Tempe Police Release Video of Uber Accident
Wow, I had thought it impossible for the Uber AV to be in the right lane, and for the victim to be crossing left-to-right, for the police to claim that the victim couldn&#x27;t be seen until it was too late. But I didn&#x27;t expect the road to be so dark, given what we saw in the accident photos (which might have been over-exposed?) and Google Maps, which showed a lot of street&#x2F;sidewalk lighting.<p>In the moment that we can fully see her, she does look unambiguously like a person walking a bike across the road (reports say there were plastic bags on the bike, but they weren&#x27;t obvious&#x2F;obstructive in the camera view). Is the AV&#x27;s LIDAR expected to detect this kind of thing, even if it&#x27;s too dark for human eyes?<p>The video of the Uber driver doesn&#x27;t look great for the driver. I mean she doesn&#x27;t look particularly engaged -- but I suspect that&#x27;s what <i>most of us</i> would look like at the wheel. But she definitely seems to be looking downwards, right at the moment of impact.<p>Unless some other incriminating info is discovered, I hope that the driver isn&#x27;t the sole focus of punishment (doesn&#x27;t help that she&#x27;s a convicted armed robber, albeit years ago). Being able to brake in time for the victim seems difficult even in most ideal and alert conditions. And I have to think human operators are going to suffer complacency when 95-99% of the time they never have to actually drive -- making that switch seems to be a situation ripe with problems.<p>I don&#x27;t mean that Uber execs&#x2F;testers&#x2F;engineers (again, assuming there isn&#x27;t other incriminating evidence) should be scapegoats. I hope the result involves regulations that add more transparency to reporting (especially in Arizona), and public debate about the expectations of AV and AI.