[Dog Face Pony Soldier]

Quotes from The life of an Uber test driver in AZFamily.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A test driver was behind the wheel of a self-driving Uber vehicle when it struck and killed a woman in Tempe, Arizona on Sunday night.

Autonomous car companies have test drivers on board so they can take over in case of emergencies.

Companies hire human test drivers to sit behind the wheel of self-driving vehicles and take over when necessary, say, if a car's sensors fail to recognize a bicyclist, pedestrian or other vehicle -- or if the software system crashes

Uber requires individuals to undergo three weeks of training, including a manual driver test, written assessment, as well as classroom and public road training.

The program must also include defensive driver training, such as experience recovering from hazardous driving situations.

Some companies go as far as to test a driver's reaction time before hiring them, since test drivers need to respond quickly if the vehicle makes a mistake.

[Dog Face Pony Soldier]

From Understanding the challenges of driverless cars on kxxv.com

The technology continues to evolve, but we're a long way from the utopian world where all vehicles are self-driving.

We have to develop the regulations, insurance models, liabilities and even moral guidelines for technology that never existed before.

Even if traffic fatalities are cut in half by autonomous vehicles, the moral outrage over a single death at the hands of a machine will exist.

Integration with human drivers will be another challenge, as these ultra-cautious automated vehicles and aggressive human drivers will have to figure out how to get along.

I experienced this first hand this year at CES as I rode in a level 3 vehicle on the streets of Las Vegas. I equated the experience to having my grandmother driving me around as the vehicle waited to turn right at a crosswalk causing the human driver behind us to lay into his horn.

The vehicle also slowed down every time it perceived an adjacent car was drifting towards our lane.

[IK6SPEED]

Many stories have come out over the last 4-5 days that Uber’s autonomous cars were far behind the capabilities of other autonomous companies - and this might have been the best thing for their program as they will need to get it up to the level of others - or get out of the field - quickly.

Arizona Governor just ordered Uber to cease all testing of autonomous driving in Arizona - so much for those saying the police statements were financially driven.

The order does not have an impact on any other Company.

As everyone, including myself in this thread has stated, clearly there was a technology failure.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by IK6SPEED

Many stories have come out over the last 4-5 days that Uber’s autonomous cars were far behind the capabilities of other autonomous companies - and this might have been the best thing for their program as they will need to get it up to the level of others - or get out of the field - quickly.

Arizona Governor just ordered Uber to cease all testing of autonomous driving in Arizona - so much for those saying the police statements were financially driven.

The order does not have an impact on any other Company.

As everyone, including myself in this thread has stated, clearly there was a technology failure.

LOL. You stated no such thing. You blamed the dead pedestrian first off and continued on that rant as far as to cite law stating the "passenger behind the wheel" had no legal requirement to avoid the accident.

Here's what happened that caused the death of a human pedestrian:
- Driverless car being beta tested in a live environment on an open public road
- State Governor looking for tax revenue by errantly allowing such a test to take place in his state (now since retracted the executive order that allowed such testing)
- Uber test driver not paying attention to the test and not performing his/her function, which was to take control of the vehicle when the tech was unable to safely operate the vehicle
- Uber test driver did not have the high beams on, which is why the pedestrian was not in her field of view
- Pedestrian errantly relying on and expecting a human driver to see her crossing the road at night because she believed she had the right of way
- A failure of all involved to understand physics.

Slam dunk.

[RM7]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

- Uber test driver did not have the high beams on, which is why the pedestrian was not in his field of view

Can you point me to the law which requires high beams?

[MightyMouseTech]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

- Uber test driver did not have the high beams on, which is why the pedestrian was not in his field of view
.

In most cities, it is illegal to use high beams within city limits. I know it is here.

[MightyMouseTech]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...edestrian.html

Uber disabled the standard collision-avoidance technology in its autonomous Volvo SUV before it hit and killed a pedestrian last week, according to the safety system manufacturer.

This is starting to make sense.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

Can you point me to the law which requires high beams?

