crash overnight

[still_one]

Source: ABC15 TV statation

The Uber vehicle was reportedly headed northbound when a woman walking outside of the crosswalk was struck. 
The woman was taken to the hospital where she died from her injuries. 

Tempe Police says the vehicle was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and a vehicle operator was also behind the wheel.

An Uber spokesperson told ABC15 they are aware of the incident and are cooperating with authorities. The investigation is still active. 


Read more: https://www.abc15.com/news/region-southeast-valley/tempe/tempe-police-investigating-self-driving-uber-car-involved-in-crash-overnight

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Reports are coming out on Bloomberg that Uber is pausing all Autonomous car tests in all cities after fatality

[brush]

1. The technology for self-driving cars is not sufficiently developed yet but adherents continue to...

push this onto our roads.

[Locrian]

2. with very little long term evaluation

what happens to all the fancy sensors, software (updates, patches) etc after a few years of real world use?

[brush]

7. Not to mention snow, ice, fog and unsensored roads.

[Egnever]

19. Very little?

millions of miles driven at this point every single minute of those miles logged and one at fault accident. These tests have been ongoing for over a decade now.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Been against it all along

always thumped by pro-technology engineers. name some technology that absolutely positively never fails in its life cycle. Or how can we make fail-safe conglomerations of systems all fail only after 5 or 10 years? I'm not seeing it or buying it

[Plucketeer]

5. Damn few humans

have truly perfect driving (or Jaywalking!) records these days!

[brush]

8. So why switch to self-driving systems that don't either?

[Egnever]

18. Because their safety is order of magnitudes higher.

[brush]

36. Except when they kill people.

[Egnever]

38. There is no evidence yet they killed anyone and even if there was

on average their record would still be better than humans.

[brush]

39. What do you think this thread is about? A woman in AZ was killed by a self-...

Last edited Mon Mar 19, 2018, 10:43 PM - Edit history (1)

driving car this morning.

[Egnever]

42. No

this thred is about a pedestrian that died jaywalking and an attempt to blame it on the car even though the actual cause is not yet clear.

It is entirely possible nothing could have avoided hitting her. Would that be the cars fault or the womans for darting out into traffic in the middle of the block?

Do you blame every pedestrian hit jaywalking on the driver of the car? and if so do you not understand that the rate that human drivers hit pedestrians is far far higher?

In 2013, there were 4,735 pedestrians killed (Table 1) and an estimated 66,000 injured (Table 2) in
traffic crashes in the United States. A total of 4,653 traffic crashes (Table 4) each had one or more
pedestrian fatalities. On average, a pedestrian was killed every 2 hours and injured every 8 minutes
in traffic crashes.

[brush]

43. Uber apparently is not as confident as you as they've pulled their...

self-driving cars nationally.

The technology still needs work.

[Egnever]

44. of course they did

it is the responsible thing to do untill what actually happened can be investigated.

Again the technology is already safer than your average driver and only gets better with time while human drivers will continue to suck forever.

[brush]

45. How are they doing in Midwest and Northeast winters?

[Egnever]

46. lol I am sure you can come up with hundreds of scenarios they cant do.

has no bearing whatsoever on what they can and are doing.

[brush]

47. What sense does that make? If they can't navigate bad weather and have...

to be grounded, how is that viable for companies or individuals who live in cold winter areas?

[Egnever]

48. who cares about drivers in cold climates

they are apparently Luddites who are not interested in the first place.



As someone who never sees snow I can't wait till we can get all the crap drivers off the roads where I live. Enjoy your shit driving conditions where people pile into each other all the time. I will be watching a nice netflix show as my car takes me safely wherever I want to go and comes back and gets me when I am done doing whatever I am doing.


All kidding aside.

Waymo announced on Thursday that it is bringing its Chrysler Pacifica minivans to the Detroit area to test how the company's technology performs in the region's harsh winters.

"Our ultimate goal is for our fully self-driving cars to operate safely and smoothly in all kinds of environments," Waymo CEO John Krafcik writes.

