Freak Accident in San Francisco Traps Pedestrian Under Robotaxi - Slashdot

Posted by EditorDavid

• • You missed the fact that the pedestrian walked into moving traffic. The initial impact with a car was a hit and run. And finally The automated car had a pedestrian thrown at it (from the hit and run car), so it stopped as designed.
    
    So you have someone not paying attention and J walking, a hit and run driver, and finally an automated car which was the only party here to do the right thing. And they somehow make this sound like an AI problem.....
    • 2 hidden comments

    • • Re:

        Apparently YOU didn't read the summary, and nor did the OP, which included the details the OP described. The title said "freak accident."

        • 1 hidden comment

    • Re: Get ready!

      Uh not quite right, it was someone who ran a red light that hit the pedestrian.

      • Re:

        How do you reach that conclusion from this snippet in the summary:

        Both vehicles advanced when the light turned green, according to witness accounts and video recorded by the Cruise vehicle's internal cameras and reviewed by The Post. As the cars moved forward, the pedestrian entered the traffic lanes in front of them, according to the video, and was struck by the regular car.

        Also it sounds like the autonomous car actually reacted as it should for once, by not moving and inadvertently causing additional inju

        • Re:

          > How do you reach that conclusion

          Agreed

          > Also it sounds like the autonomous car actually...

          Maybe the first car partially hid the woman in the crosswalk from the Cruise, so maybe the Cruise didn't have the time to process what was happening whereas maybe or maybe not a person would have braked sooner or harder or both.

          Lots of more questions like how fast was the other car going and how was the Cruise's speed relative to it. Lots of maybes but not much information.

          "after the traffic light turned green,

          • Re:

            A human would have understood what was happening on the other car and anticipated a requirement to stop. The AV drove forward clueless until there was an actual inspect.
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            • Re:

              Really? A bit of research would probably show that there are plenty of examples of human drivers pinballing victims in secondary collisions. Also the Cruise vehicle stopped as soon as it detected an issue. Once again a bit of research would probably show examples of human drivers in that situation not braking very quickly - probably continuing driving. Especially starting from a stoplight with lots of traffic people have a hard time paying attention to everything.
              And yes - I agree that there are plenty

              • Re:

                Average? If you consider how many vehicles go on the road every day and how few accidents there are, people do really good on average. Just because you are hyperfocused on the bad drivers doesn't make it common.

        • Re:

          The problem is, TFA describes things somewhat differently. According to it (and to Cruise), the woman was already in the intersection when the light turned.

          "The horrific crash occurred at 9:35 p.m. at Market and Fifth streets after the traffic light turned green, giving the Cruise car and other car — which had been waiting side-by-side for the light — the right to enter the intersection where a woman was walking, according to video of the crash shown to The Chronicle by Cruise hours after the in

          • Re:

            Don't SF lights have pedestrian countdown signals that indicate to clear the intersection because cross traffic is about to go green? Situational awareness is key to surviving a crosswalk. She may have moved into the crosswalk when the light was red, but unless traffic lights are stupid over there she likely moved in against a hold position hand sign.
            
            The hit and run car is inexcusable, their actions sound intentional or drunk. Stupidity all around.

            • Re:

              I assume what you're saying is accurate, based on the pedestrian signals I've observed in other US cities. But even if she was being stupid / oblivious / arrogant by entering the intersection late, the fact that she was already in the intersection when the traffic light went green means the narrative has changed significantly. Whether she should have been in the intersection at that time is moot - she was there, and the cars should have waited for her to leave. You don't have the legal or moral right to run

              • Re:

                As you said, you can't run someone over just because they are doing something wrong. It sounds like we need a bit more information to really understand the entire picture here. Was she J walking and therefore entered the intersection after the light turned green for the cars that hit her or was she already in the intersection completing her crossing of the street? Either way, the driver of the car that hit and run should of saw her.

                The AI driven car had her thrown at it, so it couldn't of done much about th

    • Re:

      No, TFS doesn't "make this sound like an AI problem" at all. It seems to be giving a rather accurate and dispassionate description of the facts.

    • Re:

      He didn't leave that out, it was in the description. The title even said "Freak Accident."

  • Re:

    You moron, the AI car was not at fault in any way, and performed PERFECTLY in this case, doing exactly what human driver should do in the same circumstances. Police and emergency responders all stated that clearly. The humans involved in the accident (driver of the car that hit the pedestrian, and the pedestrian themselves who walked out into traffic) both made horrible mistakes; the AI car was the only party involved that acted correctly all the way through this.

    • Re:

      A human driver would have detected danger upon seeing the woman on the other car and stopped. The AV is not trained to recognize an accident in progress on another car and could not anticipate a need to stop until physical contact precious seconds later.

