Footage Shows Uber's Autonomous Car Failing To See The Pedestrian It Hit
Police investigating the first pedestrian fatality caused by an autonomous car have released footage of how the tragic accident occurred.
We’ve chosen not to embed the Uber-operated car’s footage here because, although it stops a split-second before the fateful impact itself, by its nature it’s disturbing to watch. If you wish, you can view it on Twitter here, but we’ve offered fair warning.
Crucially, this footage shows that Elaine Herzberg, 49, didn’t simply dart out into the road as had previously been reported: she was crossing it in what should have been plain sight of the sensor array. That the car apparently didn’t detect her at all is terrifying.
The car’s interior camera shows the human back-up driver looking down for long moments before the crash. From this footage the driver wouldn’t have had much warning from the car’s dipped headlights, but the human eye can see greater contrast than the camera can, and could potentially have seen Herzberg crossing if it hadn’t been for whatever the lap-sited distraction was.
Local police in Tempe, Arizona, have reported that the Uber prototype was travelling at 38mph in a 35mph-limited area; something we thought autonomous cars wouldn’t allow. Travelling slower, the car may have missed Herzberg altogether or given the driver more time to react. Judging by the evidence here, this accident was totally preventable by both machine and human.
Comments
Is that backup driver a man or a woman? Honestly can’t tell
Autonomous Uber car=Ford mustang in disguise
This reminds me of something…..
Well, this is going to taint both uber’s and autonomous vehicles’ re putations for quite some time now.
I hate to generalise, but while sitting in traffic I’ve seen many taxi drivers (and other drivers) regularly checking their phones, and I think that’s what this driver was doing too. People need to take paying attention/ not texting while driving seriously!
Not here to blame anyone but both the pedestrian and driver should be aware of the dangers in driving or walking in the dark. Cars have lights, but they will not illuminate every corner of the view if in complete darkness especially when your lights are in low beam instead of high beam. (I mean you won’t want to be the ass that drives around the city with full beams on and blinding everyone else right? Unless of course your car has those adaptive high beams then that’s fine). And pedestrians or cyclist has a better view of these brightly lit headlamps coming their way.
She crossed a busy 2 lane highway in the dark, I didn’t see her in the video until she was about 20 yards away from the car. The driver should’ve been concentrating, but to say it was preventable is a stretch. Would barely scratch the surface of national news if it wasn’t an autonomous car.
This coming from someone who hates the idea of autonomous vehicles…
No lights on bike no high visibility cloths… And it was dark part of the road.. Very hard to see it tho..
i honestly hate how people get off their cycles to cross the road.
like damn dude, its quicker to just cycle!
autonomous cars, hitting pedestrians since 1987
That’s the thing with backup-drivers:
If you place someone in a car and tell them, that it works by itself and that they will have to watch it in case something goes wrong, they’ll quickly start doing something else (probably on the phone)