Self-driving car tests being halted for the moment

Poor woman… I cannot understand how this happened… there was a person behind the wheel !!! perhaps they could not over-ride the self-driving bit… :worried::worried:

1 Like

Or the circumstances allowed neither the car nor the “monitor” time to react.

Whatever, certainly something that needs explanation/investigation…

Personally, I do not like the idea of driverless cars… but am willing to be convinced of their merits… :worried:

Saw the video. I think that she would have been hit by any vehicle, driverless or not. The lady pushed her bike across a road at night without looking. Happens every day.
I’m not sure that an alert driver would have been able to react in time.

One thing that I noticed… the “driver” appears to be looking down a lot…and not looking outside…

Drivers should always be vigilant. In particular, night-time driving needs good lighting and an alert driver… especially in town, where folk will and do appear from all angles. I would expect any driver to be looking forward/side-to-side etc etc not down at his/her feet…

I can’t remember where I saw the link but it turns out that people quickly get used to the car doing the driving and stop paying attention.

There is a lot of debate around the 'net regarding exactly what happened here, the dashcam footage posted seems to show the woman appearing out of shadows but a lot of people have posted photos and videos showing that the area is well lit at night - also the car is supposed to have sensors that don’t need visible light to work.

The behaviour of the pedestrian seems odd as well - presumably she could see the Uber car - why then did she (apparently) continue to walk at a constant rate into its path.

More questions than answers at the moment but I suspect that the conclusion will  be that the system isn’t ready for prime time.

Just wondering… was this an electric car… the ones around here are so silent they give no warning noise of approach (although this car did have dipped beam)

Also, it seems as if the “driver” has the inside light on… which will hamper the view through the windows… (well, it would in our car)… night-time driving needs even more vigilance than daytime IMO…

Will the driving licence be confiscated from the “human monitor” ??? :zipper_mouth_face:

awful stuff. what will be next…