      • Re:

        Sure. Just like the human driver of the car that struck the woman "detected danger and stopped" without hitting her in the first place...
        Oh. Wait...

        • Re:

          Clearly the first driver was distracted. Doesn't mean the other one will be.

      • Re:

        AI cars brake far faster than humans upon detecting an obstruction. The coverage I've read so far all claims that the AI car couldn't avoid running over her, that the other car knocked her directly into its path and that it was best that the car not move until it could be lifted off; that's S.O.P. for ALL cars, according to the people interviewed.
        This entire thing is actually a story about how an AI car did everything correctly.

• ›

  Human driver in a car struck a pedestrian, and the humans in charge of oversight of the AI car disabled it... It just happened to come to a stop on top of the prone woman. The only actual AI aspect that failed seems to be the inability to stop on a dime.

  So, effectively, we have two separate human failures in the same scenario. I'm no fan of AI, but this is a clear case of a device following human input, which happened to be poorly planned.... Somehow, I think this was the plot of Will Smith's iRobot.

  • 1 hidden comment

  • Re:

    Headline: "Freak Accident in San Francisco Traps Pedestrian Under Robotaxi"

    You: "Garbage headline."

    They called it a freak accident, which makes it clear that this is not an occurrence expected to repeat, and TFS makes it clear that Cruise acted responsibly and responded to the incident immediately.

    The headline is perfectly accurate. Not a single word in it is false or misleading.

    • Re:

      "Not a single word in it is false or misleading."

      Except that it's not surprising (or freakish) when someone walk in to traffic, against the traffic light and gets hit by a car.

      The "accident" isn't unusual in any way other than it involved an AI vehicle AFTER another vehicle that initially struck the victim (and then ran away). Certainly not "freakish".

      How about: "Idiot Californian walks in to street against traffic and gets it by a car after the state passes "freedom to walk" act"? Not a single word is

      • Read TFA. Your assumptions are completely wrong - the woman was already walking in the intersection when the light turned and the cars started moving.

        "The horrific crash occurred at 9:35 p.m. at Market and Fifth streets after the traffic light turned green, giving the Cruise car and other car — which had been waiting side-by-side for the light — the right to enter the intersection where a woman was walking, according to video of the crash shown to The Chronicle by Cruise hours after the incident."

    • Re:

      "The San Diego Freeway was a scene of a freak accident today, where three freaks in a camper crashed into six freaks in a van." - George Carlin

    • Re:

      Some people have incredibly poor reading skills, and like to accuse everyone else of the same.

  • Re:

    For me, this article clearly does not say much about AI, but it does say something about human beings. A woman was trapped under a car and they had to wait for firefighters to use the jaws of life? No-one had a jack? Bystanders didn't get together to lift the car off her? I suppose people are always a little unsure what to do in an emergency like this. Plus, people might be worried that the pressure from the car might be the only thing preventing someone from dying of internal bleeding. Still, from the desc

    • Okay, this happened in the city:
      1. Firefighter response might be only a couple minutes away.
      2. Safety training is that you call 911 FIRST
      3. 911 is going to tell you to NOT MOVE THE CAR - Moving the car is like pulling the arrow out of somebody. The crushing weight of the car could be stopping bleeding from the injury, and you need people on scene that can handle said bleeding when you do it. Do it early, and thing go bad they can bleed out before the paramedics are there to stop it. Note: I'm not a paramedic, but got military first aid training, so if I had an IFAK and some reason to believe that medical response would be delayed, I might try it. Because I have several options to stop bleeding with the kit.
      4. A lot of new cars aren't coming with jacks.
      5. By the time you DO dig a jack out, the firefighters are probably already pulling up.

      Indeed, per the article the first person on scene? A bicycle delivery person. They don't typically have jacks.

      • Re:

        4. A lot of new cars aren't coming with jacks.
        
        Not in California, where this took place. In California, when you buy a car, the salesman has to show you the spare tire and jack, BY LAW. The sale can't be completed until there's a spare and a jack in the car.
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        • Re:

          That's not true. e.g., Teslas do not have spare wheels or jacks and are widely sold in California.

          • 2 hidden comments

          • • Re: Human biases

              -1, Confused?

        • Re:

          https://cartired.com/spare-tir... [cartired.com]

          According to this, spare tires are not legally required in California. If you have one, it needs to meet certain standards.

      • Re:

        I had to look up IFAK. (I need to get one for my car, so thanks for the reminder.) I've found that the first aid kits that I've gotten in the past are generally only useful for the occasional bandaid. Do you have any recommendation for a good kit?

        • Re:

          For California? Probably a gunshot trauma kit.

