Uber fucked

[Mo]

If that scene was in an episode of Silicon Valley, people would have mocked it for being unrealistic. You could basically save yourself from writing a whole season of the show and use that Bloomberg story.

[Kwix]

First fatality of a pedestrian:
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2018/0 ... n-arizona/

[D.A. Ridgely]

If you meet the Buddha on the road, run over him.

[Highway]

The only thing that I see really being a holdup or backslide in AV development is a company that's a bunch of shitheads having results like this. Basically, you've got three companies with a lot of press in the AV area: Tesla, Uber, and Waymo (Alphabet / Google). One of those three companies is doing a great job testing, evaluating, and deploying. The other two have been historically run by bro PR shitheads who have terrible judgment about when things should be interacting with the public.

In my opinion, Uber should be nowhere close to public trials. They just don't have the background or testing data. But they don't really care.

[Mo]

The only thing that I see really being a holdup or backslide in AV development is a company that's a bunch of shitheads having results like this. Basically, you've got three companies with a lot of press in the AV area: Tesla, Uber, and Waymo (Alphabet / Google). One of those three companies is doing a great job testing, evaluating, and deploying. The other two have been historically run by bro PR shitheads who have terrible judgment about when things should be interacting with the public.

In my opinion, Uber should be nowhere close to public trials. They just don't have the background or testing data. But they don't really care.

Human drives, 1.2 deaths per 100M miles driven. Waymo hit 4 million miles driven in November. Thanks shithead bros for making the safety argument harder.

Ducey is probably feeling not so hot right now.

[Eric the .5b]

First fatality of a pedestrian:
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2018/0 ... n-arizona/

In other places, I'm seeing that she was a cyclist and that there was actually a driver in the test-car. Those may or may not be wrinkles.

But yeah, I don't think self-driving cars are demonstrably ready for prime-time. And Uber (the biggest company I've ever seen to make me think "fly-by-night") is the last company in this space I trust.

[Highway]

First fatality of a pedestrian:
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2018/0 ... n-arizona/

In other places, I'm seeing that she was a cyclist and that there was actually a driver in the test-car. Those may or may not be wrinkles.

But yeah, I don't think self-driving cars are demonstrably ready for prime-time. And Uber (the biggest company I've ever seen to make me think "fly-by-night") is the last company in this space I trust.

I actually think Waymo is ready for what they think they're ready for. But that's because they've shown that they're prudent and aware of their limitations. ETA: Uber, who tried to corporate espionage their way into competitiveness and fat fingered that, have not demonstrated any of that.

If anything, the 'monitor' in the car in this case helps to put another nail in the coffin of level 3 automation. The paradigm of having a driver ready to intervene or take over is just not going to work in an emergency situation.

Now, I don't think anyone is arguing, anywhere, that AV's are going to prevent every ped or bike crash ever. Peds will still walk out in front of a car going too fast to stop. Bikes will still swerve around or cross against reds or the other ridiculously stupid things that some cyclists do every day. What AVs are going to be best at is driving safely, the way we know how to drive (but most people seldom do), and being very attentive. That's where the safety benefits are going to come from.

[Jadagul]

My understanding of Level 3 was not "driver can take over when pedestrian jumps in front of the car"---you would expect any decent self-driving car to have much better reaction times.

I thought it was more "driver can take over when the circumstances become sufficiently weird that the car can't handle it". I'm fine driving in parking garages and old twisty alleyways if the car can handle the freeways and major surface streets.

[Highway]

My understanding of Level 3 was not "driver can take over when pedestrian jumps in front of the car"---you would expect any decent self-driving car to have much better reaction times.

I thought it was more "driver can take over when the circumstances become sufficiently weird that the car can't handle it". I'm fine driving in parking garages and old twisty alleyways if the car can handle the freeways and major surface streets.

That's the "Make it sound good" definition of Level 3. The reality is that it's something like "Jesus take the wheel!" Level 3 implementations are always going to fall back on the cheap escape of "Well, that's why there's a human driver there" no matter what the AV screws up. That's why most people in the field think that level 3 is unworkable from any sort of liability standpoint.

[Jadagul]

My understanding of Level 3 was not "driver can take over when pedestrian jumps in front of the car"---you would expect any decent self-driving car to have much better reaction times.

I thought it was more "driver can take over when the circumstances become sufficiently weird that the car can't handle it". I'm fine driving in parking garages and old twisty alleyways if the car can handle the freeways and major surface streets.

That's the "Make it sound good" definition of Level 3. The reality is that it's something like "Jesus take the wheel!" Level 3 implementations are always going to fall back on the cheap escape of "Well, that's why there's a human driver there" no matter what the AV screws up. That's why most people in the field think that level 3 is unworkable from any sort of liability standpoint.

