Following the world’s first known pedestrian death resulting from an autonomous vehicle accident, Uber’s self-driving program is having a very rough go of it. Here are just a few of the things that Uber is dealing with since the accident.
Despite the company voluntarily putting a hold on their testing programs, the state of Arizona has suspended Uber’s permission to test their self-driving cars on public roads anywhere in the state. The decision came after Gov. Doug Ducey called the crash “an unquestionable failure” and “disturbing and alarming.”
This week it was reported that Uber has reached a settlement with the family of the deceased pedestrian, Elaine Herzberg. The matter was settled out of court and the company paid the family an undisclosed sum.
Uber also announced that they would no longer be applying to renew its permit to test self-driving vehicles in California. According to The Hill, if it were to try to renew its permit, it would have had to “address findings from its investigation and analysis of the accident in Arizona and potentially meet with the DMV to further discuss the crash.”
That may have been tough to do for the company. The New York Times claims to have been given over 100 pages of company documents which showed that Uber’s self-driving program was running into serious issues even before the fatal accident. According to the documents, Uber’s autonomous car drivers were having to intervene more than once every 13 miles to keep the car out of trouble. Compare that to Google’s Waymo driverless car which reportedly drives an average of 5,600 miles before a driver needs to take control to prevent a problem.
And finally, one of the top executives at Uber and head of Uber Freight, Lior Ron has left the company. Ron was one of the co-founders of Otto, the self-driving truck startup that Uber acquired back in 2016.
Source: gobytrucknews, thehill, ttnews, truckinginfo, fleetowner, ttnews, recode, theverge, cnbc, denverpost, nbcnews
My commit is this will never replace a human drive it will never react as quickly as a human especially in a semi truck that’s a recipe for disaster with a 80000 lb vehicle going down the road in. Busy traffic
Especially in winter conditions. Would be a disaster.
I would think that a driver in a regular vehicle would react quicker. In an autonomous car the driver 1st has yo realise the car is not responding correctly then take over control. Whereas in a regular car you dont have that extra delay in reaction from the driver
Why do we need self driving vehicles anyways? Dumb idea and all these companies rushing to get this crap on the roads………..they obviously have nothing better to do or any better ideas than this ?? Come on n spend all that money on something more productive that doesn’t kill people for absolutely no reason other than to show they have a self driving car to say oh we did it this is “PROGRESS” priorities are very mixed up these days……..
People in general has become increasingly lazy, so most likely besides status and money, it’s to decrease cost of actual labor of human drivers or to increase the cost due to the fact on how most folks are so lazy that they want a computer to chauffeur them around.
I can’t say I like driverless vehicles or that they should be on the roads, But, How many people were killed by vehicles driven by people that night? I think this person died because uber was in money making mode a little more than safety and they have paid already I guess but I have seen so many accidents that happened because the driver was paying no attention to what was going on around them and did not react in any way until after the collision. 90% of the people out there are no better at driving than this machine is in my opinion and many a great deal worse at it..
How many vehicles driven by humans were on the road compared to autonomous vehicles? Of course human driven vehicles would have more incidents there’s more of them.
I think you are right. But I need a job and developing software for self driving cars and trucks works for me. It pays more than my old truckdriving job.
always someone worrying about themselves, your ok with it until one of YOUR family members gets killed… self driving vehicles are a disaster and not necessary. they endanger public safety and put more $ in the pockets of the already rich by ultimately taking all professional drivers off the road.
Responsibility needs to be taken for the death of that pedestrian.
The driver and maker of the vehicle should be charged with vehicular manslaughter and sent to prison
The lady was outside of a crosswalk and didn’t look. She literally walked out right in front of the car. Watch the video.
Bye! Good riddance!
I think eventually the will get it right and the self driving vehicle will be the norm one day and people will not be driving themselves anymore.
People talk about getting killed by automated vehicles but 50000 people die on America’s roads every year and that does not count the injured. Also in the future if your car is self driving it will get rid of road rage incidents.
P.S I am a truck drive and I don’t want to loose my job but this is the wave of the future.
you are throwning numbers around but , how many person driven kill people . in per capital to auto driving killing people, the odds are not good for auto when you put all facts in contrast are they ?
I wonder who they think will pay for all this crap when nobody has a job anymore. Go technology.
