Uber Tempe Crash Timeline??

[Bud Tierney]

Does anyone know of a published timeline re' the above, tying the safety (??) drivers reactions to the actual impact time etc???

To me, it appears he might've been nodding off, a real danger per other safety drivers, and i wondered if he looked up just before the impact, or if the impact woke him up...

[Peter J.Heizmann]

I would contact the investigating police for such detailed info.  This AACA site is more inclined for old vehicles for the most part at times.

 

Regards,

 

Peter J.

[1937hd45]

ANTIQUE ( OLD STUFF) Automobile Club of America GET IT???????????????? 

[C Carl]

We often discuss the dangers of morons using the same roads our (old) cars do. Safety is a high priority for us all. Computers are morons. At best they are very high speed morons , but morons just the same. Roads are not even morons. They just serve us all , Bud , Peter , Bob , Carl and all other drivers and passengers. I might be slow , but I am not a moron. IMHO , nothing wrong with keeping morons off our roads. Nothing wrong with discussing them either. I love driving and am grateful I grew up in times of big cars and cheap gasoline. Self driving cars do not love what they are doing , and don't really care about the problems they create. Thanks Bud , for reminding us about something else  "big brother" has up his meddling sleeve.   - Carl 

[John_S_in_Penna]

Is that the crash where the automatic car

ran into a female pedestrian?  I saw a real-time

video of the crash--from cameras in the Uber car,

directed both outside and inside the vehicle--

on the internet.  You can probably search for it

on Youtube.

 

While we enjoy antique cars, the cars of today

and the cars of the future are also interesting.

They may be what we're collecting in the future.

[C Carl]

Yes , John. Tempe (near Phoenix) Arizona. The smart productive young workers today see an I.T. future coming to fruition with ever greater automation. I don't see anything wrong with aiming for autonomous vehicles , certainly more safety will come of it. This would be a good time for a reality check , and to limit and delay the deployment on public roads. If/when ever , this is a technology far from ready for prime time. On the other hand , I have seen incompetent drivers who should have their licenses revoked. Permanently.   - Carl 

[SC38dls]

I heard a report the lady was not on a cross walk and the police felt there was no way a human drive it the computer driven car could have avoided hitting her. That was an early report but have not heard any more. 

Dave S 

[John_S_in_Penna]

Yes, Dave.  The woman was crossing a multi-lane highway

in the dark, and not at any cross-walk.  She was walking a

bicycle across, and I think she may have even been homeless.

 

Even an attentive driver wouldn't have seen her;  but if

driverless cars have special sensors for what's ahead,

they would have a better chance of avoiding an unseen pedestrian.

[Matt Harwood]

That one accident set driverless cars back a good five years. I have a friend who is a software coder for Google and his first comment was that everyone in their automation division took the day off and were going to have to regroup and perhaps even scrap what they've done and start over. It isn't that the problem is insurmountable, but now that this has happened, it pretty much "Nadered" the driverless car. Trust is going to be  much harder to earn in the future and there will be politicians looking to make a name on the back of this issue.

 

Personally, I don't care if we ever have driverless cars. I don't see why you need that instead of, say, a bus. And I have concerns about how an auto-driving digital car will react to our purely analog old cars. They will have to share the roads.

 

[CarFreak]

1.  I thought the driver was also a female. 

 

2.  Heard something about collision avoidance sftware had been turned off or bypassed. Anyone else hear that?

[SC38dls]

Driverless cars are coming no matter what any of us think. They may be good or bad. I’m old enough not to have to worry about being a mandate in my lifetime. Currently I would love to see technology make a Mobil phone inoperable if a car is moving. Especially text capability. If it is stopped it works if moving it’s disabled. Can’t be that hard with cell tower connections and GPS capabilities. Now that would be something that would make the roads much safer. But reality says that’s just an old mans way of thinking. 

John I agree if the technology is going to work it should have been capable of avoiding the lady. Homeless or not it’s a shame she got hit. 