Nope. A high beam law is not material to the discussion. The Uber test dummy was not paying attention to the road and relying on the (faulty) autonomous tech to not hit anything, which is opposite of what his job was. It could be that had a real driver been driving a non-autonomous car and actually paying attention to act of driving safety, he might have had his high beams on based on the lighting and traffic conitions and seen the pedestrian in time to avoid a collision.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by MightyMouseTech

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...edestrian.html



This is starting to make sense.

I'd imagine the Volvo avoidance system was disabled to prevent conflict with the autonomous control system.

[IK6SPEED]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

LOL. You stated no such thing. You blamed the dead pedestrian first of and continued on that rant as far as to cite law stating the "passenger behind the wheel" had no legal requirement to avoid the accident.

Here's what happened that caused the death of a human pedestrian:
- Driverless car being beta tested in a live environment on an open public road
- State Governor looking for tax revenue by errantly allowing such a test to take place in his state (now since retracted the executive order that allowed such testing)
- Uber test driver not paying attention to the test and not performing his/her function, which was to take control of the vehicle when the tech was unable to safely operate the vehicle
- Uber test driver did not have the high beams on, which is why the pedestrian was not in his field of view
- Pedestrian errantly relying on and expecting a human driver to see her crossing the road at night because she believed she had the right of way
- A failure of all involved to understand physics.

Slam dunk.

Slam dunk you are proven wrong.

Originally Posted by IK6SPEED

Nope. Talking about accident site and local laws. Not technical failure of lidar/Radar which everyone can clearly agree on. It’s Aimed at anyone who is posting assumptions and misinformation about the accident site and Arizona Laws.

Proven beyond a shadow of doubt. Posted about technology failure in at least 6 posts including my first post in thread, proving you only read what what want.

Sad you make up BS.

My other posts are on legal blame according to current Arizona law.

Big difference.

Furthermore, under Arizona law Pedistrian does not have right of way.

You are assuming what she thought, which besides us unprovable, still puts her at fault as she did not have right of way, as proven previously in thread.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by IK6SPEED

Slam dunk you are proven wrong.



Proven beyond a shadow of doubt. Posted about technology failure in at least 6 posts including my first post in thread, proving you only read what what want.

Sad you make up BS.

My other posts are on legal blame according to current Arizona law.

Big difference.

This is your summary from your 1st post:

"Bottom line, I believe that coding should favor the vehicle occupant SHOULD THE CAR HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG. In this case, the death was the pedestrian’s fault."

[IK6SPEED]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Nope. A high beam law is not material to the discussion. The Uber test dummy was not paying attention to the road and relying on the (faulty autonomous tech) to not hit anything, which is opposite of what his job was. It could be that had a real driver been driving a non-autonomous car and actually paying attention to act of driving safety, he might have had his high beams on based on the lighting and traffic conitions and seen the pedestrian in time to avoid a collision.

Comical.

First everyone is arguing area is well lit, now grasping at high beam straws.

You cannot have it both ways.

[IK6SPEED]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

This is your summary from your 1st post:

"Bottom line, I believe that coding should favor the vehicle occupant SHOULD THE CAR HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG. In this case, the death was the pedestrian’s fault."

So you ignore the post above and selectively edit my 1st post in thread leaving out what you claim I never said.

Originally Posted by IK6SPEED

That said, any life loss is sad. Vehicle had lidar and radar. I wonder if it dismissed the return as she should not have been where she was.

...

Bottom line, I believe that coding should favor the vehicle occupant SHOULD THE CAR HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG. In this case, the death was the pedestrian’s fault.

While sad, don’t play chicken with a car, at night, in dark clothing while essentially “jaywalking”.

And yes, if 2 options and other person violated law, the vehicle priority code should be to protect occupant from injury over the law violator.

Would be stupid for vehicle to be programmed to protect violator over the occupant in car that was not violating law.

[MightyMouseTech]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I'd imagine the Volvo avoidance system was disabled to prevent conflict with the autonomous control system.

Ya, Volvo's system was disabled, which makes 100% sense. Can't have two separate systems running doing the same thing.

