Elaine Herzberg will unfortunately enter history. She is the first pedestrian killed by a self-driving Uber car. She was 49 years old when she crossed N Mill Ave in Tempe, Arizona at this place on March 18, 2018.
Elaine Herzberg was walking her bike across the street when an autonomous Volvo XC90 SUV from Uber approached the scene with Rafaela V. in the driver seat as a backup driver. Unfortunately neither the backup driver nor the Uber LiDAR system reacted. As a result, the car continued to drive straight forward, without steering or reducing speed, and killed Elaine Herzberg.
The video of Uber, which was handed over to the police, creates the impression that N Mill Ave is in the middle of nowhere because it is extremely dark. However, in reality, N Mill Ave is actually in the middle of the well-electrified city Tempe, with a population of about 180.000 people. Unless there is a power-outage, this is not a place in the middle of nowhere. A non-Uber video, driving along the same route, shows the real light situation (position of the accident at 0:34 min).
It shows that the video of Uber is simply a joke – it was either edited or recorded with a poor camera (probably the same poor camera which is responsible for autonomous driving…). The pedestrian could have been seen already at 0:31 min. The accident happened at a position of about 0:34 min, so this opens up a reaction window of about 3 seconds for the car’s LiDAR system and/or the backup driver (assuming that the backup driver pays attention to the street and not to the phone). However, there was not even a steering or braking attempt.
Basically after we have successfully automated lawn mowers, we are now trying the same with automated cars on public roads – what a breakthrough in technology! An autonomous (smartphone-controlled) “backup driver” is the perfect combination for an autonomous car. Looking forward for autonomous trucks and busses on public roads and for autonomous drones coming down on us from above. Let’s carelessly adopt all this technology. It makes life so much more convenient. So sad!
Luckily the pedestrian in the video below was not distracted by his smartphone, when an autonomous Uber car run over a red traffic light, which was red already since 3 seconds. Another autonomous killing attempt…
How many casualties will we need to limit the speed of autonomous cars and to monitor them with attentive backup drivers, always keeping their hands on the steering wheel? Rest in peace Elaine Herzberg. Hopefully Uber paid at least for your funeral.
