Two obvious things from the footages: the pedestrian is invisible until the last moment, and the "driver" is focused on something else, probably a smartphone.
Given of how little time there was between the hitted woman became visible and the impact, a driver action may not have been able to avoid it, but what will be interesting is how his responsability will be engaged or not.
Anyway one advantage of automous car is the theoretical the ability to have faster than human reaction and extra-human sensors. It should have been able to catch the problem.
> the pedestrian is invisible until the last moment
In this crappy video, yes. Maybe it was scaled down massively before handing to the police or made darker, we don't know. It might have been visible for a normal person.
The Police should ask for the raw footage and at any rate the AD will if there's any doubt. They will probably engage a forensic computer tech expert as well and possibly ASU professors/engineers. But from a black box perspective it's clear that the system didn't not detect anything. Still IANAL but I would probably guess there will be a reckless driving charge for the driver here.. mitigated by the pedestrian failing to yield to the car by not crossing at a cross walk. The human driver was clearly not paying attention and there is video evidence of that. If the driver had kept their eyes on the road and the accident had still happened then it probably would be no charges filed.
Agree that the driver was clearly not paying attention.
I was surprised that the headlights did not illuminate further down the road. That is, drivers are cautioned not to “out-drive your headlights” — meaning that you shouldn’t drive so fast that by the time you see something, you don’t have time to react. Maybe a human driver couldn’t have avoided the accident given the speed the self-driving car was traveling, but perhaps a human driver would have (or should have) driven slower?
>I was surprised that the headlights did not illuminate further down the road.
You are surprised because your intuition and experience tells you that it is very easy to see much further down the road when traveling on a road with street lights and non-high-beam headlights on. The footage is highly misleading regarding how far a human eye would be able to see.
According to the videos of Waymo’s cars, their cars would’ve seen her. Lidar should be more effective at night.
I guess it’s obvious Uber didn’t steal their tech. I was on their side from the initial reports but there’s no reason that should’ve happened if that car was equipped with lidar.
Given of how little time there was between the hitted woman became visible and the impact, a driver action may not have been able to avoid it, but what will be interesting is how his responsability will be engaged or not.
Anyway one advantage of automous car is the theoretical the ability to have faster than human reaction and extra-human sensors. It should have been able to catch the problem.