Dave S 

Edited March 29, 2018 by SC38DLS (see edit history)

[victorialynn2]

14 minutes ago, SC38DLS said:

Driverless cars are coming no matter what any of us think. They may be good or bad. I’m old enough not to have to worry about being a mandate in my lifetime. Currently I would love to see technology make a Mobil phone inoperable if a car is moving. Especially text capability. If it is stopped it works if moving it’s disabled. Can’t be that hard with cell tower connections and GPS capabilities. Now that would be something that would make the roads much safer. But reality says that’s just an old mans way of thinking. 

John I agree if the technology is going to work it should have been capable of avoiding the lady. Homeless or not it’s a shame she got hit. 

Dave S 

iPhones already have a setting that do exactly what you describe. I have it off because I keep my phone in a holder with Bluetooth on. Sometimes I answer a call using voice only commands for high priority calls (about dad), if the conditions are ok, but I don’t touch it when driving. 

 

https://ios.gadgethacks.com/how-to/use-do-not-disturb-while-driving-your-iphone-ios-11-or-turn-off-if-you-dont-like-it-0178339/

 

I imagine there is a Droid app also. 

Edited March 29, 2018 by victorialynn2 (see edit history)

[Xander Wildeisen]

I will be the one driving my old cars.

[wayne sheldon]

Even in the antique car hobby, I am an antique car person.  I sold the '29 and '31 I had 45 years ago because I decided they were too new. I still have the '27 Paige my dad bought when I was 15 years old because he took it apart and never restored it and as it is it isn't worth selling. I do still hope to try to someday finish what he started. However, in the past 45 years? The newest "antique" car I have bought was a 1925.

 

As for artificial intelligence, or autonomous driving cars? I figure the technology is approaching the point of being comparable to the worst ten percent of people driving today. Somehow, I don't think that is a level of competence that should be aspired to. I know? My son works in information technologies and as a consultant has kept up with many of the latest developments. He thinks there is a future to this. Me? I have been jaded by too many broken promises made by those trying to sell emerging technologies. For most of my working career, I too worked in fields of emerging technologies. I am still today waiting for most of the things I was "promised" thirty years ago. I eventually got out of the field because I was disgusted by the "ivory towers" making promises I KNEW they could not keep. I was also sick and tired of customers blaming me for promises other people had made. Promises that again I KNEW could not have been kept. 

 

I see this stuff as the same old song and dance. Another bad idea, not thought out at all thoroughly, being pushed by several different groups with different agendas (not nearly organized enough to be considered a conspiracy!). Some of those groups, are looking to personally make a fortune selling something that most people do not need. Others (politics), are looking to take people out of some of their equations for their political gains.

And, some people do have the "best interests" of people and society in their hearts. Those people also are totally devoid of any understanding of how things really work in this world, because the more you remove responsibility from every day people's lives? The more irresponsible they will become.  Just the way real people really are.

 

I see the autonomous driver cars as just even more bad drivers that I will have to watch out for when I am driving my model T.

[SC38dls]

VL2. The setting is good on a phone when used. The problem is the driver has to set it. How many times have you looked at a driver and they are either trying to dial a number or see who is calling or worse yet TEXTING ?   Bluetooth works great and even text to voice/voice to text (when it understands) but they are all optional. My point is make them the only way a phone works when a car is moving. If you are not hooked up to all the safety technology then the technology should not be used. 

Again just an old main frame computer salesman/programmer/service bureau owners way of thinking. I’m sure you’ve heard your dad say “Do it right or don’t do it at all”. A good motto some still need to learn. 

Have fun. 

Davs S 

Edited March 29, 2018 by SC38DLS (see edit history)

[Restorer32]

In 25 years the first Autonomous vehicle will be eligible for AACA judging. 

[vermontboy]

The sad part is the death rate is rising. I blame it on the new integrated touch screen controls. I can move heater dials, buttons and levers without ever taking my eyes off the road. I can tune a radios dials and buttons and change the volume and station without taking my eyes off the road.

 

It is impossible to perform either function without taking your eyes off the road when you have to go to a touch screen, find the screen you want, and search for where to touch the screen. That is especially true here in the Northeast where we wear gloves or mittens on those below zero mornings.

