Isn't most of the point of computers driving us so they can react to things we can't? I dont know why that bit would be turned off... Seems seriously problematic. Secondly, that looks like a really bad place to be pushing your bike at night.
When you are traveling at 60km/h+ no amount of computers can save you when even reacting instantly is not enough to slow down enough. Cars, self driving or not are extremely unsafe. Sure its a bad place to be walking at night but its quite problematic that we accept that walking around without looking both ways at every step is punishable by instant death.
If reacting instantly is not enough to slow down you were driving way too fast for the conditions, period. Defensive driving is a solved problem.
Unless you're talking about times where things really are out of the domain of the car - people jumping in front. But nobody really cares about that non problem.
Cars unsafe? Compared to what? Cheeseburgers? Most of the time when I drive, I don't die and I don't kill people. That seems pretty safe to me.
Regarding liability here in this case, I'm not sure where I sit, probably on the side where uber is liable. Their company, no amount of "it's new so it doesn't count" hand waiving will change my mind.
But the way I feel about this is my bias for strong consumer protections.
In curious what on earth the argument is that lets uber off the hook here.
60km/hr isn't that fast when you have multiple seconds of time to react. The reason cars are unsafe is because driver's think they're better than they are. How many times have I seen snow covered cars this week? Or excessive speeding on snow and ice covered roads? How often do people drive on the highway without anywhere near stopping distance between them and the car they're tailgating at 80mph?
The actual car itself is actually an amazing reliable and safe machine. The people using them in extremely dangerous ways are largely just irresponsible.
Starting to think that autonomous driving should be limited to roads where people are already restricted from being near (e.g. freeways) until the technology is (rigorously) proven safe. Doesn't seem like it would take much to implement on top of the current technologies in the wild.
We already accept this. You could also be looking both ways and be killed by a driver on their phone even with the right of way because drivers will not react in a predictable manner. We've accepted vehicles as being the #1 non-natural cause of death for years.
The car did not need to slow down much to reach speeds where a collision with a pedestrian would not be fatal. And there were several seconds to react had the car been driven by an attentive human driver.
I still think the car was going too fast. Posted speed limits are for optimal conditions. Night driving is never an optimal condition so one should always drive slower than the posted speed limit.
baroffoos|7 years ago
lugg|7 years ago
Unless you're talking about times where things really are out of the domain of the car - people jumping in front. But nobody really cares about that non problem.
Cars unsafe? Compared to what? Cheeseburgers? Most of the time when I drive, I don't die and I don't kill people. That seems pretty safe to me.
Regarding liability here in this case, I'm not sure where I sit, probably on the side where uber is liable. Their company, no amount of "it's new so it doesn't count" hand waiving will change my mind.
But the way I feel about this is my bias for strong consumer protections.
In curious what on earth the argument is that lets uber off the hook here.
jimktrains2|7 years ago
The actual car itself is actually an amazing reliable and safe machine. The people using them in extremely dangerous ways are largely just irresponsible.
kylek|7 years ago
ylbss|7 years ago
ummonk|7 years ago
JustSomeNobody|7 years ago