[msb-alumni] Federal officials scour data in self-driving Uber crash
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 14:56:25 -0400
BlankWell, it'll be awhile before we know for sure. That tree-lined median is
a
complicating factor.
Hopefully not, but the Uber driver could be a factor -- she was a convicted
fellon who shouldn't have been hired by Uber, apparently. I wouldn't discount
the possibility that she could have had the vehicle in "manual" mode and then
switched it to "autonomous" after the pedestrian was hit.
Steve
Federal officials scour data in self-driving Uber crash . Michael Laris.
With police in Tempe, Ariz., pointing to a pedestrian's behavior as a factor in
a deadly driverless Uber crash, federal investigators on Tuesday continued
to scour digital and other evidence looking for broader safety insights for the
burgeoning industry. Tempe police Sgt. Ronald Elcock said video from Uber's
autonomous 2017 Volvo shows the 49-year-old victim "approaching the vehicle"
late Sunday night. He warned residents of this city of 175,000 of the dangers
of crossing "mid-block. "As soon as she walked into a lane of traffic, she was
struck by the vehicle," Elcock said. "Using the crosswalks will definitely
limit any tragic incidents from happening again. The crash prompted Uber to
abruptly halt testing of its autonomous vehicles in Tempe - and across North
America. The moratorium on testing includes San Francisco, Phoenix, Pittsburgh
and Toronto. Tempe's latest pedestrian fatality - officials say more than
60 people have been killed on city streets over the past six years - became the
first known death involving a driverless vehicle, thrusting the community
into a national debate about the proper level of state and federal oversight.
Scores of companies are vying for competitive advantage in the wide-open
and potentially transformative world of autonomous vehicles, with technology
developers touting the safety benefits of removing fallible human beings from
the driver's seat - and critics warning that many iterations of the enabling
technologies are being implemented before they are ready. The National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration, which administers voluntary federal guidelines
on
the deployment of driverless cars, said it sent a "special crash investigation"
team to Tempe as part of its "vigilant oversight and authority over the safety
of all motor vehicles and equipment, including automated technologies. The
agency said it was in contact with Uber and Volvo, as well as local, state and
federal authorities. But critics continued to argue that the vehicles are
being unleashed without adequate standards and oversight. "These cars are being
rushed onto the public highways way before they're ready," said Joan Claybrook,
a consumer advocate and former head of NHTSA under President Jimmy Carter. "The
public are the guinea pigs for these early vehicles. The National Transportation
Safety Board, an independent body that does painstaking and precise
investigations into everything from bridge collapses to train wrecks and plane
crashes,
continued to gather information in Arizona on Tuesday, including pulling from
electronic data sources stored in the vehicle or sent to Uber. The safety
body said its investigation would examine the operating condition of the SUV,
the backup driver's interactions with it and "opportunities for the vehicle
or driver to detect" the pedestrian. On Tuesday, investigators began to examine
the Volvo XC90 and the accident site, and viewed video footage of the crash
from a dashboard-mounted camera, the NTSB said. Investigators also gathered
information on the vehicle technology, the pedestrian and the driver, according
to the NTSB. Jennifer Morrison, the investigator in charge, is probing the
crash
along with three other investigators as they analyze the specially equipped
Volvo SUV itself, the actions of the backup driver and the data-recording
equipment. "The NTSB investigates select highway crashes that can advance
knowledge
of broad or new safety issues," the panel said. Spokesman Eric Weiss added that
depending on the findings, the investigation could lead to broader
recommendations
encompassing entities other than Uber. But it's still early, Weiss said. "We
would look at the probable cause of this accident, and then if there are any
other broader implications, we would look at that as well," Weiss said. But
while the team is expected to remain in Tempe for the rest of the week, it
was not expected to release the probable cause of the crash or other related
findings until the investigation is complete. Uber said it continues to
cooperate
with authorities in their probe of the crash. Because of the ongoing
investigation, the company declined to comment on the state of the
investigation
or
answer questions related to it. Tech companies and automakers have billed
driverless cars as a tool to reduce the nation's toll of 40,000 road fatalities
a year. The robo-cars - enabled by sophisticated sensors and algorithms - have
a
more complete view of their surroundings than human drivers, advocates
argue. And they can avoid making all-too-human mistakes, backers say. "What
would prevent those [fatalities] would be not speeding, not drinking, not
texting,
not being distracted," said Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the
University of South Carolina. "The hope is that automated driving, when it is
ready,
will be able to address many of those causes without introducing significant
new
sources of crashes. Smith also said that pedestrians and bicyclists often
get blamed in these cases "because the pedestrians are the dead ones, and
they're not there to defend themselves. "Really, any crash with that pedestrian
should have been avoidable, unless the circumstances were really strange,
meaning: Physics won. If the victim was visible and the path of the victim was
reasonably predictable, then she should not have been hit," Smith said. Police
investigators believe that the woman who was killed, Elaine Herzberg, had
been near a median packed with trees and shrubs in the run-up to the crash, and
it is unclear what the car or its backup driver might have been able to
see before she was hit. "It's different when you're seeing it through your own
eyes as opposed to trying to see it through a camera sometimes," said Tempe
police Cmdr. Jeffrey Glover, adding that reconstructions will be done to help
answer that question as part of the investigation. Uber's self-driving cars
rely on a combination of cameras, GPS sensors and laser-powered components to
get a sense of their surroundings, according to a diagram provided by the
company. Among the most critical components is a top-mounted lidar unit, which
uses lasers to scan the environment and provide a 360-degree view of the
car's surroundings. The cars also include seven cameras. A forward-facing lens
looks out for factors such as braking vehicles, pedestrians in the road,
and traffic lights and signage; side and rear cameras provide a more
comprehensive view. A roof-mounted GPS antenna records the position of the
vehicle.
The car also includes computers and data storage components that allow the cars
to continually process data they collect, according to Uber. Elcock said
the Volvo XC90 was traveling at about 40 mph and did not show signs of slowing
down when it struck Herzberg, who had been pushing a bicycle. The Uber's
backup driver, identified by Elcock as Rafaela Vasquez, 44, was cooperative and
showed no signs of impairment, according to police. The police investigation
"did not show at this time that there were significant signs of the vehicle
slowing down," he said, but the investigation is ongoing."
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