A self-driving Uber car struck 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg as she walked her bicycle across a street in Tempe, Arizona on Sunday night. The woman passed away.
The Volvo XC90 was in autonomous mode, and Rafael Vasquez, 44, was behind the wheel as a safeguard as the vehicle piloted itself. The SUV was moving around 65 km/h (40 mph) in a 35 mph zone, according to Tempe Police detective Lily Duran. Police said that there were no significant signs of the SUV slowing down before the crash.
Apparently, Herzberg, who may have been homeless according to the police, was crossing the street mid-block when she was struck. “The safety of our citizens here in Tempe is of the utmost importance. None of us ever want to go through this ever again, using the crosswalks will definitely limit this from happening again,” Tempe Police Sgt. Ronald Elcock said.
Uber, which is conducting autonomous vehicle tests in Arizona, Pittsburgh, Toronto and other areas, said it has stopped testing the vehicles throughout North America after the fatal crash.
“Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We’re fully cooperating with police and local authorities as they investigate this incident,” Uber said in a statement. “Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona. We’re thinking of the victim’s family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi tweeted.
Needless to say, pedestrians and cyclists are among the biggest challenges for autonomous cars. Uber recently constructed a ‘fake city’ for the testing of its autonomous cars. Called Almono, the 42-acre facility contains obstacles including roadways, complicated intersections, fake cars and unpredictable pedestrians.
In the real world, Arizona is the main testing ground for self-driving cars. According to CNN, earlier this month, Arizona governor Doug Ducey updated an executive order to allow autonomous cars to drive on state roads without a test driver behind the wheel, which is the current norm.
Waymo, the self-driving arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is launching a public self-driving car service this year in the state’s Phoenix area. Others such as GM’s Cruise and Intel are also present in Arizona, which does not have much rain or snow to disrupt the navigation of the self-driving machines. What’s your view on autonomous cars?
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They really promise their 2020 vision of no one will be kill “ONLY THE OCCUPANT INSIDE THE CAR”. Everything else outside the car will not guarantee.
Decepticon doing part time uber while waiting for next movie but cannot contain its natural character.
This is the best comment evaaaa!
u can’t even profit with your own core business, now u doing something and create mess, Uber must be penalized
Doing 40mph, Volvo’s Pedestrian Detection can’t stop in time.
There was a driver in the car, so not like “if there’s a human driver, this wouldn’t have happened”. The driver had commented it happened in a flash, like the pedestrian appeared out of nowhere. The crash, was simply unavoidable.
The only difference that can be made is the vehicle should have kept below speed limit, and the pedestrian did not jaywalk.
RIP.
Traveling 40MPH in a 35MPH zone is not normal. Usually their polis will be hiding around to catch and saman for overspeeding.
Tragically, as shown, more research must be done must be done to make it 100% foolproof under all situations and weather conditions.
Maybe in urban areas it should only be semi autonomous and driver intervention is a must?
In life, there is no such thing as being 100% fool proof and only fools really believe that can actually happen …. except for death. Everyone will die eventually …. that’s the only guarantee!
Sometimes, its better to leave certain things for human to operate. Can’t understand what is all the fuss about self driving cars. Cars are meant to be driven by human not autonomous. Dumb human. No wonder the world prays to Elon Musk. Given the money anyone can be as bragging as him.
Do you know how many accidents that humans caused? Even yourself most probably have caused an accident.
I totally agree! A self driven vehicle make a lot less errors compared to humans. They might not be 100% perfect, all the time, but statistically, humans make more errors and cause more accidents then electronically controlled ones.
With careless humans, at least the control based is still within the human driver, which can be sued, jailed, or any remedial action be accounted upon. With machine, the loophole is big on this one. If some nefarious entity decided to kill you through controlling the driving program n wipe its slate clean…who should you be suing? The company or the State gov or Fed gov for implementing this sort of thing? The loophole is big on this one.
Secondly, the most disgusting imo, is this is the antithesis of empowerment! You’re relinquishing your control to machine, rendering humans more n more worthless n more n more expendable, coz you’re getting more n more redundant!
Skynet has become self-aware and took its 1st victim. Paging for John Connor… oh wait, thats me.
You deserve a reply.
