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UBER IS SUSPENDING its self-driving car programme after one of the vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian in the US state of Arizona.
The Uber vehicle was in autonomous mode, with an operator behind the wheel, when it hit a woman walking in the street in the city of Tempe late yesterday, according to the San Francisco-based company.
The victim was hospitalised and later died from her injuries.
“Our hearts go out to the victim’s family,” an Uber spokesperson told AFP. “We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident.”
Uber has suspended use of self-driving cars it was testing or using in Tempe, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and San Francisco, according to the company.
Uber was only using autonomous vehicles as part of its regular passenger service in Pittsburgh and Tempe.
A vehicle operator in the driver’s seat was the only person in the Uber car when the fatal accident occurred, according to the company. The car was in police hands on Monday.
Yesterday’s accident was the first fatal self-driving car crash involving a pedestrian.
The first deadly self-driving car accident was reported in mid-2016, and involved a Tesla.
Slow car tech?
The Tesla Model S, cruising on “autopilot,” failed to detect a crossing tractor-trailer against a bright sky, killing the driver — who it later emerged had kept his hands off the wheel for extended periods of time despite automated warnings not to do so.
It was a nightmare scenario for an industry promoting a way to improve road safety and reduce traffic fatalities that come mostly from human error.
As with the fatal Tesla crash, the deadly Uber accident is likely to stoke concerns that the industry is moving too fast to deploy self-driving vehicles.
Google-owned Waymo for years has been testing self-driving cars, racing against smartphone-summoned ride star Uber.
Waymo early this month began using its self-driving trucks to haul cargo bound for the internet giant’s data centers in Georgia.
Rival Uber made a similar announcement, saying it is using self-driving semi trucks as part of an on-demand trucking service in Arizona.
In September, US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao released new guidelines that permit more testing of self-driving cars and address regulation between the federal government and states.
Autonomous-vehicle technology has been touted as having potential to save fuel, ease congestion, and make transportation safer.
Chao argued that self-driving technology could also improve mobility for the elderly, disabled and other restricted populations.
But the non-profit Consumer Watchdog has warned that roads are being turned “into private laboratories for robot cars with no regard for our safety”.
US states set their own rules for roads, and a handful have passed laws allowing self-driving vehicles.
California and Arizona have been particularly encouraging, hoping that companies developing autonomous technology in those states will create local jobs and facilities devoted to a promising new industry.
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The verdict of this will probably eventually still show the cars are the safer drivers but the anti-robot people will have a great time protesting about this
@Jamie Martin-Smith: So wait for the verdict. Personally, I thought it would take a little longer for something like this to happen. Anyway, you don’t have to convince the whole world about the safety of your beloved robot cars, just the person getting into one. Good luck with that.
@Jamie Martin-Smith: Robotic vehicles in a robotic system may be a safer option…. But as long as there’s a mix of human and robot drivers, there’s always going to be problems.
@Jamie Martin-Smith: Bots will make better posters too if you’re the standard. If robots were used properly they would be a great asset to humanity. However in the present day we are being consumed by a corporate oligopoly and they will only benefit the 1%, their courtesans and cheerleaders.
Their is a certain cohort of individuals who herald the arrival of automation with barely disguised glee, they forecast the eminent end of certain professions and jobs without any reference to the lives of the workers being uprooted. They undoubtedly think it will have no consequences for themselves.
Be careful what you wish for.
@Jamie Martin-Smith: It may be that overall, the robots cause fewer deaths than humans but with conventional cars, each driver and their insurance company carries accountability for an individual death. The company (or individual programmer) who causes a large (even if lesser) number of deaths will be viewed differently. If your child is killed by a driver-less car, will you take the view that it was a worthwhile sacrifice for the greater good? Even if you are so magnanimous, others may not be when their relatives or friends are dead.
Was it a man or a woman who wasn’t driving the car?
@John Mulligan: or was the person who wasn’t driving under the influence of alcohol?
That should be that for the autonomous car for at least a few years. The cars are not braking fast enough or recognising objects in front. The tech is not there yet. All that the manufacturers are doing is retrofitting existing cars with modern tech when they should be building something from the ground up that is reliable and a real vision of the future. Push the recognition software and use faster cameras/cpu’s.
@Finn Faulkner: OK then….