Krafcik says that Waymo has been doing cold-weather tests since 2012. But so far Waymo has done most of its testing in sunny places like Mountain View, California; Phoenix, Arizona; and Austin, Texas. where snow is rare. Waymo believes it has largely mastered driving in sunny climates and is preparing to launch a commercial service in the sun-drenched Phoenix area.

Ultimately, though, Waymo is going to want to offer service in snowy cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, and Boston.

"This type of testing will give us the opportunity to assess the way our sensors perform in wet, cold conditions," Krafick writes. "And it will also build on the advanced driving skills we’ve developed over the last eight years by teaching our cars how to handle things like skidding on icy, unplowed roads."

[brush]

49. Well now we'll see if they work in cold winters. If not companies will only be...

able to use them in half the country.

That's not feasible.

[Egnever]

50. why not?

most people never travel much further than a 50 mile radius day to day. Might not be useful to you but will be incredibly useful to people in LA and other high traffic areas that have decent weather.

Aside from just driving safety it provides a host of other benefits as well including increased productivity for all of those people who can take advantage of it. Not to mention the environmental impacts including huge swaths of land that will eventual be able to be re purposed from the massive parking lots that are now littered across those parts of the country.

What it might do is put all of those places that do have inclement weather at an extreme disadvantage as the productivity increases in the states that do have it will be off the charts. When you can spend your hour long commute working instead of driving how will the companies in the places where you can't compete?

[brush]

55. We'll see if the manufacturers can make a go of selling to only half the country.

[Egnever]

56. again the goal is not selling cars

the goal is providing car service.

Why pay the cost of owning a car when for a fraction of the actual cost of owning a vehicle I can have one at my disposal any time I need it?

Want to go to the store summon the car. Want to go to a movie or concert schedule a pickup with a desired arrival time and let the service work out when I need to leave to get there on time.

I don't want to have a car. I do because I enjoy driving but mostly because i have to have transportation. Give me an out that gets me to and from at a fraction of the cost and I will jump at it even more so when I don't have to drive and can actually get things done while i am being ferried wherever I need.

[brush]

58. Come on, they have to sell the cars to car services.

Actually the funds would be better spent for vastly improving our mass transit systems—light rail with univeral and reliable access in cities, high-speed rail between cities nationally, that makes much more sense.

[Egnever]

59. why?

waymo is a google company. Their plan is not to sell cars to individuals or other car companies.

Waymo already has a permit to run a transportation network company (that’s TNC, what you call a taxi or Uber) in Arizona, and is in the process of adding several thousand robo-minivans to its current, 600-strong, fleet.

The company has not revealed how much it will charge customers, how far its cars will be able to drive and in what conditions, or how it hopes to pull riders away from human-driven businesses like Uber and Lyft. Of course, those companies, along with others like Ford and General Motors, are racing to launch their own services of the self-driving sort within the next few years. GM is a good bet for the silver medal: It has pledged it will go to market sometime in 2019

[brush]

60. Someone has to pay for the cars, whether it be uber to offer their car service...

or Waymo/Gooble to make them and run their own car service.

Either car service model will have to decide if it's worth having warm weather and cold weather cars.

[Egnever]

62. again you state the somewhat obvious and ignore the fact they are doing just that.

and other companies are racing to try to compete.

Millions already spent working towards the conclusion you keep insisting wont happen. Seems like a huge waste of money if they haven't thought it through.

[brush]

63. Are you not getting that companies have to decide if they will have warm...

weather and cold weather cars?

If they do make that decision we'll see if it works better than having vehicles that work in all climates.

[Egnever]

65. I don't think you are thinking this through

you are basically saying that if you can't provide a service world wide it is not worth doing. You seem to be thinking in terms of individual ownership when that is not the goal at all.

It's sort of like saying yellow taxi would only exist if they could only drive in one state. Meanwhile there are tons of individual cab companies scattered across the nation.

Waymo or google only needs enough service to turn a profit. What scale that would require remains to be seen but google has very deep pockets and could take millions in losses for years before worrying about it. Make no mistake they are committed to it.

Permits for the service are already applied for and granted in several states pending testing. Over 600 waymo vehicles on the road currently doing that testing already with more in the works.

