noisebeam

Those paths are mainly used by mountain bikers. At night all the mtb groups I know use excessive lighting to see the trails. There is also a fairly large homeless camp in the part of the park to the north east of the intersection.

jefnvk

I simply suspect that more states go to no-fault, like a dozen or so already have. You insure your own car, and get a payout from your insurance company regardless of fault.

That said, I don't get this notion that there will be carnage if cars have different operating strategies. Individual drivers right now have vastly different operating strategies, so long as my car is being operated in respect to the basic speed law applicable everywhere, in that it is my responsibility to operate the vehicle in a manner that I can stop in the assured clear distance in front of me, I don't see why there should be issues.

noisebeam

I interact with multiple AVs daily, signal to them, merge in front of them, pass on their left, etc. I behave no differently, just follow the rules of the road, signal my intentions, trust drivers/cars notice me, but most importantly verify they do. So far I far prefer to interact with the emotionless predictability of an AV vs. a human driver.

Shimagnolo

I believe posted speed limit signs over what one cop says.
Here is the last speed limit sign just before the location of the accident: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4349...7i13312!8i6656

jefnvk

Interesting, the closest one after is 45MPH as well. Recent change I wonder?

Of course, if the car thought it was a 45 zone, it would be interesting to know why it was only doing 38 as well.

Leisesturm

Only if they had the ability (i.e. controls) to stop or evade the collision. The Uber 'back seat driver' did. S/he is culpable.

Leisesturm

Maybe not forever, but given the skittishness of investors its safe to say we won't see any further active testing in our lifetimes.

InOmaha

That's basically what I was saying. Don't break the law because AVs are programmed to drive legally and will therefore respond better to others driving legally, and don't assume the AV car can see you until it sees you.


On top of it assume the car is not in AV mode or doesn't have it installed. When they roll out the technology you have to assume the cars will look more like normal cars and not have company logos on the sides.

blacknbluebikes 

Ha. You're giving investors way too much credit, and wildly underestimating the unstoppable magnitude and momentum of this research. Six month hiatus, max. Too much invested across too many companies. This is a space-race, and the cold war is between GM, Waymo, Daimler, Ford, VW...

noisebeam

It has been 45mph as long as I have lived here. (Strava says I've cycled this segment over 100 times in the last few years.) Drivers here don't usually push the SL in this area perhaps because the bridge is unique and there is an intersection ahead. If the AV 'saw' a red light it may have started to slow at that point.

noisebeam

Waymo vehicles were on the roads yesterday afternoon. I wouldn't expect them to stop testing.

InOmaha

It will be interesting to watch as AV grows and people become accustomed to it, in the event of a manufacturing defect, just how many pedestrian or cycling deaths will be required before it's determined there may be a glitch in a software package causing it. Rather then driver error, cyclist error, or pedestrian error.


How many died from airbag metal shards before that company admitted something was wrong? Overall airbags save way more lives then they take, but they do take lives. Most manufacturers will weigh the cost of lives and litigation against the costs of recalls and publicity to determine an acceptable amount of deaths.


Litigation involves reasonable doubt. If a large enough percentage of a jury uses AVs successfully every day it wouldn't be hard to convince them that someone other then the driver was at fault and most likely it was the pedestrian/cyclist.


Everyone will probably end up with video everywhere to help sort it out.

Maelochs

Did you people even bother to research? The link is right there. Read about what Actually happened.

The lady was hidden in shadow, probably under the overpass, and pushed a bike laden with plastic bags right in front of the car.

Tempe, Arizona police chief Sylvia Moir, who has watched the accident video, said, “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.”

I know you guys aren't exactly fact-based, but at least an occasional reference to the idea that there is a shared reality in which we all interact might be helpful.

tyrion

It's the city planners' fault.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/1...h-fault-police

Maelochs

That is the most likely situation. The light would be just a few hundred yards ahead ... the car might have been slowing just knowing it might have to stop.

Dunbar

I’m also starting to wonder if she was homeless. The streets around where I live are very dimly lit. It is very hard to see someone who pops out of the shadows in those conditions. I have to be extra careful when I’m crossing the street on foot.