          • Re:

            Bonus! A military-style IFAK is explicitly designed for gunshot wounds!

          • Re:

            Heh. Or just a "gun trauma" kit.

            I find it interesting that California's strict gun laws were first enacted by Reagan and his Republican state congress. They didn't like the wrong people using their 2nd Amendment rights.

        • Re:

          Sorry - IFAK = Individual First Aid Kit. The acronym slipped out.

          And yes, they're more than what I call "boo-boo kits" which are what MOST "first aid" kits are, that might better be called "trivial aid". To me, a good first aid kit is "keep the victim alive until the paramedics get there or we get them to the hospital".

          As for recommending a good kit, I was always issued mine, so no chance for "preference".

          If I was you, I'd go for one that has at least one tourniquet, as well as something for a chest or ot

          • Re:

            Ok, I'll find something with a tourniquet. The wife was a nurse and needs to replace her old stethoscope and BP too. I'll see if there's a kit, but might be better or cheaper to DIY.

            • Re:

              Not sure if you'll find a kit with a stethoscope that isn't huge with other stuff.

              I've generally found that a complete kit definitely comes cheaper than individual stuff, unless you're buying enough of the individual stuff to stock a hundred kits.

              If you're planning on adding more stuff at all though, I wouldn't count on being able to keep it in the IFAK - they weren't designed with much in the way of spare space.

          • Re:

            And yeah, I'll look up the Red Cross too and see about taking their course. Local ID10T gave me a link to a site selling them, and it's easy to see that appropriate training is necessary.

            • Re:

              I looked at that link. Seems on the really expensive side.

              • Re:

                Thanks. I'll have to shop around.

  • Not Poorly Planned - Behaved Perfectly

    It was not poorly planned at all. The AI braked hard but still ended up on top of the woman and then stopped there with its hazard lights on not moving. It was then disabled to make sure that it definitely would not move because had it moved it could have caused more injury. It did exactly what it was supposed to and disabling it seems like more of a precaution to make absolutely sure it continued to do that.

    • Re:

      But when did it start braking? I human would have hit the break a moment before they saw it was inevitable that the next car was going to hit the woman. How many seconds later did the AV detect something wrong?

      • Re:

        I think you overestimate the presence of mind of most human drivers, especially when it comes to situations they probably haven't experienced before, like this one.

  • how about . . .

    How about . . . "robotaxi brakes faster than humanly possible when pedestrian knocked in front of it by human, reducing injury in accident."

    nah, none would write that one . . .

• • Re:

    They can, should, and almost certainly will. A crime was clearly committed, so there's a clear reason for a subpoena here. The good question here would be whether Cruise will wait for a subpoena to provide the information to police, which they absolutely must do if they expect to be trusted by anyone.

    • Re:

      Why would delaying an inevitable, necessary, and good action for no reason and to no one's benefit make them more trustworthy?

      • Re:

        It is only responsible and thus reasonable (and in fact should be required) to have and follow a policy that you only respond to legally processed requests performed through legal channels, and never by verbal or any other request. It does not take any significant amount of time to process a subpoena. The city (and any other involved legal entity) should simply prioritize requests from law enforcement in pursuit of a fleeing suspect, which I would tend to assume is already SoP, so that the processing occurs

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      • Re:

        Many companies have a policy requiring their employees to turn such information or documents over to law enforcement only on the receipt of a subpoena, and to turn over exactly what's specified, nothing more. There are two reasons for this: first, it protects the rest of the companies customers/clients and second, it protects the company from law suits by people who's data was turned over even though it wasn't part of the request. This is just simple CYA.

      • Re:

        Because tomorrow you might do something not technically illegal but frowned upon morally in view of such a car. Procedures exist to protect people from overreach.

• Shitty editor posting old stories on a weekend.

  • Re:

    At least it has some new details.

• The woman walked into traffic, got struck and the robotaxi reacted exactly right to a situation it had no control over. Had it not been a robotaxi, you would never have heard of this accident.

  However...

  I sure hope they catch this rotter and send him to jail for many years, and that we'll get to hear about it!

  • 2 hidden comments

  • • Re: And the AI car did nothing wrong

      And at least according to TFS they'd be wrong to do so:

      "When it comes to someone pinned beneath a vehicle, the most effective way to unpin them is to lift the vehicle," Sgt. Kathryn Winters, a spokesperson for the department, said in an interview. Were a driver to move a vehicle with a person lying there, "you run the risk of causing more injury."

    • Re:

      It depends on details. If a pickup truck is stopped on her leg rolling the the tire off her leg would not lower the truck enough to crush the rest of her. I can slide around freely under the truck while it's parked.

      But on the old commuter car I used to have that was not true. There was not enough ground clearance to fit a person under it. Lowering the car another inch might well finish the trapped person off.

