Everybody saw this coming. The calculation which has to be made in the long run, which will be safer? Human driven cars or autonomous cars? And how will that relationship change over time based on changes in technology and changes in human driver behavior. About 2,600 pedestrians killed in the US every year https://www.npr.org/2017/03/30/522085503/2016-saw-a-record-increase-in-pedestrian-deaths
Probably about half caused by drunk drivers. Which will be safer in the long run? Nobody knows yet.
“The woman was crossing the road outside of a crosswalk when the Uber vehicle, operating in autonomous mode under the supervision of a human safety driver, struck her, according to the Tempe Police Department.”
This seems like less of a “Robot Kills Person” story and more of a “Person Struck After Stepping into Traffic” story.
For the many who have panicked about losing business due to self-driving cars, this tells us two things. The first is that self-driving cars are not perfect and need insurance and secondly, we are years away from this becoming the norm, perhaps at least 10 years. Insurance agencies will see minimal impact from this in the near future and even the long-term. My condolences go out to the family of the victim from this awful tragedy.
While self-driving cars will need insurance, it is not clear that the owners of self-driving cars will need insurance. This will be more of a products liability situation than a personal liability situation. The insurance will likely be built in to the price of the automobile and be borne by the manufacturer. Therefore, the personal lines agents who are panicked about losing private passenger auto business are correct. That line will go away or be diminished greatly. Ultimately, I can see a situation where all of personal lines liability is rolled into a single product.
DNCs Coll(F)usion GPShip Strzok an IceberGowdy says:
Like or Dislike:
2
2
So, you’re OK with auto makers handling the products liability situations that arise from autonomous cars? They will keep the premiums embedded in the price tag and pay the claims. I’m not. Think of an autonomous car as a metallic ‘family dog’. Bites or Bumps result in liability claims handled by an insurance carrier’s claim staff.
Are you kidding? Anyone who understands the basics of law and especially if you are an insurance agent knows that if an incident happens, attorneys name all parties involved in a liability incident as part of the lawsuit. This means the auto manufacturer, the driver, the employer (if applicable) and even the jurisdiction int happened in. Also different people need different coverages, do you think the manufacturer is going to give every vehicle 500k of liability coverage, let alone an umbrella. The concept that insurance will come with the car is not new, you read it somewhere and took it as the truth. This is why we need to use our brains rather than run with what someone wrote.
Correct, Agency. I worked closely with/ in a Claim Dept for a few years in my youth and know the plaintiffs will target all potential sources of recovery. The possibility of human intervention in an autonomous vehicle enables naming the ‘human driver’ as a defendant. If ‘actuary’ read something, he/ she needs to continue reading more authors for more opinions on the issue. I am aware of a few actuaries who work exclusively for Uber /Lyft/ etc. and believe they may be theorizing about the future of insurance for automobile travel. Hopefully, they aren’t publishing such a narrow perspective of the future.
I don’t know who is running with this, but I have read it a number of times in the past few years that driverless cars will come with insurance. However as we know, the news cannot be trusted anymore and people make up things from thin air and run with it, Most people who write that have no idea to all the variables involved, however most journalist and even people posting in forums like this post things from as you say a “narrow perspective.”
March 19, 2018 at 4:50 pm
Agent says:
Like or Dislike:
5
1
Wonder what limits Uber and Volvo have for claims like this?
From family members that work for a company doing the test driving (not Uber program), there is a camera on the driver during the test drive. If you take a phone call or found texting it is grounds for immediate dismissal.
No, because you are using the wrong word (autonomous) to describe the level of automating driving the current group of vehicles are classified under (automated). Uber’s cars are only at Level 2 IIRC
Level 0: Automated system issues warnings and may momentarily intervene but has no sustained vehicle control.
Level 1 (”hands on”): Driver and automated system shares control over the vehicle. An example would be Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) where the driver controls steering and the automated system controls speed. Using Parking Assistance, steering is automated while speed is manual. The driver must be ready to retake full control at any time. Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA) Type II is a further example of level 1 self driving.
Level 2 (”hands off”): The automated system takes full control of the vehicle (accelerating, braking, and steering). The driver must monitor the driving and be prepared to immediately intervene at any time if the automated system fails to respond properly. The shorthand ”hands off” is not meant to be taken literally. In fact, contact between hand and wheel is often mandatory during SAE 2 driving, to confirm that the driver is ready to intervene.
