back to article For once, Uber takes it up the tailpipe: Robo-ride gets rear-ended

The Uber self-driving program has had its first accident in California since regaining permission to experiment on the roads – and for a change, it wasn't Uber's fault. According to an accident report [PDF] filed with the San Francisco Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), the Uber car – a Volvo XC90 – was waiting to turn right …

  1. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Devil

    accidents a 'fact of life' in Cali-fornicate-you

    traffic accidents are a 'fact of life' in Cali-fornicate-you. You stop in the right turn lane and wait for pedestrians, someone looking left for oncoming traffic slams into you from behind. I suspect that's what happened.

    And then there's the T bone incident. When the light is yellow, of COURSE I hit the gas to make it through. And if some idiot making a left turn tries to turn into oncoming traffic, well you just have to dodge them trying. The fact is you can wait until the light is RED to make your left turn, and since you're already in the intersection, just complete it when nobody's coming.

    Those are rules easily programmed into computers, but POORLY programmed into driver's heads, especially when distracted by daily events, music, "new, shiny", children, and not even considering cell phones nor texting.

    SO... maybe you just have to ASSUME that there will be accidents, and take a look at the causes, remedies, and what a human might do to avoid them, as well as the overall accident RATE.

    But one accident shutting down the program? In Cali-fornicate-you CITY TRAFFIC? I doubt you could find a human capable of meeting a 'no accident' standard in those conditions. So why expect it from bots?

    Another thing they might consider - paint the self-driving cars with highly visible colors [day/dusk/night] just in case the "silver car" wasn't seen at around sunset or something... (not knowing what color it was, just guessing possibilities).

    1. mad_dr

      Re: accidents a 'fact of life' in Cali-fornicate-you

      If you're trying to make it through a yellow light

      a. within the speed limit and

      b. because the light changed from green to yellow after you'd already passed the point of no return (IE a safe stopping distance from the intersection)

      then fair enough, the left-turners will expect you to do so and will wait. You shouldn't need to accelerate though.

      When I'm waiting to make that left turn, the oncoming pricks I get irritated at are the ones who see the light change to yellow from a distance that would easily allow them to stop in time, but are going too fast for the situation to stop safely or are selfish enough that they think it's acceptable to accelerate into and through the intersection. This leaves us left-turners stuck in the intersection while we wait for them and now the perpendicular traffic receives their green light, so now I'm in their way and they're pissed off at me.

      I've already been waiting for the pedestrians to clear the crossing and the oncomers to do their thing and now I have to wait for the selfish twats too.

      Some people claim that, without accelerating through the intersection, traffic can't flow properly and no-one gets anywhere in a congested city like SF or Vancouver. They don't realise that the continual 'amber gamblers' actually have the opposite effect: every time a light goes green, everyone has to wait for the left-turners who were waiting for the amber gamblers. Not to mention the head-on collisions when left-turners make their turns just as someone oncoming decides to floor it.

      North American cities have a low enough standard of driving even if you only look at the defensive ones. Add in the aggressive contingent too and it's a fucking warzone out there.

      1. jmch Silver badge

        Re: accidents a 'fact of life' in Cali-fornicate-you

        "Some people claim that, without accelerating through the intersection, traffic can't flow properly and no-one gets anywhere in a congested city like SF or Vancouver. They don't realise that the continual 'amber gamblers' actually have the opposite effect: every time a light goes green, everyone has to wait for the left-turners who were waiting for the amber gamblers..."

        Just do what the rest of the civilised world does, and get a dedicated lane, traffic light and timeslot at the intersection for left turns (right turns in the UK)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "Just do what the rest of the civilised world does"

          And also start to use more roundabouts instead of traffic lights...

          1. Orv Silver badge

            Re: "Just do what the rest of the civilised world does"

            I live near a suburban roundabout in CA. The way people treat it is far scarier than how they treat traffic lights or stop signs, and they don't use turn signals properly in it.

            Roundabouts are only properly useful in very rural areas, with good sight lines and little traffic. Then you can approach at approximately the same speed as the Chelyabinsk meteor and drive it like a chicane.