      • Re:

        Add a complicating factor: Releasing the pressure can allow blood flow to resume into damaged parts of the body, potentially causing excessive bleeding, swelling, blood clot travel, etc...

        Even if you can get it off clean, you want the medical people there to handle those potential problems.

        It's like how if you end up impaled on something, you're not supposed to remove it if you can manage, let the hospital do that.

    • Re: And the AI car did nothing wrong

      So the robottaxi was actually doing something good, as NOT moving the car was the right thing to do according to the first responders.

    • Re:

      That would be exactly the wrong thing to do. Ask any paramedic.

  • Appears Pedestrian was at Fault

    Idiot sounds far more appropriate given the description of events. Walking into moving traffic when the lights were green for the traffic very strongly suggests that this is entirely the pedestrian's fault and it was caught on video so there was clear evidence of that. Had the driver stayed on the scene the available evidence suggests that he did nothing wrong and would have had nothing to fear. However, fleeing the scene is a crime so the idiot has now managed to make trouble for themselves.

  • Re:

    I suspect that you won't be able to hide long when the car behind is so loaded with sensors. Given that it's likely a poor decision one has to wonder if alcohol was involved (although it doesn't seem to have been a contributing factor).

• The stills released show the robocar halted in the lane next to the 'sidewalk' , so how did the pedestrian manage to get hit by the mystery vehicle?
  Did the pedestrian sprint off the pavement across the path of the robocar, get hit by the second vehicle and bounce back in front of the robocar? If so, was the aggressive braking begun when the pedestrian first appeared in front of the robocar or did the robocar calculate that it would pass behind the pedestrian? If it was tracking everything and calculated th

  • Re: Freaky indeed!

    According to the (original) article, the hit and run car smashed into the pedestrian making him/her fly in front of the robotaxi. People can fly pretty long distances when struck by a moving vehicle.

    • Re: Freaky indeed!

      TFA seems to say the vehicle which initially hit the pedestrian was in the lane next to the Cruise. This puts the hit-and-run vehicle at least one lane away from the sidewalk. Either the pedestrian was already on the highway when both vehicles set off, and therefore should be being tracked by the Cruises sensors, or the pedestrian crossed the Cruise's lane (and was therefore visible to the sensors) and then was hit in the second lane and was thrown in front of the Cruise, or perhaps the pedestrian crossed f

• Pedestrian walks into traffic. Gets hit by car throwing her into another vehicle. Or as we call this in most cities, Tuesday. Happens almost every day. The only thing that makes it news is an AV was involved.

  • Re:

    Pedestrians stepping into traffic is standard practice in SF. Muni (the bus system) crashes into a few people every year. Mission St is has some kind of accident about twice a week. Usually involving a pedestrian or cyclist.

    Some of the issues with AV are highlighted by corner cases where emergency services are involved. I'm not saying a human driver should try to back off a person stuck on their car. But any fire fighter could enter a mundane car and operate it. That immediate control for first responders i

• All elevators have a fire service panel that the local fire department can use to access and control the elevator in an emergency. I think every driverless vehicle should require an equivalent standardized access. Even if the City of SF said that all driverless taxis required it would be an improvement over the chaos we have today.

  • Re:

    realistically, they'd only need to ever disable or put it into neutral so it can be pushed.

    They have the tools necessary to lift and move the vehicle even if it is completely disabled if they need to.

    After all, a large part of their job is responding to vehicles that have been disabled in collisions.

    • Re:

      it depends which unit arrives first. not every vehicle carries the same load out of equipment. For example the CalFire pickup trucks in my neighborhood don't carry Hurst cutters, but every one of them has a chainsaw.

• This is just AI preparing us for what it will be like living under its boots...er, wheels.

  • Re:

    "If You Want a Picture of the Future, Imagine a Robotaxi Stopped on Top of a Human – for Ever".

    (apologies to Mr. Orwell)

  • Re:

    This car did exactly what it should have done. It probably did so with more accuracy than a human would have. If the car beside yours hits a jaywalker, throws the jaywalker i the air at you, how would anyone, AI or human, be expected to avoid the flying human?

    If this is the future of AI, it will be a safer one than we have now.

• The question isn't whether this sort of Final Destination cascade can happen with a robotaxi, but whether it happens less often than with a purely human-operated fleet. If there are fewer fatalities with a robotaxi fleet than without, we're ethically obligated to deploy one.

• I wonder if the bicyclist let air out of the Car's Tire if you would help avoid or lessen further injury ?

• Next time... take the orange plastic cone off the hood (bonnet) of the vehicle and it will drive right off the trapped person. problem solved.

  /sarcasm