Maelochs

A poster who actually lives and rides in Tempe says there is a homeless camp in the park on the side of the street she was heading towards.

noisebeam

Papago Park Cleanups Encourage Tempe To Tackle Homelessness | KJZZ

squirtdad

that explains a lot......was always wondering if he was agent provocateur (troll) or brilliant at satire.....especially with vagueness on bikes, experience, etc

InOmaha

Yep. The lady was at fault. Just like the little kid who will chase a ball out into the street will be at fault, and the puppy that runs into the street, and the deer that crosses, and any other number of things that decide to cross the street at places not marked as a crosswalk. In residential neighborhoods like mine, every year the streets get packed with cabin fever kids when the first nice days occur. Everyone who's been watching TV for 4 months is suddenly breaking out bikes and playing ball. And the speed limit of 25 is much, much too fast.


So how will AV adjust? Because they will have to adjust. Going the speed limit of 25 with road blinders on will not be an acceptable corporate response when there are kids milling around driveways playing ball. The car will need to recognize this all too common phenomenon and pick up ball movement and kids in driveways and yards as suggested cues. The car will have to watch from house to house and be able to determine there are too many people out to justify going the maximum posted speed limit.


I wouldn't doubt it that these companies already have a maximum number of deaths they've built in as a right off. You don't think so? How many little kids do crib manufacturers and car seat manufacturers normally write off before they do a recall or safety fix? If the car is going the posted speed limit and driving legally, has it been programmed to know that a ball rolling 50 feet to the right of it could be a cue to brake because it likely has a child chasing it? Once done with their traffic testing, these cars will need extensive additional social cue testing from residential to large crowd interactions before they're allowed to run as autonomous taxi services. In the mean time expect cross over difficulty and more legal and publicity problems as drivers fail to take control of the vehicle to perform the complex human interaction scenarios because they bought an AV so they wouldn't have to drive.

I-Like-To-Bike

No, I didn't insist on any such thing.
I asked a question about the source, control, and release of data about this incident. Do you have an answer or just a fabrication about what I allegedly "insist"?

Maelochs

For all you know they do.

This was not a residential neighborhood, it was a multi-lane city street with a 45-mph speed limit and no sidewalk on that side.

Apparently even if the car (or any car, with any kind of driver) had gone into panic-braking mode, there was no way to avoid the collision.

No point in speculating about situations which don't obtain. And as you yourself admit, in some situations there is simply no way to avoid the collision .... if one party is completely reckless and irresponsible, the other cannot make up for that.

But no point in getting all worked up about stuff which is entirely imaginary. Thee is plenty of real stuff happening.

I-Like-To-Bike

I am currently reading a non-fiction book, Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg, on an unrelated subject, but a passage stood out that is related to the topic at hand about trust in tests of new technological wonders conducted under idealized conditions that may not represent the real world environment where the gizmo will actually be expected to be used.

One of the justifications for bombing “military targets” in an about cities during WW2 by the Allies was based on the belief that the high altitude bombing of such targets would be accurate, effective quickly and with relatively small numbers of bombs as shown by the tests conducted with the Norden bombsight in the Arizona desert.

“The Americans believed that their Norden bombsight permitted them to bomb with extreme accuracy—what they called “pickle-barrel bombing” from the conceit that you could land a bomb in a pickle barrel. In fact, they would practice in their training to hit not just a particular industrial complex but a particular corner of a particular building…that, while dodging defenses in poor weather over the European continent, American bombardiers could achieve the pickle-barrel accuracy they demonstrated over the Arizona desert without cloud cover.”

I-Like-To-Bike

You know that the collision was unavoidable; how do you know that alleged fact other than believing your own imaginary speculation?

I-Like-To-Bike

Speculate that the victim was Homeless? Off with her head!

Speculate that the driver and/or victim was occupied using a smartphone? Off with their heads!

Cast any doubt about the altruistic intentions of the AV promoters and the infallibility of their claims and statements about their product or intentions? Off with the heathen non-believers' heads!