We are not far off at this point maybe two years maybe less and these services will start to go live. they are already functioning just not on a retail level as of yet.

[brush]

66. You're missing the point, which is companies will have to decide if it's...

economically feasible to, maintenance-wise, have warm weather fleets and cold weather fleets, or a fleet with all-weather cars.

Not rocket science.

[Egnever]

67. the point is they already decided and have committed to it.

again the permits are already in place the cars already on the road do you really think they are going to back out now?

[brush]

71. The cold weather issue is still to be resolved.

[jberryhill]

51. How is personal transportation EVER viable for the visually impaired

If I develop macular degeneration and go blind, I guess you’re fine with me being confined to my house.

[brush]

53. Different issue than whether driverless cars work in cold weather.

[jberryhill]

54. But if they dont work in cold weather, nobody should have them?

You know what else doesn’t work in cold weather?

By my estimate, 75% of the drivers in Delaware.

[brush]

57. The manufacturers will have to determine if they can make a go of marketing...

and selling to only warm weather areas.

We'll see.

Actually the funds would be better spent for vastly improving our mass transit systems—light rail with univeral and reliable access in cities, high-speed rail between cities nationally, that makes much more sense.

[mr_lebowski]

68. Not saying I disagree on better mass transit ... as well ... but I think you have a fundamental

disconnect somewhere in your thinking about all this. The automakers will just 'add on' what's needed for however many cars Waymo wants for AZ or wherever at the factory ... a vehicle doesn't have to be built 'ground up' to become a self-driving car. It needs some upgrades on the assembling line to get it 'self-drive ready', then the unit/brains gets added by Waymo, using their tech, on the cars they ordered 'special' from the car maker. The car maker just makes extra dough on the upgrade to an already existing model of the vehicle, paid for by the self-driving car company.

There's not really a 'separate models for separate climates' situation in play here. But if there is, it'll be like offering 2WD models for Phoenix, and 4WD models for the Lake Tahoe region. IOW, auto-makers already do this to some extent.

But, it'll likely be longer before the tech is ready for primetime in snowy conditions ... but when it is, it'll do much better than us, really.

[brush]

70. I've been saying all along that the tech is not ready for cold climates,...

one poster didn't seem to get and the conversation evolved into whether it would involved different models.

What you say about add-ons makes sense.

[Egnever]

73. Turns out I was right

The Uber had a forward-facing video recorder, which showed the woman was walking a bike at about 10 p.m. and moved into traffic from a dark center median. "It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode,” Sylvia Moir, police chief in Tempe, Arizona, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

[brush]

75. About what? It's still to be determined how they'll work in cold weather climates.

[Plucketeer]

25. Hmmmm

so you'd rather have a drunk or mentally unstable human at the wheel as opposed to having a car that's programmed to not drink or have a seizure en route?

[brush]

35. You left out runs over and kills people.

[Cha]

40. I think it's ridiculous..

self driving cars.. what could go wrong?

I know I wouldn't get in one.

[Plucketeer]

4. Another thing to consider is...

the local paper had reports of 3 different pedestrian deaths in two days. And you're not going to believe it, but in each case there were sober human drivers at the wheels of the offending vehicles!

[bucolic_frolic]

6. None of what you say makes self-driven cars fool proof

managing a bad idea with statistics does not change the reality

[dbackjon]

9. No - but the histronics over self-driving vehicles on this thread don't reflect that reality, either

Self-driving vehicles will never be perfect. Question is - can they be BETTER than human drivers?

If you want perfection, then we need to ban ALL vehicles.

[weissmam]

10. it also depends on what level of risk and liability you are willing to accept

and while a good portion of the risk can be mitigated , the liability in cases of a failures could be enormous to the point of being limiting

[dbackjon]

11. Why should the liability be any different from when human drive?

[bucolic_frolic]

16. Go ride a bicycle

maybe it will knock some sense into you

[dbackjon]

17. I ride bikes

More afraid of more afraid of human drivers.

[Igel]

27. There are more considerations than just safety.

If safety at all costs is the only metric, then we could easily reduce the risk of death from vehicular accidents in the next year to near zero.

