Uber settles with family of woman killed by self-driving car

[FrodosNewPet]

Source: The Guardian

The family of the woman killed by an Uber self-driving vehicle in Arizona has reached a settlement with the ride services company, ending a potential legal battle over the first fatality caused by an autonomous vehicle.

Cristina Perez Hesano, attorney with the firm of Bellah Perez in Glendale, Arizona, said “the matter has been resolved” between Uber and daughter and husband of Elaine Herzberg, 49, who died after being hit by an Uber self-driving SUV in Tempe earlier this month.
Exclusive: Arizona governor and Uber kept self-driving program secret, emails reveal
Read more

Terms of the settlement were not given. The law firm representing them said Herzberg’s daughter and husband, whose names were not disclosed, will have no further comment on the matter as they consider it resolved.

~ snip ~

The fatality also presents an unprecedented liability challenge because self-driving vehicles, which are still in the development stage, involve a complex system of hardware and software often made by outside suppliers.

~ snip ~

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/29/uber-settles-with-family-of-woman-killed-by-self-driving-car

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Uber DEFINITELY did not want their shortcutting and inadequacy exposed in trial.

[infullview]

1. So no one went to jail for manslaughter?!

There was an earlier thread on DU praising how great self driving cars are going to be, and I made the point then that the rule of law wasn't ready for these cars to be on the roads. Uber sucks and so do self driving cars. PEOPLE are still better.

[Major Nikon]

8. It doesn't have to be one or the other

My newest vehicle has all sorts of safety features that were developed by self-driving technology. Adaptive cruise control insures the proper following distance is always observed. Sensors will activate braking automatically if I can't react quickly enough to prevent an accident. Lane control nudges the vehicle back towards the center if I drift out of the lane. The seat vibrates to warn me of all sorts of hazards, like another vehicle in my blind spot or a pedestrian approaching while I am backing up.

The biggest problem with self-driving vehicles is they will only be useful in very limited circumstances for the foreseeable future. However, the technologies that go into them will soon be mainstream with all new vehicles which is undoubtedly going to reduce accidents and save lives.

[infullview]

9. The problem with overly smart cars

Let's start with lane centering... not the best idea for driving on an icy new England road. Keeping tight to the crown of the road, and sometimes crossing over the center line gives you better traction and room to maneuver on a two lane road with no on-coming cars. Another one of my big gripes is the inability to override anti-lock braking systems. Back in the good old days before anti-lock brakes were standard, I could test the road conditions by locking my brakes at a slow speed to get a very precise read on traction characteristics. I'm not saying ABS is bad, I would just like it to be under my control. Insulating drivers from weather conditions makes them less informed and overconfident. I can't tell you how many times I've seen drivers with the expensive 'all wheel drive' car or SUV off the road in a snowbank.

Curious, what does your car do if you're on a two lane road in white-out snow conditions and someone is passing and heading straight at you in your lane? Do the breaks activate automatically? Does it try to keep you in the lane? BTW this happened to me and I had to drive onto the shoulder of the road through several inches of snow and somehow managed to pull the car back onto the road after the idiot in my lane passed by. I don't see any way an automated system could have come up with a creative solution to prevent a head-on collision.

[Major Nikon]

20. Lane assist is very passive

All it does is nudge the steering and give you feedback via the steering wheel. It will not keep you in the lane for long if you let go. The automatic braking system will turn itself off if it can’t process enough information. This has happened during various weather conditions and it lets you know.

I’m still able to test traction conditions with every anti-lock breaking system I have used. All I have experienced give you some kind of feedback, both via an annunciation and through pedal feedback when the system activates.

[tonedevil]

26. Do you think...

a traditional human driver would have been charged?

[infullview]

28. Yes

[tonedevil]

29. Fair enough...

I don't, but I really only know one person who has hit a pedestrian. The pedestrian was judged responsible and no one was charged. There was no death involved in that incident.

[infullview]

31. I believe the woman sitting in the Uber was crimally negligent.

She was there for the express purpose of taking control of the vehicle in case there was a problem with the automation. In the dash-cam video, she was clearly distracted by something in her lap and was looking down. I think there may be a case here to be made for vehicular manslaughter, but the part I can't see is what the street condition were (was it real dark, was the person wearing dark clothes at night, etc..). The fact that there was a very rapid settlement, instead of a court trial removes any chance for case precedent, seals court records and puts non-disclosures in-place, and in general is just sleazy.

[FrodosNewPet]

33. There is another lawsuit coming from Ms. Herzberg's parents and son

I'm wondering where these people were when she was alive. Did they try to help, but were rebuffed? Or did they just turn their back on her because she was too difficult or "out there"?

You ARE right that there needs to be some precedent for liability set. Particularly as the government seems intent on avoiding oversight of this technology and its development.