[Curti]

It is impossible to perform either function without taking your eyes off the road when you have to go to a touch screen, find the screen you want, and search for where to touch the screen. That is especially true here in the Northeast where we wear gloves or mittens on those below zero mornings.

 

I bought a new Dodge Ram new in 2014.  There is two ways to do nearly everything, manual and touch screen. I imagine it is worse now.  The touch screen should be outlawed, it is a recipe for an accident.  A voice activated phone is no different than having a conversation with a passenger or listening to the radio.

[plymouthcranbrook]

11 hours ago, Matt Harwood said:

That one accident set driverless cars back a good five years. I have a friend who is a software coder for Google and his first comment was that everyone in their automation division took the day off and were going to have to regroup and perhaps even scrap what they've done and start over. It isn't that the problem is insurmountable, but now that this has happened, it pretty much "Nadered" the driverless car. Trust is going to be  much harder to earn in the future and there will be politicians looking to make a name on the back of this issue.

 

Personally, I don't care if we ever have driverless cars. I don't see why you need that instead of, say, a bus. And I have concerns about how an auto-driving digital car will react to our purely analog old cars. They will have to share the roads.

 

Two comments. One of course a bus requires walking to and from the rest of your destination. Many like door to door. Two, wait for the day you will be required to have a computer controlled mode to enter populated area(Cities and large suburbs)for your Safety. Safety is capitalized because as we know it is the most important thing to most people and they will react positively to any statement promoting it.

Edited March 29, 2018 by plymouthcranbrook (see edit history)

[keiser31]

AND....in the video, the woman with the bicycle crossing the road was not even looking in the direction of the car that was coming.

[Matt Harwood]

I know you guys aren't blaming a dead woman who was crossing the street in a crosswalk for getting hit by an automated car with an operator who wasn't paying attention, right?

 

Related thought experiment: When I was 12, a lady ran a red light and hit me in a crosswalk while I was riding my bike. She tried to collect damages from my parents (I dented the hell out of her car) because she said I was riding my bike in the crosswalk instead of walking it. Was my father right for almost physically throwing her out of his house or should he have paid her for the dented hood?

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Matt Harwood (see edit history)

[MCHinson]

I am not really a fan of the technology, but time marches on. Guys, I have deleted one political comment in this discussion. While the entire topic is not really related to old cars, I am trying to let you discuss it if you wish. Further political comments will result in further moderator involvement. 

 

I am not sure if the pedestrian was in a crosswalk or not. If the car was a regular car without any advanced technology, we would not even have heard about this. Pedestrians (both in and out of crosswalks) get hit and killed by cars on a fairly regular basis in this country. They don't normally become national news items. When you walk in a road at night with dark colored clothing, it is really important to look both ways and make sure it is safe before you step into the travel lane. I look both ways before walking across a railroad track too. People get hit by trains every now and then too. Nobody typically asks why the train did not stop. 

[keiser31]

Trying not to blame the woman for what happened, but we cannot save everyone from their own actions.

[vermontboy]

Being a gentleman  I cannot adequately express my feelings about the following article. I suppose it is supposed to be OK if one of the "hundreds or perhaps thousands" of those innocent people killed are close to you.

 

I have no idea  what is happening to this link. Please just cut and paste it into the browser. It works fine from email and fine from vword but when put into here as a link it creates an advertisement. Frustrating.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/03/29/self-driving-cars-uber-crash-toyota/468804002/

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by vermontboy
bad link (see edit history)

[vermontboy]

Or google "Toyota says self driving cars could kill hundreds".

 

Sorry for the bad link - no idea what USA Today has done ....

[ply33]

13 hours ago, SC38DLS said:

. . .Currently I would love to see technology make a Mobil phone inoperable if a car is moving. Especially text capability. If it is stopped it works if moving it’s disabled. Can’t be that hard with cell tower connections and GPS capabilities. . .

 

6 hours ago, SC38DLS said:

. . . The problem is the driver has to set it. How many times have you looked at a driver and they are either trying to dial a number or see who is calling or worse yet TEXTING ?   Bluetooth works great and even text to voice/voice to text (when it understands) but they are all optional. My point is make them the only way a phone works when a car is moving. . . .

