The fatal accident involving an Uber autonomous vehicle leaves a lot of questions. A woman jaywalking and carrying a bicycle was struck and killed by the Self Driving Car (SDC) in Tempe on March 18. There was a safety driver in the vehicle. Video released by Tempe Police showed the person looking down and not having their hands near the steering wheel prior to the accident.
Technology has become more and more a part of everyone’s lives. Some of us have been dragged kicking and screaming into the high tech world. But technology is changing everybody’s life. There certainly can be huge benefits derived from the use of autonomous vehicles, particularly for those that may be unable to drive due to handicap or injury.
The accident has led to the suspension by ADOT of Uber’s ability to test autonomous vehicles in Arizona. However, other companies continue to test (SDC’s) in this state. One of those companies is Waymo which started as Google’s SDC project. Waymo recently settled a lawsuit filed against Uber for stealing some of Waymo’s lidar technology. As part of the settlement Uber was barred from using any of Waymo’s hardware or software intellectual property. Waymo says its technology would have been able to handle the situation.
Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, works similar to radar but utilizes infrared laser light and measures the time it takes for the light rays to return from an object and it does this millions of times a second. Lidar is more efficient than camera technology as it provides computer friendly data with exact measurements whereas a camera’s 2D data must be transferred into 3D data.
Other crash avoidance technology that comes standard on the Volvo vehicle used in the testing may have been disconnected. According to Bloomberg, Aptiv PLC, which makes collision avoidance technology as part of the standard advanced driver-assistance system found in the Volvo XC90, said Uber disabled the software for the system.
Last week a Tesla vehicle was involved in a fatal crash while in the autopilot mode. According to Tesla, the autopilot can keep speed, change lanes, and self-park. But, drivers should keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. According to Tesla, the driver of the vehicle did not have his hands on the wheel for six seconds prior to the crash and he received several warnings from the vehicle system.
Attorney Robert Hobkirk, of Loose, Brown & Hobkirk P.C. said changes in technology that take people out of the equation and make machines and companies responsible, means that cases that may have been criminal cases, now may become civil cases. I asked if laws are keeping up with technology. He said it is an area of the law that will be watched closely.
Reuters reported last week that Uber had reached a settlement with family of 49 year old Elaine Herzberg who was killed last month. Details of the settlement were not released.
So what does this all mean for us that live in this area? First of all, it is highly unlikely that we will see an SDC on the roads of Carefree and Cave Creek right away. The people that I spoke with from companies that operate SDC’s say that very detailed high resolution digital maps need to be created before an SDC can take to the roads in an area. None of the companies I spoke with have maps for this area. The focus is on more densely populated areas. As for the future, is taking out the human factor going to have us all soon living in the ‘Johnny Cab’ world portrayed in the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of ‘Total Recall’?