[infullview]

32. Just saw the front facing video

there was more than enough time for the driver to have grabbed the wheel and veered left. She might have clipped the back tire of the bike but the person would still be alive. Uber is totally selling us a load of BS

[FrodosNewPet]

34. That seems to be a specialty

Starting from the premise that they are a "Technology" company, not a "Transportation" company.

[Happyhippychick]

2. Jail involves criminal court, this was a civil case

If the State wants to press criminal charges it can.

[infullview]

10. Who gets charged?

As I understand it, in this case there was a human sitting behind the wheel not paying attention.

[Happyhippychick]

11. I would assume the person charged is the person who decided to let the thing drive

[Adrahil]

35. Nonsense.... in that case,

We'd have people going to jail all the time when an automated system resulted in someone's death. The standard for criminal negligence is pretty high.

[Sherman A1]

3. Wow!

That was fast. Must have been a very, very large dollar settlement.

[shanti]

30. Probably not as much

as they would have won if they had taken it to a jury....

[DFW]

4. I'm sorry, but WTF?

"Herzberg’s daughter and husband, whose names were not disclosed, will have no further comment on the matter as they consider it resolved."

If some technical glitch were to suddenly kill my wife or mother, I might settle, but the phrase I would use to state that I could not comment further would NOT be that I consider the matter resolved.

It it had been MY wife they killed, and they offered me one hundred million dollars to shut up, I'd give half the money to cancer research and use the rest to buy up wilderness land so that no one could pollute it, and I would even shut up, but I would NEVER consider the matter "resolved," unless a flawless clone of my wife were part of the bargain.

[BannonsLiver]

13. they got their money so they likely don't care what happens down the line

It's the American way, after all.

[DFW]

19. I don't think we're all THAT mercenary

I still have plenty of friends back in the States who rather burn $100 million in cash than lose their partners.

[BannonsLiver]

21. its not a question of losing partners

It’s about taking the money and shutting up about what happened, thus giving the company cover for their project that went awry. A lawsuit and all the public scrutiny that would come from it would have been useful in in preventing this from happening again.

They did what they felt was right and at the end of the day it’s their loved one and their decision but you can bet Uber was whistling Dixie out of their assholes that this went away quietly with the cutting of a check. Very nice and neat from their POV.

[appalachiablue]

5. A very ample settlement likely. Money talks. And drives.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Nice that corporations can monetize a human life in 2 weeks.

[Adrahil]

36. Humans do it all the time....

The reality is that people die. Every single one of us will.

And we place a price on that all the time too. As an engineer in aviation, I can tell you that there is no such thing as zero risk to human life. Any human made system can and will fail. It's just a matter of when. In aviation, the standard is very high. Automotive standards are typically substantially lower.

But especially for a system under a development, sometimes flaws emerge that were just not identified, despite rigorous analysis.

[Blue_Tires]

7. I don't get it -- Why didn't Uber have someone in the car monitoring systems again?

[progree]

14. There was a driver behind the wheel. He was looking down at the time

https://www.yahoo.com/news/police-release-video-fatal-crash-uber-self-driving-232906380.html

The video shows the human backup driver in the SUV looking down until seconds before the crash. The driver looks up and appears startled during the last moment of the clip.

[Blue_Tires]

15. Dumb... Maybe next time they should put TWO people in the car

[progree]

16. Yup. There should be one person with eyes on the road, and another person monitoring the computer

system. One person shouldn't be trying to do both. Though I haven't seen any stories that said that the driver was monitoring the computer system or anything like that, or why he was looking down....

[OnlinePoker]

12. Even had the person behind the wheel been paying attention, they couldn't have stopped in time

There was just over a second between when the woman came into view and when she was struck.

[progree]

17. Everything I've read said that experts say the LIDAR and Radar should have detected her long before

On the other hand, I've never seen any discussion of whether she was standing on the sidewalk or whatever, which of course is fine, and then suddenly step out into the street 2 seconds ahead of the car... I've long been wondering about that aspect of it.

[OnlinePoker]

18. Here's the video of the accident

She was almost across a two lane road when it happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=RASBcc4yOOo

[Major Nikon]

23. For most, of not all of these systems 3 sensors are involved

They use LIDAR, RADAR, and visual sensors. I’d guess there’s some kind of algorithm that compares all three to check for agreement depending on the limitations of each sensor type.

[FrodosNewPet]

25. That video is crap at a minimum, and possibly tampered with.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-victim-came-from-the-shadows-dont-believe-it/

[weissmam]

22. I would make them give me the company at least

[Major Nikon]

24. Hard to do in the case of jaywalking

No matter how you slice it, the pedestrian is at least partially responsible.

[enid602]

27. Help

The mother was homeless. I wonder if the kids tried to help her when she was alive.