    2. Martin
      FAIL

      Re: accidents a 'fact of life' in Cali-fornicate-you

      I don't care how good your argument is. You're downvoted for using "Cali-fornicate-you" - and not just once, but three times.

  2. Swiss Anton
    Gimp

    Er, no, don't.

    Is "wrist discomfort" worse than whiplash? A friend of mine would like to know.

    1. Commswonk

      Re: Er, no, don't.

      Is "wrist discomfort" worse than whiplash?

      Only if you forget to change hands from time to time.

  3. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    And that is the key distinction: where a human driver would typically exercise caution, even if they were legally in the right, a computer follows the rules it has been programmed with.

    Human "exercising caution" != Professional Taxi driver != Amateur Driver who got cocky moonlighting for Uber.

    Out of all major players, Uber is in the worst possible position to build a self-driving car system. It is in possession of a gigantic set of driver data from its app so there is a huge temptation to use at least some of it. At the same time the set is very biased, because it is collected from people trying to drive like taxi drivers without being ones (*). If you feed it into a learning algo the result will be exactly that - a car trying to beat the yellow lights at 38mph in a 40mph zone. IMHO, there should be a regulatory condition on Uber being allowed to test - it mustn't use any data produced by people who "do not work" for it (quotes intended and needed).

    (*) if you want an "authentic" taxi experience you will never forget, hire a taxi in Israel. Just make sure you have a spare change of clothes - you will need it. You will produce a couple of buckets of cold sweat from near misses - I have seen a taxi there overtake a police car which was going somewhere at full throttle with blue lights on.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "cold sweat from near misses"

      Ok, I'll see your Israel and raise you....The Dominican Republic : Truly staggering stuff. Family of 4 on a FZ1E. People using scooters to carry animals / shopping / building materials. And all without helmets, and little or no regard to any road rules, and access to very cheap rum based beverages. Although helmets are the law, allegedly, not wearing one is a status symbol : it shows you can afford to pay the impound fee. A quick google images / video search, and you'll see what I mean.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Ok, I'll see your Israel and raise you....The Dominican Republic

        Different cattle of fish. Dominican republic, India, etc - these are places where the traffic in general is insane.

        In Israel it is specifically the taxi drivers. Rest of the population drives very reasonably (by the Mediterranean standards). Watching the local taxis take the next load of passengers late in the evening out of Ben Gurion is like watching a X-wing squad try to line up for a Death Star trench run. Changing 4 lanes in less than 2 secs, overtaking on all sides and passing the other taxi within less than a foot at 100+ km/h. I have done my share of travel around the world and no taxi drivers get anywhere near. Spain, Italy and even the darkest, deepest Eastern Europe (*) are tame compared to Israel.

        (*) Like, for example, quoting my kids: "We are entering Bosnia and Herzegovina, You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious." The origin of the quote is: the bastards asked 3Eu for 200m of incomplete motorway, followed by a speed trap where I was told that I am driving at 30Eu/h above the speed limit and the customs officer openly complaining on where is the 10Eu note folded in my passport and do I want my car searched.

        1. WolfFan Silver badge

          @Voland's right hand

          I'll see your Israeli taxi drivers and raise you with Mexico City taxi drivers. Think VW original-issue, made in Mexico, bug, with four to six passengers and the driver. Don't ask silly questions as to where they all fit, this is Mexico. Think low-flying VW bug, which has been retrofitted with what sounds like a Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp, all 46 liters of it, pumping all 2000+ horses, with no muffler. No, it's not really a Double Wasp, but it sure sounds like one... Thanks to the power of whatever the hell they managed to pack into the back, think of the VW making turns on one wheel (two is for amateurs) at roughly Mach 3 (or that's what it feels like) around buses, trucks, donkey carts, pedestrians, and potholes, on 'roads' built sometime prior to Cortez's landing and not maintained since and which weren't intended for wheeled transport when new. (Oh, okay, so they're not that bad. They were built prior to Winfield Scott's landing and not maintained since.) Note that Israel is fairly flat, while Mexico in general and Mexico City in particular is mountainous. Note that Mexico City's air pollution is legendary. So we have low-flying VWs on bad roads full of traffic in bad visibility. And when there are accidents, it would be a good idea to recall that most of the drivers, taxi and non-taxi, are the descendants of Aztecs and really will cut your heart out. Or at least will scream and shout and gesticulate as though they will.

