Uber Autonomous Car Kills Pedestrian.

R.I.P. to the pedestrian. But IMHO, who didn't see this coming. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is why I feel our jobs are safe.

Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian

Yes RIP to the pedestrian. So very sad that this happened. This is supposed to be the future so many people are worried about. Things like this are the reason I don't worry about the self driving vehicles taking over anytime in my lifetime.

Unbelievably sad. We were just having a continuation of this conversation here in the forum today: Possible Self Driving/ Autonomous Trucks Opinions And Time Frame?

Someone showed up this morning saying how we're closer to having autonomous trucks than I believe and that truck driving jobs are going to get squeezed in the next 10 years. I happen to wholeheartedly disagree with his opinion and I wrote an article on this not too long ago:

Self-Driving Vehicles Are Not Coming Anytime Soon

I like to say that you don't judge a technology by its potential or it's successes. You judge a technology by its failures. This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Sad.

Amen...

Screw Uber, never cared much for them since they started aiming to replace the drivers that made them.

This just goes to show that every scenario can not be predicted by self driving vehicles. The fact that there was even an operator in the vehicle during the incident is testimant to that fact. I worked highway maintenance for some time and the worst part of that job was the middle of the night phone calls to respond to traffic accidents. Seeing and experiencing those accidents/fatalities taught me one thing about drivers, anything and everything will happen out there. A computer can’t deal with it, by the time it’s input data on the road conditions ahead it’s changed so it will always be seconds behind it’s driving ability. By the time it recognizes the hazard it still has to compute a course of action, instincts of a human in the seat will always trump that in my opinion.

My prayers go out to the family. May she Rest In Peace.

The x-factor in all autonomous technology is the unpredictability of the human element.

Perfect, yet tragic example of it here. The technology cannot attempt to make eye contact with a pedestrian or another driver. Many of us use eye contact, or lack there-of to anticipate the bad judgement of another human being; pedestrian or driver. Think about all of the judgement calls we make on a daily basis, some based on instincts. Very difficult and time consuming to "teach" a computer all of the possible scenarios we face during a 10 hour drive. Miss one and the above Uber situation is destined to eventually occur.

The human factor created it, and might ultimately cause it's demise except only in highly controlled, limited access environments where there is true "like-for-like; meaning all autonomous vehicles running in the same corridor on hi-tech highways designed to fully enable efficiency and safety.

One of my favorite Achilles Heels of this type of technology are the seams on the interstate that have been sealed with hot liquid asphalt. It triggers lane departure alarms every time, has yet to recognize it for what it is...

Https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uber-self-driving-car-crash-arizona-police-say-pedestrian-stepped-in-front/

So it wasent the car's fault and even a human at the wheel would have hit her.

So it wasn't the car's fault and even a human at the wheel would have hit her.

Maybe, maybe not. Do you know how many hundreds of times I noticed the possibility that something might happen long before it did so I changed what I was doing to avoid that possibility? Hundreds of times. Often times you can tell what another driver is going to do just by watching their head. You can see what mirrors they're using or whether they're looking for something on the seat or bobbing their head to the music, etc.

With experience you learn to pick up on tiny little clues or you avoid putting yourself in a position where something might go wrong in the first place. Who is to say that an experienced driver wouldn't have picked up on some sort of clue that she might come out into the roadway?

Jan what exactly do you take issue with?

Knowing that doesn't change any of what I wrote, basically reinforced with what Brett wrote.