Level 3 (”eyes off”): The driver can safely turn their attention away from the driving tasks, e.g. the driver can text or watch a movie. The vehicle will handle situations that call for an immediate response, like emergency braking. The driver must still be prepared to intervene within some limited time, specified by the manufacturer, when called upon by the vehicle to do so. The 2018 Audi A8 Luxury Sedan was the first commercial car to claim to be able to do level 3 self driving. The car has a so-called Traffic Jam Pilot. When activated by the human driver, the car takes full control of all aspects of driving in slow-moving traffic at up to 60 kilometers per hour. The function works only on highways with a physical barrier separating oncoming traffic.
Level 4 (”mind off”): As level 3, but no driver attention is ever required for safety, i.e. the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver’s seat. Self driving is supported only in limited areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances, like traffic jams. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, i.e. park the car, if the driver does not retake control
Level 5 (”steering wheel optional”): No human intervention is required. An example would be a robotic taxi.
March 20, 2018 at 9:39 am
DNCs Coll(F)usion GPShip Strzok an IceberGowdy says:
Like or Dislike:
0
3
Thanks, Rosenblatt for that detail. However, NONE of those categories are labelled ‘autonomous’. So, how did I use the term wrong? I was referring to a driver-less vehicle which could be controlled by a human or chimpanzee. Into what category does that fall? I’ll assume it is #4, unless you correct me.
Here is the important question that I was (too?) subtly alluding to: Why should Level 2 vehicles be allowed on roadways that abut pedestrian traffic zones? WHY? Please ignore the Straw Man Argument distractions/ distinctions you listed and focus on the issue of introducing a significant hazard in public areas in the name of advancing an inherently dangerous, prototype product.
March 20, 2018 at 9:50 am
DNCs Coll(F)usion GPShip Strzok an IceberGowdy says:
Like or Dislike:
0
4
PS: under which category does a ‘driver-less’ train with a distracted Engineer fall?
Alright. Let me try to explain this to you without any emotion, even though I feel you’re intentionally being snarky and nasty to me for no good reason.
If you go to any online dictionary and read up on the definitions of autonomous and automated, it should be crystal clear why Levels 3-5 are considered autonomous levels. Even though the text I posted doesn’t specifically state that word, the content matches the definition of autonomous.
As for your absurd chimpanzee question — you’re probably talking about level 2 because the thing behind the wheel must be attentive at all times and be ready to take control of the vehicle if an impending hazard is foreseeable.
Level 2 vehicles should be allowed on roadways because they require the person behind the wheel to pay full attention to potential hazards and be ready to take over from the automated system at any moment.
As an aside: you asked me why I thought level 2 cars should be allowed on the roads – any answer I give you is not a Straw Man argument since it’s MY opinion I’m posting; I’m not arguing a point you did not make.
Also, I am ignoring your train question because we’re talking about vehicles here — the automation/autonomation of cars is so significantly different than trains that it’s not even close to being a valid comparison.
March 19, 2018 at 3:27 pm
CL PM says:
Like or Dislike:
10
2
From the articles I have read on this incident, the pedestrian was jaywalking. We should not jump to the conclusion that a human driver would not have hit her. It was 10:00p so I presume it was dark. If she walked out in traffic, isn’t it her fault that she was not seen and was hit?
The article seems to indicate the person walking was outside the line. Implying next to the cross walk. So yes that would imply jaywalking but unless the person walked right out in front of the car the car should of stopped regardless. I mean the cars are supposed to react to this kind of stuff.
Based on the video now widely available, it seems unlikely an average human driver could avoid that pedestrian. I agree with comments that an AV’s radar (or whatever technology is used) should have picked up the pedestrian in the dark and possibly could have avoided her. All that said, the pedestrian is still very culpable for crossing a street in the dark, far from a crosswalk, wearing dark clothes with no lights on her bike.
I agree. In this case, that wouldn’t have mattered since she wasn’t using a crossing zone nor was she even close to one. Sounds like we all might have to start taking a little more self-responsibility when crossing streets. Or, get really good at live Frogger!
Charles,
With all due respect, American citizens have been guinea pigs ever since the beginning days. This is nothing new, just a new medium is all. I’m not suggesting it is ethical, I am just stating the fact. I feel for all who are involved and the penalty for jaywalking isn’t death, so I’m not allowing that to be an excuse.
I can’t believe they just allowed this and let it go already? Now tell me you don’t here a “Duh”…Articles like this, just drive me to either walking or taking cabs. Cabs that paid for their licenses and pay taxes for it.