 

If it was as automatic as you'd like then I guess all those people I saw on the commuter train yesterday and today when I took MetroLink to the county seat for jury duty wouldn't be able to call or text. Or for that matter the passenger(s) in your car wouldn't be able to call or text either. Seems like your assumption is one person (only the driver) per vehicle at all times. And that is a bit unreasonable. Or are you suggesting that the phones be smart enough to detect who is the driver and who is the passenger?

 

5 hours ago, vermontboy said:

The sad part is the death rate is rising. I blame it on the new integrated touch screen controls. I can move heater dials, buttons and levers without ever taking my eyes off the road. I can tune a radios dials and buttons and change the volume and station without taking my eyes off the road.

 

It is impossible to perform either function without taking your eyes off the road when you have to go to a touch screen, find the screen you want, and search for where to touch the screen. That is especially true here in the Northeast where we wear gloves or mittens on those below zero mornings.

 

Fully agree with this. My trusty "new car", a 2004 model, was backed into by a truck last fall and declared a total loss by their insurance company. So I am now driving a 2017 where the climate and radio controls are all via touch screen and it is very distracting to try to adjust anything while you are actually driving. Discrete buttons/levers/knobs are much better in those applications. Having a touch screen for those controls is almost as bad as texting while driving.

 

On the other hand, the radar adaptive cruise control in the new car makes stop and go driving on the Southern California freeways much less annoying. Just set the following distance to be short enough that people won't jump in ahead of you then keep in the lane (car only has lane departure warning, not lane following) and sit back and keep an eye out for idiots.

 

4 hours ago, Curti said:

. . .  A voice activated phone is no different than having a conversation with a passenger or listening to the radio.

 

I've read of studies that indicate that hands free operation on a phone is not much better for safety and level of distraction than just holding the phone. Even talking with a passenger can be distracting but I think conversation with a passenger has some of the danger mitigated by the fact that the passenger is probably also watching the road and may give warning of an impending issue. I am pretty sure that the person at the other end of my hands free telephone conversation can't warn me about dangerous road situation developing where I am.

 

35 minutes ago, vermontboy said:

Being a gentleman  I cannot adequately express my feelings about the following article. I suppose it is supposed to be OK if one of the "hundreds or perhaps thousands" of those innocent people killed are close to you.

 

I have no idea  what is happening to this link. Please just cut and paste it into the browser. It works fine from email and fine from vword but when put into here as a link it creates an advertisement. Frustrating.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/03/29/self-driving-cars-uber-crash-toyota/468804002/

 

 

 

You link works for me but it is another case of the headline being misleading. The body of the article also said the same spokesman estimated "that autonomous vehicles could eventually save 35,000 lives annually, representing the 98% of deadly crashes blamed on driver error." So the issue/promise/threat is we'll have to live with 100 to 500 lives lost per year but the gain would be 35,000 lives saved. The other version of the headline could have been that autonomous vehicles could save 34,500 lives per year. Framed that way, it seems a pretty good deal to me.

 

An earlier comment equated the current level of intelligence of autonomous vehicles to that of a moron. I think that is comparing apples to oranges. Humans are not all that good at controlling mechanical devices for extended periods of time. We get bored and distracted too easily. For instance, how well can you maintain a steady speed in your car? Doesn't even take a computer, just a simple speed controlled servo to do better than most drivers. Even the vacuum-mechanical speed control on the car I had in the 1980s didn't have its mind wander and lose attention to the task at hand.

 

I expect commercial drivers will be impacted first by autonomous vehicles. Once developed, I am guessing all the gear and computers needed for autonomous operation will be less than $200K near term. Probably less than $50K in the medium term and less than $10K in the little bit longer term. If you are a taxi or trucking company which is cheaper for you, paying a driver a living wage or spending a few years of burdened overhead cost, say $200K, to be free of paying for a driver at all. A three year payoff is an incredibly good investment for any company and they'll leap at the chance to rid themselves of drivers on their payroll. Once the price drops and the payoff gets to be less than an year it truly will be a "no brainer" for the bean counters to insist the company's drivers be laid off.