[GuidoK]

Turning off safety systems in a test on autonomous driving while the supervisor isnt paying attention......
If so, lawyers are gonna have a field day

I can totally understand Volvo's concerns. This could harm Volvo bigtime.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by IK6SPEED

So you ignore the post above and selectively edit my 1st post in thread leaving out what you claim I never said.



And yes, if 2 options and other person violated law, the vehicle priority code should be to protect occupant from injury over the law violator.

Would be stupid for vehicle to be programmed to protect violator over the occupant in car that was not violating law.

I didn't ignore anything and did not selectively use a limited quote. You said bottom line is the pedestrian was at fault. Regarding the tech, you questioned whether the returns from the lidar/radar were ignored because the pedestrian was where the tech didn't expect a pedestrian to be. So you basically say the tech failed because the pedestrian was jaywalking; again which placed the blame for the accident on the human rather than the technology. The whole point of the autonomous technology is to be better than the human driver.

I place the blame on the technology AND the politicans who allowed an assinine test campaign to take place in a live environment on public streets.

[IK6SPEED]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I didn't ignore anything and did not selectively use a limited quote. You said bottom line is the pedestrian was at fault. Regarding the tech, you questioned whether the returns from the lidar/radar were ignored because the pedestrian was where the tech didn't expect a pedestrian to be. So you basically say the tech failed because the pedestrian was jaywalking; again which placed the blame for the accident on the human rather than the technology. The whole point of the autonomous technology is to be better than the human driver.

I place the blame on the technology AND the politicans who allowed an assinine test campaign to take place in a live environment on public streets.

There you go making up crap again not supported by the evidence.

Yes, bottom line pedestrian is at fault.

If this was not Uber vehicle, this would be a non-story.

Please show the law where THERE ARE 2 SETS OF LAWS CURRENTLY wher autonomous vehicles MUST BE SAFER THAN MANUAL OPERATION.

Otherwise you are just making it up as you post (which, essentially has been proven anyway).

[RM7]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Nope. A high beam law is not material to the discussion.

It would be if you were building a case. Your post was implying that it would be a "slam dunk", and you used "did not have high beams on" as evidence of this. If high beams were necessary for safety, there would be a law requiring it. The driving regulations set the minimum safety standards and if you are meeting those standards, you can not prove someone is operating "unsafe". Hitting someone doesn't prove you were operating outside of the rules. I've had a lot of peers and higher-ups state that we should just "this" and "that" (legal action) to someone because they got in a crash. I've been down this road in court more than once and that doesn't hold up for a second under a judge. What holds up is evidence, and evidence is not "the person killed someone so we need to punish them!". As badly as you might feel that and think that you are right, we operate in a system of laws and regulations. We might need to make new regulations if we can't prove the person was operating outside the regulations, we might need to change some of the current regulations. It's hard for some people to detach their emotions in these cases, like what I was stating above. Those people are usually the ones that lose cases or screw them up so bad (even if there was wrong-doing) that they can't possibly be prosecuted. When you don't have the evidence, you have to be able to drop it and move on.

[IK6SPEED]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

Turning off safety systems in a test on autonomous driving while the supervisor isnt paying attention......
If so, lawyers are gonna have a field day

I can totally understand Volvo's concerns. This could harm Volvo bigtime.

You keep claiming court case which there is no indication will ever happen.

If turning off safety systems was illegal, all cars would be required to have them.

Please show law stating that optional safety systems cannot be turned off.

Then again, if that was the law, BMW would not allow Sports+ mode.

[IK6SPEED]

Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

It would be if you were building a case. Your post was implying that it would be a "slam dunk", and you used "did not have high beams on" as evidence of this. If high beams were necessary for safety, there would be a law requiring it. The driving regulations set the minimum safety standards and if you are meeting those standards, you can not prove someone is operating "unsafe". Hitting someone doesn't prove you were operating outside of the rules. I've had a lot of peers and higher-ups state that we should just "this" and "that" (legal action) to someone because they got in a crash. I've been down this road in court more than once and that doesn't hold up for a second under a judge. What holds up is evidence, and evidence is not "the person killed someone so we need to punish them!". As badly as you might feel that and think that you are right, we operate in a system of laws and regulations. We might need to make new regulations if we can't prove the person was operating outside the regulations, we might need to change some of the current regulations. It's hard for some people to detach their emotions in these cases, like what I was stating above. Those people are usually the ones that lose cases or screw them up so bad (even if there was wrong-doing) that they can't possibly be prosecuted. When you don't have the evidence, you have to be able to drop it and move on.