Even on some of the new car safety features available there is a safety stop where the car will stop even if the driver didn’t apply the break. You would think that an autonomous car would have that technology unless the pedestrian stepped out on the street literally at the same time as the car was there.
Condolences to the family, but perhaps the pedestrian was partly to blame? Other reports indicate it was 10 pm and the woman crossed the street outside of the crosswalk; i.e. jaywalking. Perhaps she was distracted by her phone and did not see the Volvo SUV……with newer LED headlights? Then again, why test at night?
Not sure if the test vehicle’s pedestrian sensors utilized FLIR / thermal imaging infrared cameras. It would still be difficult for a FLIR camera to penetrate a car / truck parked on the side of the street to see if a person is getting ready to cross mid-block.
So in 2015 (the latest information I could find), 5,300+ pedestrians were killed in vehicle accidents and another 70,000 injured, but there are those who find this one incident involving an “autonomous” vehicle enough reason to kibosh the technology.
*Source: NHTSA’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis
please lay out your plan in detail on how we can properly test driverless vehicles for every potential real life situation without actually putting them on the roads with a person behind the wheel who is required to take over operation of the car should a dangerous situation present itself. READY….STEADY….GO!!
Are you ready to go out and stand in a road when an Autonomous car is coming and trust it to stop before it runs over you? Tesla couldn’t even identify an 18 wheeler. Radar on this vehicle should have picked up a person and slowed down long before it hit her. Night Blindness?
Chief of Police Sylvia Moir told the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday that video footage taken from cameras equipped to the autonomous Volvo SUV potentially shift the blame to the victim herself, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, rather than the vehicle.
“It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode [autonomous or human-driven] based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,” Moir told the paper, adding that the incident occurred roughly 100 yards from a crosswalk. “It is dangerous to cross roadways in the evening hour when well-illuminated managed crosswalks are available,” she said.
Though the vehicle was operating in autonomous mode, a driver was present in the front seat. But Moir said there appears to be little he could have done to intervene before the crash.
“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”
No one saw this coming.
Everybody saw this coming. The calculation which has to be made in the long run, which will be safer? Human driven cars or autonomous cars? And how will that relationship change over time based on changes in technology and changes in human driver behavior. About 2,600 pedestrians killed in the US every year https://www.npr.org/2017/03/30/522085503/2016-saw-a-record-increase-in-pedestrian-deaths
Probably about half caused by drunk drivers. Which will be safer in the long run? Nobody knows yet.
Well, the pro autonomous car crowd on this blog didn’t see this coming.
Some did, and denied it.
“The woman was crossing the road outside of a crosswalk when the Uber vehicle, operating in autonomous mode under the supervision of a human safety driver, struck her, according to the Tempe Police Department.”
This seems like less of a “Robot Kills Person” story and more of a “Person Struck After Stepping into Traffic” story.
For the many who have panicked about losing business due to self-driving cars, this tells us two things. The first is that self-driving cars are not perfect and need insurance and secondly, we are years away from this becoming the norm, perhaps at least 10 years. Insurance agencies will see minimal impact from this in the near future and even the long-term. My condolences go out to the family of the victim from this awful tragedy.
While self-driving cars will need insurance, it is not clear that the owners of self-driving cars will need insurance. This will be more of a products liability situation than a personal liability situation. The insurance will likely be built in to the price of the automobile and be borne by the manufacturer. Therefore, the personal lines agents who are panicked about losing private passenger auto business are correct. That line will go away or be diminished greatly. Ultimately, I can see a situation where all of personal lines liability is rolled into a single product.
So, you’re OK with auto makers handling the products liability situations that arise from autonomous cars? They will keep the premiums embedded in the price tag and pay the claims. I’m not. Think of an autonomous car as a metallic ‘family dog’. Bites or Bumps result in liability claims handled by an insurance carrier’s claim staff.
Are you kidding? Anyone who understands the basics of law and especially if you are an insurance agent knows that if an incident happens, attorneys name all parties involved in a liability incident as part of the lawsuit. This means the auto manufacturer, the driver, the employer (if applicable) and even the jurisdiction int happened in. Also different people need different coverages, do you think the manufacturer is going to give every vehicle 500k of liability coverage, let alone an umbrella. The concept that insurance will come with the car is not new, you read it somewhere and took it as the truth. This is why we need to use our brains rather than run with what someone wrote.