Ah, that's fair. If that's what it is in practice, it's kinda dumb.

It made sense to me because I could easily imagine an autopilot that could, say, handle emergencies in clear weather on major streets, but isn't up to handling narrow/poorly-laid-out streets or snow. Or something like that. If people were actually using it for "the car doesn't have a good enough reaction time to respond to this pedestrian, so the driver should take over", they were very silly.

[Highway]

My understanding of Level 3 was not "driver can take over when pedestrian jumps in front of the car"---you would expect any decent self-driving car to have much better reaction times.

I thought it was more "driver can take over when the circumstances become sufficiently weird that the car can't handle it". I'm fine driving in parking garages and old twisty alleyways if the car can handle the freeways and major surface streets.

That's the "Make it sound good" definition of Level 3. The reality is that it's something like "Jesus take the wheel!" Level 3 implementations are always going to fall back on the cheap escape of "Well, that's why there's a human driver there" no matter what the AV screws up. That's why most people in the field think that level 3 is unworkable from any sort of liability standpoint.

Ah, that's fair. If that's what it is in practice, it's kinda dumb.

It made sense to me because I could easily imagine an autopilot that could, say, handle emergencies in clear weather on major streets, but isn't up to handling narrow/poorly-laid-out streets or snow. Or something like that. If people were actually using it for "the car doesn't have a good enough reaction time to respond to this pedestrian, so the driver should take over", they were very silly.

It's less that the car can't handle it (because mostly it can) than "the ready excuse is there so they're going to use it." And that leaves a huge range of what level 3 actually is.

What you're imagining is actually more what people attribute to Level 4. Very rare events that the vehicle can't handle. Level 3 is "Oooh, there's construction so that's bad." *runs into barrier* or "oooh, the sun's in my eyes, so that's bad." *drives through a truck*

[D.A. Ridgely]

Level 5:

[Eric the .5b]

Hate to reverse myself, as I dislike Uber, but given police statements, I'm kinda expecting the dash cam footage to show the woman stepped out into the street close enough to the car that nothing but dangerous swerving would have avoided hitting her.

Also, I'm reminded that the exact same people who want to restrict fountain drink sizes, censor political speech, regulate social media, etc. will suddenly start beating their breasts on cue about the awful, technocratic tyranny of the crosswalk...

[Highway]

I didn't expect that the car went straight for some pedestrian who was trying to get out of the way. I figured it was something like someone popped out where they shouldn't have. I'm just fairly afraid of Uber's possible responses, given their historical horrible PR. Perhaps their new CEO has more control over it (and isn't Travis Kalanick).

[Jadagul]

My understanding of Level 3 was not "driver can take over when pedestrian jumps in front of the car"---you would expect any decent self-driving car to have much better reaction times.

I thought it was more "driver can take over when the circumstances become sufficiently weird that the car can't handle it". I'm fine driving in parking garages and old twisty alleyways if the car can handle the freeways and major surface streets.

That's the "Make it sound good" definition of Level 3. The reality is that it's something like "Jesus take the wheel!" Level 3 implementations are always going to fall back on the cheap escape of "Well, that's why there's a human driver there" no matter what the AV screws up. That's why most people in the field think that level 3 is unworkable from any sort of liability standpoint.

Ah, that's fair. If that's what it is in practice, it's kinda dumb.

It made sense to me because I could easily imagine an autopilot that could, say, handle emergencies in clear weather on major streets, but isn't up to handling narrow/poorly-laid-out streets or snow. Or something like that. If people were actually using it for "the car doesn't have a good enough reaction time to respond to this pedestrian, so the driver should take over", they were very silly.

It's less that the car can't handle it (because mostly it can) than "the ready excuse is there so they're going to use it." And that leaves a huge range of what level 3 actually is.

What you're imagining is actually more what people attribute to Level 4. Very rare events that the vehicle can't handle. Level 3 is "Oooh, there's construction so that's bad." *runs into barrier* or "oooh, the sun's in my eyes, so that's bad." *drives through a truck*

Ah, that's a good point and makes sense. It's easy to say you've hit Level 3 even when the tech is pretty bad, so saying it's "Level 3" doesn't tell you enough to make judgments off of.

Now that I went back and reread the descriptions, I really was thinking of something closer to Level 4 there.

But honestly, I'll be pretty happy when I have a car that can handle well-maintained freeways on its own.

[Kwix]

So, as expected pedestrian likely at fault:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/20/ube ... ice-chief/

A super-weird aspect of this crash site is that it occurred at a place where a beautiful brick-paved diagonal walking path was provided across the median, along with a sign instructing people not to use it. This is beyond pedestrian-hostile design; it's damn-near entrapment.