Posters clearly have no concept of the law.

If this was not an autonomous car, this would be just another traffic death with no charges to driver and no press - or threads.

If car ran stoplight and death in crosswalk, entirely different matter.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

It would be if you were building a case. Your post was implying that it would be a "slam dunk", and you used "did not have high beams on" as evidence of this. If high beams were necessary for safety, there would be a law requiring it. The driving regulations set the minimum safety standards and if you are meeting those standards, you can not prove someone is operating "unsafe". Hitting someone doesn't prove you were operating outside of the rules. I've had a lot of peers and higher-ups state that we should just "this" and "that" (legal action) to someone because they got in a crash. I've been down this road in court more than once and that doesn't hold up for a second under a judge. What holds up is evidence, and evidence is not "the person killed someone so we need to punish them!". As badly as you might feel that and think that you are right, we operate in a system of laws and regulations. We might need to make new regulations if we can't prove the person was operating outside the regulations, we might need to change some of the current regulations. It's hard for some people to detach their emotions in these cases, like what I was stating above. Those people are usually the ones that lose cases or screw them up so bad (even if there was wrong-doing) that they can't possibly be prosecuted. When you don't have the evidence, you have to be able to drop it and move on.

I was mocking IK6SPEED with the "slam dunk" comment. You missed my entire point. My point is the purveyors of autonomous driving technology tell us that their tech is better than humans at driving a car. In this case you and IK6SPEED keep hiding behind law to obfuscate the fact that the tech failed. You state if a human would have been driving, the jaywalking pedestrian would have been struck anyway, which means the autonomous technology IS NO BETTER than a human at driving a car under real-world conditions. My argument is the the tech failed because it is supposed to be better than humans at driving a car, as the propagators claim it is (or will be once it is mature - that will be your counter argument I bet). Arguing the pedestrian was killed because she would have been killed even if a human was driving a manual car (i.e. non-autonomous) is stupid in this case because you can't emphatically prove it; I'm sure there are drivers within the Arizona population that could have avoided that accident. I pointed out the situation regarding the highbeam use because a human may have decided based on the lighting conditions to use the highbeam function and possibly seen the pedestrian in time to avoid a collision. The autonomous car doesn't even need headlights because its vision is RF based and invisible light spectrum based. The pedestrian crossed 3 lanes of the street (oncoming traffic) and what looks to be two lanes of the side of the street she was hit on. You can't say that an attentive driver may have seen her crossing in the oncoming lanes and took evasive action prior to the collision point. You are trying to make a legal argument from dash cam video that has a poor night vision and a poor field of view. So in other words the case is not going to be a slam dunk <----- hence the mock....

I work on a program that is a large integrated system of sensors that provides data for safety-of-life. When we developed the system, now 8 years mature, and make changes to it, we did not and do not test it in the live environment; we test in a test environment and test the living shit out of it. We do not test it in the operational environment first and hope for the best. There are no specific laws regulating the testing procedures; we don't have some dumbass lawyer telling us how to test the system, we have professional and ethical test engineers who understand the responsibility they have. If we are going to argue law here, than the legal argument is one of gross negligence.

[RM7]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I was mocking IK6SPEED with the "slam dunk" comment. You missed my entire point. My point is the purveyors of autonomous driving technology tell us that their tech is better than humans at driving a car. In this case you and IK6SPEED keep hiding behind law to obfuscate the fact that the tech failed. You state if a human would have been driving, the jaywalking pedestrian would have been struck anyway, which means the autonomous technology IS NO BETTER than a human at driving a car under real-world conditions.

That's where it logically does not follow. Unless you can provide numbers of errors/hour or errors/driving task for humans and compare with specific automation, what you have said has no basis in fact.