    2. mad_dr

      "Human "exercising caution" != Professional Taxi driver != Amateur Driver who got cocky moonlighting for Uber."

      The city of Vancouver agrees with you, particularly regarding taxi drivers. Believe it or not, despite some of the atrocious taxi driving I've witnessed from them (and no, I'm definitely not the best driver on the planet so I'm not trying to have a go at anyone), the city of Vancouver actually has a law stating that taxi drivers are exempt from wearing seatbelts up to 70km/h. Madness...

      "Taxi drivers are exempt from wearing seatbelts at speeds less than 70 Kmh under Section 32.03 of the Motor Vehicle Act regulations."

      from: Vancouver PD's website:

      http://vancouver.ca/police/organization/operations/traffic/traffic-services/taxi-team.html

      1. Jr, 4242

        I believe you'll find the reason for that is that a seat belt can easily be used as a weapon against the driver by a backseat passenger.

  4. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Was there a live feed?

    <Picture> Driving in SF behind UBER car3

    <Picture> OMG Hit it.

    <Picture>

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The big question

    ..... "The big question is: where do we allow the cut-off? When a self-driving car is better than the average human driver?" ....

    Given that almost all drivers consider themselves to be better than the average driver the cut-off needs to be high. Very high. Say a good driver giving 100% of their attention to driving.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The big question

      The problem is mixing automated traffic and human one - because they may follow different rules.

      There's a reason why in aviation VFR and IFR traffic fly at different altitudes so they can't mix.

    2. Jonathan Richards 1

      Re: The big question

      I think this is quite simple. No autonomous driving system should be allowed on the road unless it can reliably pass the real-world driving test that every human driver has to pass [1]. Since updates essentially change the autonomous driver into something else, it must be retested every time an update is issued. Demonstrating that the robot can negotiate a test track just doesn't cut it. It has to cope with normal human (i.e. unpredictable and risky) behaviour from road users of all types, and in the fullness of time with the latest behaviour [2] from robots of many sorts. My prediction is that we're still a long way off seeing these systems on public roads, especially non-urban UK ones.

      [1] Such a shame that the UK driving test no longer includes hand-signals.

      [2] OT: why do I get the wavy red underline of disapproval for my spelling of behaviour?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The big question

        "real world" could be an issue... friend of mine spent half his driving test stuck behind a flock of sheep.

      2. Loud Speaker

        Re: The big question

        If used in the UK, it needs to handle clinically insane Rickshaw drivers and motorcyclists who never go below twice the speed limit, unless doing wheelies. (As well as pedestrians who are texting as they step out into major roads).

      3. Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Re: The big question

        "why do I get the wavy red underline of disapproval for my spelling of behaviour?"

        Because they spell "behaviour" incorrectly in the USA.

        Red/Amber

        I don't know about the USA but it is an offence for any part of the vehicle to cross the stop line when an amber light is showing in the UK. There is a statutory defence that it was unsafe to stop (when the amber light is on). Thankfully enforcement is more relaxed.

  6. Steve Button Silver badge

    a lot of humans are, frankly, terrible drivers!?

    Rubbish. Most humans are much better than average at driving. Just ask them. ;-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: a lot of humans are, frankly, terrible drivers!?

      "Rubbish. Most humans are much better than average at driving. Just ask them. ;-)"

      I believe a survey showed this to be true in the US but incorrect in Sweden where a majority of drivers thought they were less good than average. It figures.

  7. Buttons

    I'm not trying to be picky.

    . . . but I'm pretty sure that my driving instructor advised me to slow down in anticipation of the lights changing, demonstrating control of my vehicle and awareness of my surroundings. I don't remember being told to accelerate across traffic lights. That was a long while ago however, so times may have changed.

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