Uber halts self-driving car tests after death

[clk320x]

Uber halts self-driving tests after death

 

[Merc220cls]

Sadly it was only a matter of time until this happened.
I cannot understand why we would want to be driven in a car “electronically”

 

[markjay]

So sadly Ms. Elaine Herzberg will be remembered as the first person to be killed by an autonomous car...

But I doubt this incident will reverse the trend.

Firstly, there's big money involved, so just like the aircraft industry does, the manufacturers and the authorities will send their best teams in to try and understand what happened, and fix the problem.

Then, ultimately the question will be raised - is it safer than human-driven cars? It may not reduce fatalities to zero, but if the prediction is that autonomous cars will kill much less people annually then human-driven cars, then they could still be the future.

So this is by no means the end of autonomous cars...

 

[grober]

QUOTE:- Police said the accident happened Sunday night while the car was in autonomous mode.
A human monitor was also behind the wheel.
Presumably he was on his mobile phone at the time.

 

[Merkaholic]

Strange enough i was having the very convo on sunday about the logical and safety aspect of autonomous cars. We both agreed its far from ready and alot needs to be answered before it is officially allowed. I just dont see it working in real time. Take central London for eg cars, trucks, bikes oh and blinded by sat nav uber drivers all making sudden and spontaneous decisions. Btw why do we need autonomous vehicles???

 

[whitenemesis]

QUOTE:- Police said the accident happened Sunday night while the car was in autonomous mode.
A human monitor was also behind the wheel.
Presumably he was on his mobile phone at the time.

Of course there may well have been insufficient time for the human driver to react.
It'll be interesting to see the onboard video of the incident...

 

[grober]

Uber is 'likely' not at fault in the fatal self-driving car crash, local police chief says

 

[whitenemesis]

From the above link
"There is video of the crash, which investigators are examining but not been released to the public. "It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway," Moir said. Police have previously said Herzberg was not using a crosswalk."

 

[st13phil]

Btw why do we need autonomous vehicles???

Ahhh... the $64k question.

My personal view is that it's a solution looking for a problem, being hyped by willy-waving tech companies who are vying for fools to invest in them.

Simply put, there are huge - as in HUGE - problems mixing human beings with autonomous machinery in a safety critical environment. If the world were a perfectly ordered place, where everything diligently followed a very precise set of all-encompassing rules with a great deal of precision, then it may be viable. But the world isn't like that, and humans do illogical things. Then add in the weather and other unpredictable variables (deer running across the road, anyone?) and the futility of it all is pretty clear.

 

[kid-jensen]

I heard a quote from a designer of autonomous car systems saying that it would have to be a pretty crappy autonomous system to drive worse than the majority of drivers on my daily commute...

Sadly, I think he's right. In fact, I'll bet it would be difficult to design a system that made a worse job of driving than the average Beemer driver.

So, when these systems are "sufficiently perfect", how long before manual driving is considered too dangerous to allow humans to be responsible for?

 

[st13phil]

I heard a quote from a designer of autonomous car systems saying that it would have to be a pretty crappy autonomous system to drive worse than the majority of drivers on my daily commute...

And therein lies the big fallacy.

 

[Yugguy]

Autonomous cars will work great on perfect roads.

Except we don't have any, and we never will.

They would only work on roads dedicated purely to vehicular transport, with nothing else on there, no cyclists, animals, joggers, mobile phone zombies, children, deaf people, blind people, etc., etc.

 

[Dippo]

Autonomous cars will work great on perfect roads.

Except we don't have any, and we never will.

They would only work on roads dedicated purely to vehicular transport, with nothing else on there, no cyclists, animals, joggers, mobile phone zombies, children, deaf people, blind people, etc., etc.

Sounds a bit like something called a railway!

 

[GeeJayW]

Building autonomous cars is intellectual willie waving. There's no need for them beyond providing technology companies something interesting to do in order to keep politicians and shareholders happy.

 

[whitenemesis]

I wonder, are these cars programmed to avoid potholes?

 

[Conquistador]

Early steam boats and steams trains exploded and killed passengers, early internal combustion engines exploded and killed testers, early jet engines exploded and killed engineers, early autonomous cars are doing the same. A person has lost their life and it's a tragic step back but this extreme situation takes research and development of AI up a notch.

 

[190]

An in car video has been released showing the last moments before the accident. Looks like the pedestrian was pushing a bicycle across the road in the dark and as far as can be made out, oblivious to the oncoming traffic. I don't think they would blame a normal car and driver but I would have expected at least application of the brakes even if it physically couldn't stop in time. I thought modern cars had collision avoidance these days that automatically applies the brakes before an impact.

Video shows moment of fatal Uber crash

 

[whitenemesis]

Would a human driver have swerved at the instant the headlamps illuminated the pedestrian? Obviously when viewing the video we have the prior knowledge something is about to happen.
Can't tell if the Uber car initiated any avoiding actions, even braking? . The human 'driver' does make a move as if to grab the steering wheel

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[Andyfkettle]

Hard to tell from a video but I don’t think I’d have seen her as she literally appears out the darkness, no lights on her bike, reflectors, hi vis nothing.
Cyclist dosent appear to be even looking at the approaching vehicle whilst crossing, again hard to say.
I’m surprised though that radar or lidar didn’t pick her up. Not sure how clever an Uber car is.

 

[John N]

Uber halts self-driving tests after death

I realise that this incident is a tragedy and upsetting for all involved, but am I the only one that hopes that this "Experiment" that has ended so badly, will either delay or cancel the rush to introduce Driver less or Self driving vehicles altogether!

I know some will reply with the connection that Aircraft can do it, but Aircraft take off and land on a very wide road that doesn't have pedestrians and other vehicles criss crossing it's path, and once airborne there are less things to bump into than on the M25 at and time of the day!

The boffin's can't invent a robot Lawn Mower or Vacuum Cleaner that can navigate without bumping into something, why consider letting a Bus Lorry or Car loose in order to attempt the same?