@Finn Faulkner: The cars break faster than humans, and they are making new cars designed for autonomous driving. They have spent billions and years on the recognition software. There is already more software in a car that a fighter jet, and the driverless car will has much more.
I believe your knowledge of the issue is not sufficient to make a statement about it as you did.
@Finn Faulkner:
And how many crashes have driverless cars had to date? I think Google has only had one and it was stationary at the time and another car crashed into it.
@Tony Dowling: Sorry to disappoint you but the first wave of autonomous cars are simply not there yet. Im hoping for the tech to prove itself as soon as possible, but there are too many variables for the computer to react to. And can you imagine these cars on Irish roads? There would be a lot of accidents what with poor infrastructure, stupid motorists and cyclists and pedestrians. I cant see it. Of course Im no expert, its simply my opinion….
@Alan Madden: I am no expert. In fact this is simply an armchair comment from having read a few articles in the past few years. So dont let my ponderings annoy you.
@Andy K: Brake faster my rear. The main picture displays the latest Volvo Mum’s school bus, an SUV that weighs in excess of 2000kg. Even with warmed up giant current gen carbon ceramic brakes it would still have a massive braking distance. More tech than a fighter jet? You do know that the latest F-35 jet costs around $95 million and the development program was near $1.5 trillion? Your statement is insane. It has more computational power than 10000 Volvo XC90′s. What needs to change is infrastructure and the old hat current car designs.
Computers are not reliable. They break down all the time. Software code can contain mistakes. This is why aircraft have pilots. Tech giants will say anything to make a quick buck and have no moral conscience. Automation = unemployment = poverty and eventually civil war. How much of your data is controlled by Google?
@gregory: eh, auto-pilot is a thing you know
@Dave O Keeffe: Real captains and co-pilots are a thing in the same aircraft though. If you had to choose which would it be.
@gregory:
How many people are employed in automating things?
@Nick Allen: That’s not the issue. The issue is that automation will put workers on the dole, where they will then be labelled as “welfare-scrounging layabouts” by the likes of many commenters here.
@Dave O Keeffe: Auto Pilot is only a step or 2 above cruise control. If the plane that landed in the Hudson River, with no fatalities, had been on auto pilot, they would all have been killed because the solution was creative rather than logical.
@Nick Allen: Drivers of trucks taxis etc usually do not have a degree in Electronic Engineering/Automation
@John Hazelnut:
Should we reverse all automation? Should farmers not be allowed use tractors? Get rid of the sewing machine? Ditch calculators? Where do you think the line should be drawn between allowing automation and not allowing it?
@Nick Allen: I would have thought it was obvious where the line should be drawn: where full employment can be guarenteed.
Sack all drivers of trucks, taxis and put them on the dole just so Google Uber and Tesla can make more gazillions. Time to stand up for workers. Work is good.
@gregory:
Using that logic we should go back to how we were before the industrial revolution.
@Nick Allen: Maybe we SHOULD go back to Ludditeism. With so much more work out there, there’d be no need for welfare | dole.
@Nick Allen: I did not suggest we revert to the pre-industrial age. Automation has the possibility of creating levels of unemployment not see before and therefore heightens the possibility of civil war as poverty creeps in. Also AI offers the possibility of a very small number of companies to control everything. The behemoth Google is a prime example.
@gregory:
So where are u suggesting we stop automation if not pre industrial revolution or before that? Yes automation can cost jobs but equally it creates new jobs. Change is constant and people need to be able to adapt to change.
@gregory: yeah Gregory you’re spot on.
There will be NO jobs left and people won’t have any money to pay for these “Taxis,as they can’t afford it.The whole thing is a joke.
The insurance companies will lose a fortune.
The petrol stations too.The joy of going for an afternoon cruise in your nice car gone too.
No more road rage.I can’t cope Aarrgh!
“It was a nightmare scenario for an industry promoting a way to improve road safety and reduce traffic fatalities that come mostly from human error.”
Cars designed by humans with all their errors……
@Kerry Blake: unlike humans, they can use the data from this terrible incident to prevent it happening again.
@Kerry Blake: There goes 50 years of safety marketing by Volvo…
An “operator behind the wheel”. Mmm. I wonder who’s ultimately going to get the blame for running someone uber?