Correct, Agency. I worked closely with/ in a Claim Dept for a few years in my youth and know the plaintiffs will target all potential sources of recovery. The possibility of human intervention in an autonomous vehicle enables naming the ‘human driver’ as a defendant. If ‘actuary’ read something, he/ she needs to continue reading more authors for more opinions on the issue. I am aware of a few actuaries who work exclusively for Uber /Lyft/ etc. and believe they may be theorizing about the future of insurance for automobile travel. Hopefully, they aren’t publishing such a narrow perspective of the future.
I don’t know who is running with this, but I have read it a number of times in the past few years that driverless cars will come with insurance. However as we know, the news cannot be trusted anymore and people make up things from thin air and run with it, Most people who write that have no idea to all the variables involved, however most journalist and even people posting in forums like this post things from as you say a “narrow perspective.”
Wonder what limits Uber and Volvo have for claims like this?
Must have been reviewing past weekend at a party on insta- gram or applying make-up to the head lights.
Wonder what the human safety driver was doing when this happened?
Hopefully not texting ….
Hopefully they weren’t texting …
Obviously not paying attention
Perhaps he was texting or playing on Facebook or otherwise distracted.
From family members that work for a company doing the test driving (not Uber program), there is a camera on the driver during the test drive. If you take a phone call or found texting it is grounds for immediate dismissal.
Autonomous car that … needs … a … ‘driver’ … to be alert. Do I have that straight?
No, because you are using the wrong word (autonomous) to describe the level of automating driving the current group of vehicles are classified under (automated). Uber’s cars are only at Level 2 IIRC
Level 0: Automated system issues warnings and may momentarily intervene but has no sustained vehicle control.
Level 1 (”hands on”): Driver and automated system shares control over the vehicle. An example would be Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) where the driver controls steering and the automated system controls speed. Using Parking Assistance, steering is automated while speed is manual. The driver must be ready to retake full control at any time. Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA) Type II is a further example of level 1 self driving.
Level 2 (”hands off”): The automated system takes full control of the vehicle (accelerating, braking, and steering). The driver must monitor the driving and be prepared to immediately intervene at any time if the automated system fails to respond properly. The shorthand ”hands off” is not meant to be taken literally. In fact, contact between hand and wheel is often mandatory during SAE 2 driving, to confirm that the driver is ready to intervene.
Level 3 (”eyes off”): The driver can safely turn their attention away from the driving tasks, e.g. the driver can text or watch a movie. The vehicle will handle situations that call for an immediate response, like emergency braking. The driver must still be prepared to intervene within some limited time, specified by the manufacturer, when called upon by the vehicle to do so. The 2018 Audi A8 Luxury Sedan was the first commercial car to claim to be able to do level 3 self driving. The car has a so-called Traffic Jam Pilot. When activated by the human driver, the car takes full control of all aspects of driving in slow-moving traffic at up to 60 kilometers per hour. The function works only on highways with a physical barrier separating oncoming traffic.
Level 4 (”mind off”): As level 3, but no driver attention is ever required for safety, i.e. the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver’s seat. Self driving is supported only in limited areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances, like traffic jams. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, i.e. park the car, if the driver does not retake control
Level 5 (”steering wheel optional”): No human intervention is required. An example would be a robotic taxi.
Thanks, Rosenblatt for that detail. However, NONE of those categories are labelled ‘autonomous’. So, how did I use the term wrong? I was referring to a driver-less vehicle which could be controlled by a human or chimpanzee. Into what category does that fall? I’ll assume it is #4, unless you correct me.
Here is the important question that I was (too?) subtly alluding to: Why should Level 2 vehicles be allowed on roadways that abut pedestrian traffic zones? WHY? Please ignore the Straw Man Argument distractions/ distinctions you listed and focus on the issue of introducing a significant hazard in public areas in the name of advancing an inherently dangerous, prototype product.
PS: under which category does a ‘driver-less’ train with a distracted Engineer fall?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ebwhu3nsM8
Alright. Let me try to explain this to you without any emotion, even though I feel you’re intentionally being snarky and nasty to me for no good reason.
If you go to any online dictionary and read up on the definitions of autonomous and automated, it should be crystal clear why Levels 3-5 are considered autonomous levels. Even though the text I posted doesn’t specifically state that word, the content matches the definition of autonomous.
As for your absurd chimpanzee question — you’re probably talking about level 2 because the thing behind the wheel must be attentive at all times and be ready to take control of the vehicle if an impending hazard is foreseeable.