[Matt Harwood]

On the flip-side, autonomous vehicles will herald the return of the full-service gas station. They're still going to need a person to fuel them up at the gas station.

 

Who is the master and who is the slave now?

[R Walling]

15 hours ago, CarFreak said:

1.  I thought the driver was also a female. 

 

2.  Heard something about collision avoidance sftware had been turned off or bypassed. Anyone else hear that?

 The Uber company had turned off a part of the system.

 The driver was looking down at the time.

 The person appear so suddenly I doubt that an attentive driver would have seen her.

[mike6024]

No, an attentive driver has the responsibility to act. Running down things in your path and saying "sorry, didn't see you" is not the law. And if it is true that Uber turned off some aspect of collision avoidance knowing full well they have a "driver" who can be expected to doze off since the vehicle is "self driving" is totally egregious.

[alsancle]

2 hours ago, Roger Walling said:

 The Uber company had turned off a part of the system.

 The driver was looking down at the time.

 The person appear so suddenly I doubt that an attentive driver would have seen her.

 

This last statement is true.  Has everyone seen the video?  There is no way a human driver would have avoided hitting the woman.

[Grimy]

43 minutes ago, alsancle said:

 

This last statement is true.  Has everyone seen the video?  There is no way a human driver would have avoided hitting the woman.

Dunno...  I saw the video but the width of the dash cam angle was pretty darn narrow.  Most of us use a much wider field of view even outside the headlights, especially in deer country.

[auburnseeker]

In deer and worse moose country,  You spend almost as much time watching the side of the road coming up as you do what's directly in front of you.  Same applies with old cars to many of us.  We are watching everything one can possibly see in near 180 degree view to ascertain if that car coming up to the crossing where you have the right away is really going t stop or blow through it because he can beat that old car.  

[C Carl]

Deer ? Check. Dog ? Check. Human ? Check. Bird ? Check. Dragonfly ? Check. All of us have splattered at least one , and probably didn't like it. Some might have even checked all boxes. Even more unpleasant. There is only one of the aforementioned "splatters" who supposedly had the responsibility and the grey matter to have spared the impact and the unpleasantries derived from same. Maybe that human was operating semi-autonomously with situation awareness software impaired. The drivers of autonomous vehicles will over time have their driving skills eroded. Maybe somewhat like some modern pilots who have had much of their flight training done on simulators. Some of them , apparently , lack advanced skills at actually FLYING a flying machine. Lots of pilot error still possible in an increasingly safer environment due to technology. Yes , safety will be enhanced by research into self driving vehicles. But I maintain that computers are morons operating at the speed of light. It might have been possible to have saved the woman's life! But maybe there were TWO morons with their collision avoidance systems turned off at the wheel that night ! Again , thanks Bud for bringing this obviously well received topic up.    - Carl 

[alsancle]

I had this conversation with my 93 year old dad.   And just to set the table,  I HATE the idea of self driving cars.   Just as I dislike that most people under the age of 35 can't drive a stick.

 

But,  do not delude yourselves in to thinking that the self driven car will not be 10x safer than the average human driving within a short number of years.     Eventually, they will be 100x safer.   We all have two eyes,  there can be limitless sensors on the car, all being processed much faster than the human brain.  It is inevitable,  unfortunately.

 

Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day.   How many of those drivers were impaired or distracted?

[Grimy]

AJ, where did you get those stats?  I thought we were well down from the 40,000 deaths (US) per year of my youth.  So 33,000 deaths in 2010.  Here's what the Google search says:

 

"In 2010, there were an estimated 5,419,000 crashes, 30,296 of with fatalities, killing 32,999, and injuring 2,239,000. About 2,000 children under 16 die every year in traffic collisions. Records indicate that there has been a total of 3,613,732 motor vehicle fatalities in the United States from 1899 to 2013."

[SC38dls]

Ply33. Didn’t say it was a perfect solution but if it saved one life it would be worth it. Don’t forget life was not always this connected to electronic devices. I’m sure a new car could have a short hard wire connection for passengers and the rear seats that the driver could not reach to connect. The majority of cars going to or from work are single occupant cars. Plus the average commute is less than 30 minutes unless you are in a major city.  The technology could be set for 7 miles per hour or something like that and 911 could be activated at any time. If technology is so advanced it could be done. Remember the size of a cell phone or are you too young to remember bag phones and dial phones. 