People in general has become increasingly lazy, so most likely besides status and money, it’s to decrease cost of actual labor of human drivers or to increase the cost due to the fact on how most folks are so lazy that they want a computer to chauffeur them around.
The Law makers are all Devils and Haters of people theu depend on computers instead of good people
The reason the Powers That Be like automation is not because they don’t like people. It’s because they like profits. They claim it will reduce costs which will make products less expensive for the consumer. Not once in the history of automation has this proven to be the case. The only thing it has done is increase profits for the large corporations.
Bad idea to start with….look at how reliable our computerized trucks are now……sensor failures are rampant, parts availability is almost always a problem, the computers themselves have reliability issues. Why trust the whole future of the country to something that can’t think but can only react?
The idea of self driving cars, with a human supervising, invented a serious problem. Just sitting there doing nothing but staring at the road, is inviting distraction from just about anyone.
The driver in the Uber was looking down when he hit the lady. But the lady also stepped out into the road without looking. Error on both sides.
You all are kidding yourselves if you think machines won’t eventually do this job, and do so MUCH better than any human ever possibly could. Do you think tney scrapoed the airplane after Orville Wright crashed in Ft Myer VA resulting in the first powered airplane crash death of Lieutenant Selfridge?
Autonomous machines with artificial intelligence will be an increasing part of everyone’s life in the very near future. Yes, there will be problems, including putting humans out of work and requiring an entirely new economic paradigm that will render caputalism obsolete. But these stumbling blocks will not stop progress. So get ready – or be left in your cave.
And as far as I know, to this day there are still at least 2 pilots in every jetliner…
And I’ve read about aircraft automation actually contributing to plane crashes because today’s pilots don’t have the “stick time” experience that is often needed in an emergency.
You all kidding yourself if you think machines won’t eventually kill so MANY more people than any human ever possible could.
Not to mention, they’re nothing alike. There are no pedestrians walking in the air, crossing airspace with their flying bicycles…
Air traffic is lighter than ground traffic with specific rules as to where you can fly and at what height you fly at so that two planes aren’t flying towards one another at the same level.
Ground level is ground level and everyone and everything is in the same place. Not to mention planes do use humans and I’m not talking about pilots – it’s called air traffic controllers. Humans are specifically operating to help ensure planes don’t crash into one another. You’re naïve in your beliefs about technology being better than humans. However, you have the right to your opinion, so you can have it. I’m simply not done yet:
It’s completely impossible for human and non-humans to interact with each other because they do not have direct communication with one another. People would have to be in communication with the technology to communicate their intentions beforehand for technology to understand they need to change their course of action sooner.
Waiting until the technology senses the person is already crossing the road is too late. The human may not see them in the dark either, but the Über car has sensors that are uninhibited by darkness, so it should have work better than any human — but it didn’t. I stand firmly when I say technology cannot and will not ever be better than humans. The proof is, it had better “eyes” than any human and it still ran them down and killed them.
I disagree that they will drive better than any human is capable of, better than a vast majority yes but the machine is only as good as its sensors and that means for a while yet it will only be able to react and that is usually too late no matter how quick they can react. There are a lot of real world obstacles out there that a true driver will see and anticipate whats coming and take action to avoid the situation, machines do have some learning to do and I think it will takes some tough lessons before they get close to what an attentive person can do on the road..
really really that good really, then why can’t they keep the computers control truck engines of today working any length of time, the truck I drive was in the shop for 30 days and the bill was almost 25,000 , all because of computer and deph problems. , do you base your information off your experience of owning trucks or stand on out side looking in ? bet you are one of the looking in group , no experience in trucking field !
I have several stops I go to that your computer truck would never get in, yet I make it look easy. You are kidding yourself if you think all we do is drive in a straight line on well marked four line highways in perfect weather.
The driverless industry will look at it actuarial. Same as the old Pinto car deaths. So if it is worth the risk to have an autonomous fleet over deaths that are caused by malfunctioning that will be the industry goes. Insurance companies will be in the mix, also.
BIG EGOS………..
I believe truckers should strike since the world is so quick to replace the driver..who keeps the world going..with a computer..this cant be done and the trucker needs to be paid better and respected
Uber should never be involved in autonomous technology, they stole much of their technology from Google, but Google since have developed further.
Uber needs to stick to being a (human driven) taxi dispatcher, I like their service in that regard.
When UBER can make me a sammich , then I’ll be impressed .