Someone needed to walk ahead waving a red flag
Statistically, self driving cars would need to kill a LOT more than a single person before they could be considered anywhere near as dangerous as human drivers.
@Fred Joyson:
If you are basing it on statistics then they may have to cover a lot more miles before a fair comparison can be made. That said, I suspect they will be proven to be a lot safer.
@Fred Joyson:
So we have a massive problem with people not thinking for themselves.
Stuck to smart phones.
No interactions.
And now the driverless car.
I weep for the future.
Unless a future French revolution.
@The Grand Nagus:
People may have had the same thoughts with the invention of the spinning Jenny, the tractor, the train, the car, the flush toilet etc etc
@Nick Allen:
Thats not the point.
Its turning the currently gormless into the new brainwashed
@Fred Joyson: Given the number of journeys they’ve made for 2 fatalities, they are already thousands if not hundreds of thousands more dangerous than humans driving.
@Nick Allen: Not true. Those machines you mention such as tractors were to make the job easier but there is still a human involved. The purpose of Automation is to eliminate the need for human activity. There is a massive difference. Examples: no check out personnel in supermarkets, no taxi drivers, no truck or van drivers. Large companies only have the resources to automate, but once they do they can wipe out competition.
@gregory:
Rubbish. How many farm labourers lost their jobs due to mechanized farm machinery? How many seamstresses couldn’t keep up with the speed of a sewing machine? Should we go back to gas lights on the streets and pay people to light and extinguish them each day? Over time jobs change and people need to adapt to these changes.
@Nick Allen: The present situation with automation is on a different scale, don’t you grasp that. Like comparing conventional weapons to nuclear weapons. Driving from motor bike couriers through to train drivers is the biggest single employment in the developed world.
What has happened in the past is no guarantee of future outcomes.
@Nick Allen: The population was lower then, and has exploded by 3 billion in about 80 years, how many more new job can be created?. They are even giving accounting work over to computers. A balance has to be struck somewhere regarding people and the work that they want to do.
This is what happens when Uber in a rush to try to catch up with Google/Waymo, trys to do in 3 years what they’ve accomplished in 10+ years. This is just the latest and worst (only fatal) incident out of many for them that shows they’ve tried to move too quickly in order to bring the product to market in time with Waymo.
I don’t believe in 10 years, a Waymo car has ever even been deemed responsible for a minor accident meanwhile in the past 6 months alone there’s been recordings and reports of Uber’s cars speeding, running red lights & being responsible minor accidents while in autonomous mode.
I’m a big fan of this technology but I think we are decades away from getting it to a point where it is as capable as a human driver. I believe it is better left as a driver assistant rather than a driver replacement.
@Emachine:
At the moment yes I agree but the technology is advancing at a alarming rate. There have been driverless trains in London for decades now. Even planes (drones) are been flown without pilots. I suspect driverless cars are a lot closer than you think
@Nick Allen: driverless cars present a unique challenge over the technologies you mention. A train is relatively easy to automate compared to a car. Drones are almost universally piloted remotely. The car must operate and navigate in a chaotic space with countless variables to compute it must do so in all weather under all circumstances and it must do it as well or better than a human. We have designed our infrastructure to be navigated by humans, while we are far from perfect we are adaptable, something machines have not mastered. I believe we will get 95% of the way there relatively soon however I believe the last 5% will prove elusive and I don’t think anything less than 100% is good enough. I would love to live to see level 5 autonomy, I just see it as a big ask.
“Cars don’t kill people. People kill peop………”
What’s the point of a self drive car when the ‘driver’ is supposed to keep their hands on the steering wheel?
@Cindy Crawford:
Maybe it is just a bridge to full automation?
@Cindy Crawford: Maybe it’s a requirement for the driver to stay alert, instead of playing games? I was thinking too that if the camera breaks down, it reverts to a normal car that needs a driver. I wonder if insurance is going to be less for these safer cars? It should be much lower.
Em.. I told you so
I’d love to see how it would work out in Dublin on a Saturday night. Can you imagine 4 drunken lads going home in a driver less car. Or worse still , a randy couple?????? You’d be surrounded with used condoms and empty beer cans and fast food wrappers.
We don’t need autonomous vehicles, end of. They serve no purpose. Just a futuristic dream
Driverless cars in Ireland? Not in our lifetime. Infrastructure is not there to support it and there is no money to put it in place.
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