[marchenko]

I'm not trying to be inflammatory, but should we expect the Tempe AZ City administration to be a neutral source of information in this case? Might they be biased by their decision to host this experiment in their jurisdiction (in the sense of anticipating criticism)?

[kartan]

> “Arizona welcomes Uber self-driving cars with open arms and wide open roads. While California puts the brakes on innovation and change with more bureaucracy and more regulation, Arizona is paving the way for new technology and new businesses. In 2015, I signed an executive order supporting the testing and operation of self-driving cars in Arizona with an emphasis on innovation, economic growth, and most importantly, public safety. This is about economic development, but it’s also about changing the way we live and work. Arizona is proud to be open for business. California may not want you, but we do.”

https://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2016/12/governor-ducey-...

Politics can always be an explanation.

[Animats]

California's self-driving car rules are essentially what Google asked for. Google/Waymo is fine with that; they have had lots of self driving cars running around Mountain View for years. The main California requirements are that the manufacturer takes total financial responsibility, has to file accident and disconnect reports, and can't use the technology commercially under a test license. Uber violated that last condition in San Francisco, and CA DMV revoked their vehicle licenses.

So Uber moved to Arizona, where they could kill more freely.

[mieseratte]

As an occasional commuter cyclist, I'm well aware of the position cars and drivers hold in our social pecking order. It's a well known "joke" that if you want to get away with murder, you do it with a car.

While we should not absolve Uber, including the driver who was too busy looking at his phone to intervene, I do wonder if a standard driver would have also been deemed not at fault by the police. The answer is likely, "yes".

[simion314]

> I do wonder if a standard driver would have also been deemed not at fault by the police. The answer is likely, "yes".

But it seems, we do not for sure, that the sensors completely failed and on top of that the human driver also failed, so the question is :are this tests safe? next time the failure could happen on a crosswalk , IMO the question of who is to blame is not as important then the question if is safe to do this tests on public roads with such poor hardware and software.

[avs733]

>While we should not absolve Uber, including the driver who was too busy looking at his phone to intervene, I do wonder if a standard driver would have also been deemed not at fault by the police. The answer is likely, "yes".

Add in the characterization of the victim that has been going on. If the car had hit an ASU student it would have been assumed they were drunk/on the phone. If it had been a Mormon missionary (not uncommon in AZ) there would be a lot more focus on the car/driver. Instead, they hit a homeless/low value person. The discourse reflects that.

[masklinn]

> including the driver who was too busy looking at his phone to intervene

I've yet to get any information on one thing though, are safety drivers operating under the assumption that the car works at SAE2 or at SAE3? Because if it's the latter, the driver has no cause to keep looking at their phone. If it's the former, the car should have a deadman's switch to ensure the driver stay alert.

An other thing that is not clear is whether they were looking at their phone or at instrumentation (e.g. telemetry or the like).

[ghaff]

The safety drivers should theoretically be operating under the assumption that the self-driving system can fail randomly at any moment. Of course, humans are not wired as reliable backups to handle random split-second problems when the system, in fact, works correctly most of the time.

[masklinn]

> The safety drivers should theoretically be operating under the assumption that the self-driving system can fail randomly at any moment.

Then the car should be equipped with a dead man's switch / vigilance devices to ensure the driver pays attention, trains have been equipped with these equipments for decades.

> Of course, humans are not wired as reliable backups to handle random split-second problems when the system, in fact, works correctly most of the time.

Indeed, but again that is a long-known issue and we've had solutions for a long time.

[mannykannot]

I don't know about that, but I imagine the police chief received a lot of advice, whether solicited or not, from Uber's PR, about how to interpret the video.

[usrusr]

Certainly not. As long as the cars still require someone to sit behind the wheel for taking the fall when something bad happens, putting your citizens up for inverse target practice creates a handsome number of VC funded low qualification jobs: all you need is a drivers license and, apparently, something to read against the boredom.

[andygates]

We should not expect an early statement to be authoritative.