I never said it would be perfect or easy but it would be safer and maybe save a life or two. Use the technology to make things better not dumber. 

Have fun

Dave S 

[vermontboy]

Last post for awhile but I am dismayed that it is apparently OK for Toyota to state: 

 

"The reality is there will be mistakes along the way," he said at a Reuters news event moderated by reporter David Shepardson. "A hundred or 500 or a thousand people could lose their lives in accidents like we’ve seen in Arizona."

 

So it's OK to kill 500 or a thousand innocent people through mistakes as long as it will eventually save a lot of lives. Sure hope that one of those isn't someone close to you - but they are close to someone. They talk about "collateral damage" in warfare. Now we have "collateral damage" on our streets killing innocent people?

 

And this is now considered part of the ethos of the 21st century ?

 

 

[ply33]

28 minutes ago, SC38DLS said:

. . . Remember the size of a cell phone or are you too young to remember bag phones and dial phones. . .

 

I am old enough to remember dial phones and that our home phone had a "MAin 4" number.

 

42 minutes ago, SC38DLS said:

. . . I’m sure a new car could have a short hard wire connection for passengers and the rear seats that the driver could not reach to connect. . .

 

I bet that within a week you'd be able to buy extension cables at the check out stand in your local grocery or drugstore for people wanting to get around that limitation.

 

 

14 minutes ago, vermontboy said:

. . . So it's OK to kill 500 or a thousand innocent people through mistakes as long as it will eventually save a lot of lives. . .

 

There is some evidence that autonomous vehicles already have a lower accident rate per mile driven than those driven by humans. So, in a sense, it is already saving lives. Only in a sense as while the vehicles have a pretty good track record they've only really been used in test and development mode not actually moving masses of people around.

 

There is also some indication that Uber is particularly bad at their self-driving work. Uber's version apparently need human intervention on the order of once every 15 or so miles while Google's are more like 1000 to 10,000 miles. From what I've read the other autonomous vehicle efforts are not quite as good as Google's but are fairly close, so Uber is the outlier with horrible performance compared to the others. And apparently, on this version of Uber's test cars they reduced the number of sensors including side sensors, some allegations are that it was to reduce cost.

[auburnseeker]

How does it work in heavy rain or fog or worse yet snow?  The one sensor will be telling it something is in the way and the other will say it's clear.  

How fast does someone move pushing a bike?   I Know I can't push one very fast.   I can walk a lot faster without it.   A person pushing a bike should be easier to see than someone just walking as well. 

Deer also seem to be able to move faster than a person and jump higher in many circumstances.  

How many deer accidents or other animal accidents have been reported involving self driving cars?  

To date I have hit one deer.  (he ran into the side of my truck from between two snowbanks,  It was a very small deer,  so he actually hit me,  one cat,  actually went under the truck and got hit by the Rear wheels and one bird I know of as I pulled him out of the grille of my 1957 Thunderbird.  (kind of ironic on the last one).  My Dad Driving tractor trailers hauling logs in the North country then moving heavy equipment has had a few deer accidents, but no other accidents with well over a million miles on the clock.  That's on roads that were so bad no one would drive on them and everything was closed.  

I've watched him back a tractor trailer fully loaded with logs over a mile out a woods road because the tourist in the Subaru. didn't know how to back up and the road was only 1 vehicle wide being it was winter time and the banks close in by the end of winter.  

Maybe if it was truckers like him programming the cars they would be better. 

[mike6024]

They have radar and lidar, at least Google cars do, so they can search and track. lidar is a laser type device. I think pulses of radar frequency laser, and it gives you range to the moving object the vehicle is interested in. It may also give you its speed by Doppler. No question this autonomous car should have detected the J-walker, and at least initiated brake application. Not only detected her but tracked her, like a Naval ship tracks an incoming missile. Being dark doesn't matter. High humidity can degrade radar and rain is a big problem potentially, but not darkness.