Backup driver in first death by fully autonomous car pleads guilty

https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-07-29/the-backup-driver-in-the-1st-death-by-a-fully-autonomous-car-pleads-guilty-to-endangerment.html

by belter • 3 years ago

31 25 3 years ago

english.elpais.com

this_steve_j• 3 years ago

I haven’t followed the legal contours of this case very closely so perhaps these are not interesting questions.

Who would go to jail if _no_ driver was in the car?

From what I recall, the vehicle was a Volvo and its pedestrian detection and emergency braking system was defeated by the test equipment. Is there any culpability there?

Or what about the person who planned and initiated the driving route that night, in the dark through a populated area. Are they responsible to a degree?

It doesn’t sound like the backup “driver” was engaging in engineering or testing activities, and certainly not driving, but instead was paid to be doing what a passenger might do if they thought someone else was driving.

What the driver is legally responsible for may be different from what they believed they were doing. At least, that would me my defense in the situation.

NoZebra120vClip3• 3 years ago

Apparently, the law generally indicates that the "driver" of an SDC is the one who causes it to begin operation. So, the vendors will have banks of remote operators who will theoretically bear liability and responsibility for the cars they run.

kevin_b_er• 3 years ago

Who would go to jail if _no_ driver was in the car?

The CEO should. If we remove the human, the liability should go to those in charge of the machine. To hell with this nonsense of a "company" absolving the humans in charge of their killings.

randyrand• 3 years ago

what if the CEO is a new hire? because the previous one was put in jail?

aperson_hello2• 3 years ago

Imho - the driver is being scapegoated here. If you watch the actual video (graphic, don't recommend), the victim only appears for a few frames before the accident. In a normal car where the driver sees them and reacts, at best they hit the brakes at the same time they hit the victim. Distraction doesn't matter when the accident is unavoidable.

On the other hand, autonomous breaking systems might have actually made a difference here if they hadn't been disabled (at least in reducing the severity of the accident). And given the conditions, a human might have been driving slower. The driver here had no control over any of this, while their employer did...

zvolsky• 3 years ago

It is possible that this tragic accident would have happened even if the operator paid full attention, but that is besides the merit of this case. Their job was to supervise an autonomous driving test, and they did not pay full attention at the critical moment, with no justifiable reason for this lack of attention:

"Records indicate that streaming began at 9:16 pm and ended at 9:59 pm. Based on an examination of the video captured by the driver-facing camera, Vasquez was looking down toward her right knee 166 times for a total of 6 minutes, 47 seconds during the 21 minutes, 48 seconds preceding the crash. Just prior to the crash, Vasquez was looking at her lap for 5.3 seconds; she looked up half a second before the impact." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg

NoZebra120vClip3• 3 years ago

Their job was to supervise an autonomous driving test

The "driver" performed her job flawlessly, by acting exactly as any other "driver" who's been rendered redundant by fully-automated systems. This "driver" exemplified the human indifference to the task when our attention isn't demanded by complete immersion in an interactive experience.

By causing the vehicle to start operation, the driver accepted responsibility and liability, per the current laws on SDCs. Therefore, "scapegoat" is a misnomer that wrongly implies innocence or detachment from the sinful deed(s). The driver accepted her fate by signing up and settling into the left-hand front seat.

aperson_hello2• 3 years ago

My point is that even if she had been paying full attention, the outcome wouldn't be different. If Uber hasn't wouldn't disabled AEB, it would have been different. Hence Uber is the most at fault (amongst the two of them - the pedestrian might really be the most at fault here)

gruez2• 3 years ago

the victim only appears for a few frames before the accident.

1. It only looks that way because the camera has terrible dynamic range. If you've ever driven in real life you'd know you can see further than 100ft in front of you.

2. if for whatever reason you can't see 100ft in front of you (eg. fog), you shouldn't be driving at such a speed where you can't stop in time if an object popped into existence 100ft in front of you.

edit:

The forward-looking Uber dashcam did not pick up Herzberg until approximately 1.4 seconds before the collision, suggesting (as the sheriff did) that the crash may have been completely unavoidable even if Vasquez hadn't been distracted in the seconds leading up to the crash.[61]
However, night-time video shot by other motorists in the days following the crash, plus their comments, suggest that the area may have been better illuminated than the dashcam footage, viewed in isolation would suggest. This raises the possibility that Herzberg's appearing so late in the Uber video could merely be an indication that the camera had insufficient sensitivity or was otherwise poorly calibrated for the environment and setting in which it was operating. If these crowd-sourced re-creations are indeed representative of the visibility conditions on the actual night that the crash occurred, then Herzberg would have been visible to Vasquez as soon as there was a clear sight line had Vasquez only been looking ahead, refuting the assertion that the crash was unavoidable.[62]

[62] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-...

rasz• 3 years ago

You watched the dark video released by Uber, others went to the same street and shot videos with normal dash cams at same time of night, difference in visibility is stark.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-...

jeffrallen• 3 years ago

This is a terrible result. It shows that companies can set up humans to take the fall for their immoral decisions. The emergency braking that Uber turned off would have saved the victim's life.

At least Uber's self driving division got the death penalty. Would have been better if the state had fined the entire corrupt enterprise into bankruptcy.

jmpman• 3 years ago

I drove the same route, at the same time, at the speed limit, the days immediately following the event. I would have easily been able to see a cyclist crossing the road, with plenty of time to react.

rajbot• 3 years ago

If the backup driver is guilty of failing to stop the primary driver of killing someone, then that means the primary driver is also guilty of killing someone.

x86x87• 3 years ago

What a bunch of fracking bullshit.

Did the driver control the speed of the car and made all decisions? Did the driver disable the automatic breaking? Could a human driving the car reasonably avoid the pedestrian?

grrdotcloud• 3 years ago

Fully autonomous cars would work well if they could all drive at 15mph without stop signs.

Easily enough to dodge, stop, limit damage while not requiring red lights or stop and go allowing passengers and pedestrians to travel.

Backup driver in first death by fully autonomous car pleads guilty

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