It would cost more. It would be more difficult to use. The risk of accidentally saying 'no' to a person with rights would be much increased. We could put governors on cars, so that in certain areas the maximum speed that the car could reach would be 30, and prevent any speed above 65 in other areas. So many things we could do--but they'd all be infringing on people, and placing what some programmer's implementation of some bureaucrat's vision of what drivers should be above the bureaucrat's boss' vision.

"I'm going to limit your freedom for your own good" is seldom a great move. It's often been claimed, but most of the time the more restrictive the limitation the less the good.

[dbackjon]

30. Not sure what that has to do with the topic at hand.

Do you have other objections to self-driving cars other than how safe they are?

[Plucketeer]

24. So - NO self-driving cars

until they're perfect in every situation?

[Igel]

26. I assume there are only twice as many human-drive cars as autonomous?

Oh. Wait. Thousands of times more.

No, it's not a valid comparison, but since we don't seem to be interested in the validity of the comparisons, it's as good as any other so far.

[dbackjon]

12. Arizona official: 10 pedestrian deaths in week show a 'major crisis' (All human drivers)

The most recent deaths occurred in one accident Tuesday, when three pedestrians died, and one was in critical condition after an SUV hopped a curb in Fountain Hills.

hat accident came a day after two pedestrians were struck and killed by cars in separate accidents in Scottsdale and Tempe.

On March 9, three pedestrians were killed in separate collisions, two early that day and one that evening in Phoenix. The driver in the latter accident fled the scene.

On March 5 and 6, two pedestrians were killed and 1 critically injured in three separate incidents in Phoenix.


https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-breaking/2018/03/13/arizona-official-10-pedestrian-deaths-week-show-major-crisis/422808002/

[still_one]

13. How many self-driving cars are on the road compared to human drivers? Because of that fact, it is

NOT comparable at this time, especially taking into consideration that self-driving cars are still in their infancy

It should be also noted that this incident also involved a uber safety driver in the car that could have overrode the system, but it appears they didn't for some reason. Most likely they weren't paying attention.

Something went wrong. Whether it was hardware, software, or something else it needs to be determined, and also if it hasn't already been done, regulations and requirements need to be standardized

[dbackjon]

14. In Arizona, there are a lot of Self-driving cars

Governor Ducey has encouraged, and the GOP have given tax breaks to them to come to Arizona. (Of course, not in HIS Neighborhood). They test in my neighborhood. I see 50-100 different ones daily, from many different companies.

[jberryhill]

15. There is this thing called "statistical analysis"

Of course "something went wrong", and it could be that a pedestrian entered the roadway in a manner which would have been impossible to avoid, regardless of whether a human or a computer was at the wheel.

If you thought that self-driving cars would never be involved in collisions, or if that is even on the table, then that's simply crazy.

The question that remains to be seen is whether they are safer than the ones with humans at the wheel on any comparable basis.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-breaking/2016/08/04/phoenix-car-hits-pedestrian-central-near-camelback/88057038/

Phoenix pedestrian struck, killed by cab on Central Ave.

http://www.azfamily.com/story/28365833/pd-pedestrian-hit-by-cab-in-tempe-assaults-driver

PD: Pedestrian hit by cab in Tempe assaults driver

Taxicabs in Arizona driven by humans, hit people. Regularly. How do you explain that?

The relevant question is one of relative probabilities.

[greyl]

64. Don't smartphone while pedestrianing. nt

[Stuart G]

20. More information about this. California rejected the use of these autonomous cars.

But the Republican governor had no trouble saying, Arizona is ok with the idea.. I do not have a link, but that will be available again as the story evolves. This should destroy this jerks political career, but time will tell. He is running for reelection this November.

[Stuart G]

21. Republican governor Doug Ducey approved these cars.. He's running for reelection in November.

As noted California rejected the use of these cars. Ducey was sorry that this accident happened.

Douglas Anthony Ducey is an American businessman and politician who is the 23rd and current governor of Arizona. A member of the Republican Party, he was sworn in as governor on January 5, 2015. He was the state's treasurer from 2011 to 2015.