Wait, son. I haven’t yet conceived…
I am coming,Sarah…….the machine is after me
i guess they should stay away from this type of pedestrian road, as the technology isnt mature enough. just stick to those highway and urban places where less of this sort of accident may happen, school and kids zone should not blacklisted for it to come near.
self driving is stupid
I’ve been driving cars for more than 40 years. “Self/ auto driving” cars are just like sitting in a conveyor belt. Where’s the fun? What’ll happen when there’s a “system failure”? A system failure miles away may back up traffic for tens of km at every junction? A hybrid system? Part original cars, part robot cars? It’ll be a nightmare for the car market
Speaking as someone who is in the same decade as you (but younger), “fun” in driving went out the window decades ago. Today it’s stressful.
As for system failures, the same was said with the introduction of automatic gearbox, ABS, ESP, BA … virtually every electronic part/system placed in cars. Heck, I even remember old timers saying the air-conditioning system will make the engine “spoil faster”. From your experience, how often does major system like automatic gearbox or ABS or ESP breaks down?
Give you a simple example, my car electronic lock/unlock button on door handle. It’s been 7 years now & if we assume this button is pushed 6 times a day, 365 days a year, the total times it has been pushed is 15,330 AND it’s still not spoil !!! Still amazes me every time I think about it.
Like it or not, hybrid cars will be the norm within a decade or so. Notice the trend of increasing fuel efficiency internal fuel combustion engines, the trend of moving away from fossil fuels (in automotive). The closest to an engine in the future will be a hydrogen fuel cell. Your grandchildren will grow up driving electric cars for L lesen.
As technology matures, the kinks in the system gets corrected & what is innovative yesterday is today’s norm. Embrace it but trust your human instinct. No machine nor interface will be able to replace human instinct.
You appear to assume that machines will always be inorganic and von Neumann
Within my lifetime, yes. Even with the rapid development of technology, the day that an android with an electronic brain & human flesh is still far far away.
A human baby can learn & adapt intricate processes such as understanding sight & sound, learn to walk within a year, understand speech & learn to speak thereafter etc is the miracle of the human brain & body. On top of that, there is the basic survival instinct that’s hard coded. The human body is so complex that no machine can replicate what it does in totality successfully.
The time may come sometime in the future, but not so soon.
Don’t be so in awe of technology. Nature is so much more complex & intricate yet we are blind to it, simply because we take it for granted.
How long has these tests been going on for? How many vehicles are involved? How many total combined hours of driving have these test vehicles clocked up?
You get ONE accident and it becomes a big deal just because it happened to be an autonomous vehicle!
In that time, how many similar accidents have occurred involving normal cars driven by humans?
The statistics, I guarantee will be A LOT MORE! Unfortunately, it is not possible to make it 100% fail proof because of various circumstances but overall, a self driven car is still safer then those driven by humans.
I think you’re missing the point. Yes, it should be safer but who’s accountable in the event of failure? The car company or the owner? That’s the main complication. Next is how much trust can this new tech be to win over riders?
It must be designed to 100%.
Or 99.99999999999999999999999999999999
Self drive still have their hiccups. A Life loss at stake. Needs rethinking whether it is safe to pedestrians and public as a whole.
11,000sqft? R u madd??…. Almono is 42 acres.
I still believe in an Autonomous car, and keep on believing in the technology until I got hit and killed by one.
Autonomous car. When accident happens who to blame? The man in the car or the car itself? How about glitches that could happen and cause haywire in the system? Is it the driver, the car, or the manufacturer of the car to be blamed?
The insurance company takes responsibility
In Malaysia, got driver inside also can kill people one… Lane change without signalling, rushing to overtake like psycho, all also got driver in the car one. Better autopilot cars, at least more disciplined.
even plane needs a pilot although autopilot mode is available
What can you say? Pedestrian are unpredictable.
There are some things a human can see that robots cannot. When they see someone looking like they might cross a road or unstable on a bicycle, they can foresee an outcome and slow down or move a bit to the side to allow extra space. If they see small children they might slow down just in case a child suddenly runs across. A good experienced and alert human is able to predict and prepare for a worse-case scenario while that computor probably only saw that the road in front is clear until too late and the woman crossed.
Of course not all humans are good, experienced or alert. Some are not even watching the road. Too many idiots prefer looking at their phones while driving. They kill people too but it’s not worldwide international news.
Remember folks, this IS the company who’s gonna launch SpaceX…. when its land-crap can’t even self-pilot safely.
Oh well nvm. It ain’t confirm Tesla. But Tesla is bs anyway.
Is a nonsense technology. I am totally disagree
Is a nonsense technology. Human still drive better
Msian humans?
Autonomous vehicles including aircraft are here and will evolve.
Question is why the collision avoidance system did not function as designed?
Maybe driverless cars would be better than msian drivers , fewer road accidents perhaps?