No shit:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4362167 ... 312!8i6656

[Highway]

So, as expected pedestrian likely at fault:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/20/ube ... ice-chief/

A super-weird aspect of this crash site is that it occurred at a place where a beautiful brick-paved diagonal walking path was provided across the median, along with a sign instructing people not to use it. This is beyond pedestrian-hostile design; it's damn-near entrapment.

No shit:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4362167 ... 312!8i6656

Yeah, that's "Let's make this look good and maybe it'll be a pedestrian spot" and then haha traffic at 50 miles an hour because look at that road and "oh shit, we better put up these useless signs because even though everything is telling those people to walk across here, they'll obey this shitty little sign that they don't want to obey anyway and if they don't, well, it's not our fault, we put up a sign."

[nicole]

I really like living in a city.

[Painboy]

So, as expected pedestrian likely at fault:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/20/ube ... ice-chief/

A super-weird aspect of this crash site is that it occurred at a place where a beautiful brick-paved diagonal walking path was provided across the median, along with a sign instructing people not to use it. This is beyond pedestrian-hostile design; it's damn-near entrapment.

No shit:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4362167 ... 312!8i6656

Yeah, that's "Let's make this look good and maybe it'll be a pedestrian spot" and then haha traffic at 50 miles an hour because look at that road and "oh shit, we better put up these useless signs because even though everything is telling those people to walk across here, they'll obey this shitty little sign that they don't want to obey anyway and if they don't, well, it's not our fault, we put up a sign."

Even the shitty sign is confusing. It has a no walking icon but says "Use Crosswalk" underneath with the arrow pointing at the area you're not supposed to use.

[Eric the .5b]

On another forum, someone says:

Having done DoT stuff it strikes me as a "its technically not against regs to leave it like this, it would cost money to change, and it looks pretty. Fuck it, it stays like this."

Also, sheer sputtering at the insanity of the ornamental crosswalk.

[Highway]

On another forum, someone says:

Having done DoT stuff it strikes me as a "its technically not against regs to leave it like this, it would cost money to change, and it looks pretty. Fuck it, it stays like this."

Also, sheer sputtering at the insanity of the ornamental crosswalk.

I mean, technically it's not a crosswalk, because it's just a place in the island. And it's probably not even a high crash location. But yeah, it's not something you should do.

I worked on a project being constructed here in Ocean City that is replacing those brick medians with sand dune-based landscaping and a big visible fence, because they're having continual problems with people trying to cross that huge road mid-block to get to businesses on the other side, or to more directly go to the beach. It should end up looking pretty good, but the main thing is to make it obviously difficult to cross so that people go to the crosswalks.

[Eric the .5b]

I worked on a project being constructed here in Ocean City that is replacing those brick medians with sand dune-based landscaping and a big visible fence, because they're having continual problems with people trying to cross that huge road mid-block to get to businesses on the other side, or to more directly go to the beach. It should end up looking pretty good, but the main thing is to make it obviously difficult to cross so that people go to the crosswalks.

I can see the attractive-nuisance angle of that median, but it really doesn't look anywhere as bad as the diagonal walkways with overhead lighting.

[Aresen]

Near where I live, there is a spot where the natural exits of two shopping centers situated across from one another are in the middle of a very long block beside a busy one-way road. On both sides, the design of the two centers actually funneled pedestrians to the spot.

People trying to get from one center to the other would jaywalk. This went on for several years. The city tried fines, etc, but people continued to jaywalk. Fortunately, no one was struck by a car during this time. Finally, the city gave up and put up a crosswalk with traffic lights - one of those kind that stays green for vehicles unless someone hits the button to cross. People used the crosswalk and would actually wait for the time it took for the lights to start their cycle instead of trying to dodge the traffic.

It also had the unintended effect of giving the vehicles emerging from the shopping center parking lots an opportunity to enter the heavy traffic road safely while the pedestrians crossed upstream. This greatly reduced the number of vehicle accidents at the spot.

[Highway]

I worked on a project being constructed here in Ocean City that is replacing those brick medians with sand dune-based landscaping and a big visible fence, because they're having continual problems with people trying to cross that huge road mid-block to get to businesses on the other side, or to more directly go to the beach. It should end up looking pretty good, but the main thing is to make it obviously difficult to cross so that people go to the crosswalks.

I can see the attractive-nuisance angle of that median, but it really doesn't look anywhere as bad as the diagonal walkways with overhead lighting.

It's less the median and more the other side of the road. Even if it's steep, it doesn't stop people from just crossing mid-block. People definitely aren't going to the Ocean City median to hang out there. But it's part of design. If you don't want people there, make it obvious that they're not supposed to be there.

[Sandy]

Because of course Uber's terrific record of screening extends to their automated car babysitters, as well.