[Egnever]

23. Um no

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/26/17054000/self-driving-car-california-dmv-regulations

California will allow fully autonomous cars without safety drivers to test on public roads for the first time. The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles announced the change today, which outlines a permitting process for companies wishing to deploy driverless vehicles without anyone behind the wheel.

Today, the state’s Office of Administrative Law approved the regulations that would permit fully driverless testing. A public notice will go up on the DMV’s website on March 2nd, which starts a 30-day clock before the first permits can be issued on April 2nd. Companies can apply for three types of permits: testing with a safety driver, driverless testing, and deployment.

[Stuart G]

28. My guess is that this will be extended. No permits will be issued on April 2.

This accident will change this. I may be wrong. But we will see.

[Egnever]

34. I think that will depend a lot on the outcome of the investigation.

if it is found that this was an unavoidable accident I doubt a thing will change. If in fact it proves to be some sort of glitch then all bets are off at least temporarily.

[Egnever]

22. Wow! This sort of thinking is why we are declining as a nation.

Antonymous Vehicles are coming. More than that they are already here.

What you are displaying here is a deep set irrational fear based on nothing more than gut feeling. Millions of miles at this point on real roads with these autonomous cars and this is the first fatal accident and more than likely it will be determined it was completely unavoidable by anyone human machine you name it.

There are already like I said earlier millions of miles logged by these things and their saftey record so far is at least ten times better than the average driver.

This is coming if you like it or not and again is in fact already here and operational on streets here in america and all over the world. The countries that get in on this now will dominate the transportation industry for decades to come.

This will have a huge impact on our society from increasing road safety to reducing carbon emissions to reducing land waste. There are many reasons to embrace driver less cars and one not to and that one is irrational fear based on nothing.

if you can show any objective evidence that these cars are not on average much safer than human drivers I am open to seeing it. That said by every metric I have seen in the testing so far they exceed the safety of human drivers by at least a factor of 10.

That said they do seem to be rear ended more by humans than your average driver but so far the evidence points to that being caused autonomous obeying the laws where people don't expect humans to such as rolling stops at intersections.

In this case your Republican governor is setting the stage for Arizona to be a player in an emerging disruptive market that will change our society in myriad ways for the better.

If it ruins his career it will be a case of fear and ignorance wining out over actual evidence and forward thinking.

BTW California has also green lighted driver-less cars.


https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/26/17054000/self-driving-car-california-dmv-regulations

[dbackjon]

31. Somewhat incorrect

San Francisco banned testing for one company - other companies were already testing them in Arizona.

[samnsara]

29. self driving cars is the most stupid idea ever

[dbackjon]

32. Why?

[still_one]

33. It isn't a bad idea, though having nation wide mass transit system would be much better bang for the

buck.

[jberryhill]

52. Are any members of your family blind?

I’ll bet I can guess the answer.

[ManiacJoe]

37. Link to better article

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/uber-self-driving-vehicle-hits-kills-pedestrian-in-arizona/

[still_one]

41. Thanks

[regnaD kciN]

61. "Cars dont kill people. People kill people."

[ChazII]

69. Uber and one

other company are in my neighborhood most of the day. I know Uber has taken their car off of the roads and it will be interesting to see what the traffic looks like in my neighborhood.

[xor]

72. I'm curious to see the details of this accident.

If the person unexpectedly darted out in front of the vehicle then there isn't much a self-driving car or a human driven could do. Not saying that's what happened, as I personally don't really trust Uber to do things right (based on stories I've heard)

I would think a self-driving car would be better at handling those unexpected situations, though. At night if there is a person or other living being on the road or on the side, then I would think a car with right sensors could have an easier time detecting that than a person who is only relying on their eyes and the illumination from their headlights. And when detected, they can make alternate avoidance plans much quicker than a panicking human. In theory, self-driving cars should be much safer. I don't know if I would want to be a self-driving car myself.. you know, have it decide to drive me off the cliff for the greater good of humanity. But I don't think it's as awful of an idea as many here seem to think.

Either way, I think it's important to see what the investigation uncovers. We might even find out the car was under hooooman control at the time.

[still_one]

74. From the reports coming out now it appears that is exactly what happened