According to reports, the pedestrian was illegally crossing the road at a traffic light with a red light for the pedestrians and a green light for the cars.
The human driven car presumably didn’t see the pedestrian and hit her at high speed, she then bounced into the path of the autonomous car. The autonomous car, which was empty, slammed on the brakes but could not stop in time.
Would a human have stopped in time? That would depend on the human…
Do you think it would have been better to continue driving over someone? What would you like the car to do after a person is thrown under it? Hover mode?
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Going “I just hit someone, I’m going to shut down everything and wait for people to come solve this” is a better general approach than “I just hit someone, better back up to make sure I’m not parked right on top of them.” That second approach could lead to the vehicle dragging the victim, driving over them a second time, or otherwise making things much worse.
It’s not like the car can’t be controlled, if driving off was deemed the correct action, they could have gotten them to over-ride and drive the car off. Driving off is almost never the recommended action in these cases.
Once it’s already parked on the leg, sure. But during the accident continuing on in the initial impact to go over the leg (hopefully with just the front tire. Would’ve been preferable. But also that’s a very weird edge case that i imagine there were no sensors for, and a human could’ve made the exact same mistake in trying to brake before hand but not quite making it and inadvertently parking on the victim instead.
Would a human have stopped in time? That would depend on the human…
Unlikely. These SDCs have reaction speeds far faster than any human driver. The biggest issue here is just simple physics; trying to stop a car that’s already at speed requires a certain amount of distance, and from what I’m understanding, it’s sounding like avoiding hitting the woman was literally impossible in this scenario (short of delaying the initial takeoff, which - in traffic - is a safety hazard in and of itself).
According to reports, the pedestrian was illegally crossing the road at a traffic light with a red light for the pedestrians and a green light for the cars.
The human driven car presumably didn’t see the pedestrian and hit her at high speed, she then bounced into the path of the autonomous car. The autonomous car, which was empty, slammed on the brakes but could not stop in time.
Would a human have stopped in time? That would depend on the human…
I think the problem here is more that it parked on her after hitting her. Presumably a human wouldn’t have done that.
Do you think it would have been better to continue driving over someone? What would you like the car to do after a person is thrown under it? Hover mode?
It would have been better to not PARK ON HER LEG. They had to lift the car off her.
It couldn’t have avoided hitting her, but it could have not stopped ON her.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Going “I just hit someone, I’m going to shut down everything and wait for people to come solve this” is a better general approach than “I just hit someone, better back up to make sure I’m not parked right on top of them.” That second approach could lead to the vehicle dragging the victim, driving over them a second time, or otherwise making things much worse.
It’s not like the car can’t be controlled, if driving off was deemed the correct action, they could have gotten them to over-ride and drive the car off. Driving off is almost never the recommended action in these cases.
Lifting off is by far the safer choice.
Once it’s already parked on the leg, sure. But during the accident continuing on in the initial impact to go over the leg (hopefully with just the front tire. Would’ve been preferable. But also that’s a very weird edge case that i imagine there were no sensors for, and a human could’ve made the exact same mistake in trying to brake before hand but not quite making it and inadvertently parking on the victim instead.
Driving over someone’s leg a second time is a great way to make sure it’s broken.
Not from what I’ve seen on some gore videos
Unlikely. These SDCs have reaction speeds far faster than any human driver. The biggest issue here is just simple physics; trying to stop a car that’s already at speed requires a certain amount of distance, and from what I’m understanding, it’s sounding like avoiding hitting the woman was literally impossible in this scenario (short of delaying the initial takeoff, which - in traffic - is a safety hazard in and of itself).
How was either vehicle going so fast that “breaking aggressively” wasn’t enough to stop them immediately after accelerating from a red light….?
This makes no sense without a video