Braineack

iTrader: (62)

notice how the poorly designed bridge broke right where the crane was tuggin on it:

bahurd

iTrader: (8)

Interesting, with the sale of Monsanto, the USA will no longer be the dominant global player in seed production.

US..... 42% to 19%
DE..... 5% to 28%
EU.....<13% to 36% (I include the EU as a bloc)

Bayer wins EU approval for $62.5 billion Monsanto buy


Who Owns Nature? The seed industry

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

so we don't need to ban guns, we just need to increase funding to schooling so everyone is smart, and they'll challenge themselves to build creative killing devices when they ultimately go kill another human being (since we cant stop humans from being humans).

Monk

iTrader: (3)

Since this somehow became a political topic.

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

Uber is totally fucked. First, the face their driver makes at the moment of impact is going to be the stuff memes are made of for the next decade. Second, she was clearly texting during the event. Third, the fact that the onboard systems couldn't detect the victim walking a bicycle broadside across the street directly in front of the car is pretty damning. Despite the fact that it was night-time and she was wearing dark clothing, the EO/IR/NV systems onboard should have been able to see and recognize a person there... thats the stuff I want to see.

Don't get me wrong though, the woman who died is dead because and it's her own damned fault... but Uber is still totally fucked.

Dashcam video of deadly self-driving Uber crash released | Fox News

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

I'm still.shocked these.things are allowed on roads.

good2go

iTrader: (2)

Looks like there was a person standing on top of the bridge where the crane was attached. You can see the bridge falling out from underneath him.

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

Like any other tech,it's gotta start somewhere. I think the term "driverless car" at this point is still very misleading. Maybe "semi-automatic" is more appropriate. The driver is still supposed to be doing their job by watching the road and ghosting the controls to a certain extent. At some point in the future, manually driving a car on public roads will be the exception. It's only a matter of time. See iRobot or Blade Runner or the newer Total Recall or any dozen others. I think the hardware and software to run the car is at a good point to be used on public roads with a man-behind-the-wheel too. The industry will progress and cars will get more and more automated features... even more advanced aids are coming quickly to budget models.

The problem for Uber now is that the driver was clearly texting or watching their phone... trying to keep it low and out of sight of the interior cam... and failing miserably. I wouldn't be surprised that Uber not only had a strict policy against cel-phone use while behind the wheel at all times, but probably had a policy that prohibited drivers from even taking a phone in the car with them. Routine security checks of camera footage and spot-checks of drivers would be a deterrent against breaking these rules... and obviously this woman wasn't afraid of breaking the rules.

I'm thinking I'd start the lawsuit around $500 million and let them bargain me down to $100 million.

hector

There was. He is a friend of my co-driver. He ended up with a broken jaw and some missing teeth. He was there to inspect some cracks that had developed in the concrete deck.

buffon01

iTrader: (9)

Designed or constructed?

Erat

iTrader: (5)

Inspecting cracks? From what I understand that a post tension rod was being tightened during the failure. Why we're were they doing that if they had cracks? Why was traffic still under it if there was cracks. Why wasn't the under supports still in place?

I feel like some serious lawsuits are coming, possibly even jail time.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

I don't like beta tests on public streets where there are already WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too many variables the programmers can't write algorithm for. over 37,00 deaths in vehicles in 2016, and I'm assuming a good number of those human drivers were paying attention. there's an estimated 6 MILLION accidents recorded a year alone, not just deaths.

if we want this to be the future, roads have to be rebuilt/designed for autonomous autos.

would you be so vigilant in your car if it was "self driving? I'd be playing mad candy crush. And looking at the video, that car was at speed on a dark road. A human eye MAY have picked up on the biker outside those street lamps, but he was also casually jaywalking as a car approached and seemed to be just as startled by a car approaching as the driver inside the car seeing him...

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

When the internal-combustion engine was in its infancy, driving automobiles on public roads more commonly frequented by horses was a beta test. I, for one, am happy that it succeeded.



The same argument was made when horseless carriages started to come into use. Some regions enacted laws which required each automobile to be preceded by a man on foot waving a flag or lantern.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

This is the **** I'm talking about. I'll assume that the tech package on that Uber car is a generational leap or three ahead of what's currently being sold by BMW and everybody else. Why the **** couldn't it see a broadside person walking a bicycle directly in it's path and (at a minimum) alert the driver, but also apply the brakes? I'm still placing 95% of the blame on the woman crossing the road... play stupid games and all of that.

Look at this shiz on a new BMW... the camera sees a person, alerts the driver, then turns on a seperate spotlight that illuminates the person... it also has auto-brake, and auto-swerve for stuff that it might actually hit... and that tech is current production, nowhere near what should be in beta on the Uber car.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

All of these oems are building cars that will stop themselves whether is the object is a person or not. If Uber is not playing at that level they deserve to be sued for negligence because they are not ready.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Sometimes, complex pieces of software fail in unpredictable and non-intuative ways.

Uber's fleet is equipped with laser and infrared sensors which work at night, just like Google's. By all accounts, the vehicle should have seen the lady with the bike and taken action to avoid her (slowing and moving to the side.)

Having watched the video many times, I'm quite certain that she'd be just as dead if a human had been driving a normal car under those circumstances. She wasn't even looking in the direction of oncoming traffic, just obliviously walking through it.

Uber is no more at fault here than the old person to sent one of the "let's protest in the middle of the road" folks airborne last year.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Okay, I'll agree with that.

samnavy

iTrader: (7)

I think the fact that she was an employee of a company (or was she just a "contractor") was operating vehicle in an unsafe manner via distracted driving. EXCEPT, Arizona doesn't have any distracted driving laws... perfectly legal to text and drive. Uber policy is probably more restrictive, which means the driver was negligent in following company policy, which means the company is liable... to what extent they are liable will be up to a jury.

So far, I haven't heard a peep about criminal charges against anybody, but you can bet a few dozen lawyers out there have the lawsuits lined up.

This article is also curious about why the tech failed... onboard LIDAR and RADAR. Bottom line, for the tech onboard, it should have been EASY to see the woman crossing the road and not hit her.
Experts say crash video shows Uber's failure to protect pedestrian - Mar. 22, 2018

good2go

iTrader: (2)

To my eye, that woman crossing the road did not dart out nor did she come out of nowhere. She was just strolling across at a gradual, yet constant pace in a wide section of the road that was far enough away from any tight or blind turns. The way I learned to drive, it's the DRIVER of a car who is responsible (at all times) for operating the vehicle within their ability to stop for such an unexpected encounter.

The excuse of not being able to see her is similarly bunk; if you are truly in control, you certainly don't out-drive your headlights (i.e. what you can clearly see). Anyone old enough to have driven before the days of even halogen bulbs (let alone modern HID/ LED types), can likely recall how easy to was to outrun (even your high) incandescent beams without much trouble.

As such, I think a human driver, of prudent practices, could well have avoided that accident. That being said, I still think the woman was a complete idiot. Anyone foolish enough to trust their life to the (un)likely adherence of a driver to basic safety practices is essentially playing Russian roulette. At least the gene pool is stronger by one now.