Level 2 vehicles should be allowed on roadways because they require the person behind the wheel to pay full attention to potential hazards and be ready to take over from the automated system at any moment.
As an aside: you asked me why I thought level 2 cars should be allowed on the roads – any answer I give you is not a Straw Man argument since it’s MY opinion I’m posting; I’m not arguing a point you did not make.
Also, I am ignoring your train question because we’re talking about vehicles here — the automation/autonomation of cars is so significantly different than trains that it’s not even close to being a valid comparison.
From the articles I have read on this incident, the pedestrian was jaywalking. We should not jump to the conclusion that a human driver would not have hit her. It was 10:00p so I presume it was dark. If she walked out in traffic, isn’t it her fault that she was not seen and was hit?
The article seems to indicate the person walking was outside the line. Implying next to the cross walk. So yes that would imply jaywalking but unless the person walked right out in front of the car the car should of stopped regardless. I mean the cars are supposed to react to this kind of stuff.
Based on the video now widely available, it seems unlikely an average human driver could avoid that pedestrian. I agree with comments that an AV’s radar (or whatever technology is used) should have picked up the pedestrian in the dark and possibly could have avoided her. All that said, the pedestrian is still very culpable for crossing a street in the dark, far from a crosswalk, wearing dark clothes with no lights on her bike.
Driver-less cars should be able to detect pedestrians, and slow down in crossing zones to avoid any such pedestrians or ‘jaywalkers’.
I agree. In this case, that wouldn’t have mattered since she wasn’t using a crossing zone nor was she even close to one. Sounds like we all might have to start taking a little more self-responsibility when crossing streets. Or, get really good at live Frogger!
Nice to know the occupants of America are now guinea pigs and their death is justified as a basis for advancement . Deus machina uber alles
Charles,
With all due respect, American citizens have been guinea pigs ever since the beginning days. This is nothing new, just a new medium is all. I’m not suggesting it is ethical, I am just stating the fact. I feel for all who are involved and the penalty for jaywalking isn’t death, so I’m not allowing that to be an excuse.
I can’t believe they just allowed this and let it go already? Now tell me you don’t here a “Duh”…Articles like this, just drive me to either walking or taking cabs. Cabs that paid for their licenses and pay taxes for it.
Even on some of the new car safety features available there is a safety stop where the car will stop even if the driver didn’t apply the break. You would think that an autonomous car would have that technology unless the pedestrian stepped out on the street literally at the same time as the car was there.
Condolences to the family, but perhaps the pedestrian was partly to blame? Other reports indicate it was 10 pm and the woman crossed the street outside of the crosswalk; i.e. jaywalking. Perhaps she was distracted by her phone and did not see the Volvo SUV……with newer LED headlights? Then again, why test at night?
Not sure if the test vehicle’s pedestrian sensors utilized FLIR / thermal imaging infrared cameras. It would still be difficult for a FLIR camera to penetrate a car / truck parked on the side of the street to see if a person is getting ready to cross mid-block.
So in 2015 (the latest information I could find), 5,300+ pedestrians were killed in vehicle accidents and another 70,000 injured, but there are those who find this one incident involving an “autonomous” vehicle enough reason to kibosh the technology.
*Source: NHTSA’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis
Nope. Not kibosh. Halt until tests fix the major problems that resulted in death. Another Straw Man Argument.
please lay out your plan in detail on how we can properly test driverless vehicles for every potential real life situation without actually putting them on the roads with a person behind the wheel who is required to take over operation of the car should a dangerous situation present itself. READY….STEADY….GO!!
Are you ready to go out and stand in a road when an Autonomous car is coming and trust it to stop before it runs over you? Tesla couldn’t even identify an 18 wheeler. Radar on this vehicle should have picked up a person and slowed down long before it hit her. Night Blindness?
Chief of Police Sylvia Moir told the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday that video footage taken from cameras equipped to the autonomous Volvo SUV potentially shift the blame to the victim herself, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, rather than the vehicle.
“It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode [autonomous or human-driven] based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,” Moir told the paper, adding that the incident occurred roughly 100 yards from a crosswalk. “It is dangerous to cross roadways in the evening hour when well-illuminated managed crosswalks are available,” she said.
Though the vehicle was operating in autonomous mode, a driver was present in the front seat. But Moir said there appears to be little he could have done to intervene before the crash.
“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”