I think your parent post was being sarcastic since indeed LIDAR isn't suppose to be affected by "shadows"

And yet the speeding vehicle didn’t even attempt to stop.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/19/17140936/uber-self-drivin...

Can we please stop calling 38 in a 35 speeding? In many places that speed would be inpeding traffic.

Uh, but it is speeding. I can't be the only person who's gone through a town that happens to have a zealous patrol officer who brings in huge revenues for the town (seems to be common around college towns). Exceptions are generally made when it comes to maintaining flow of traffic, but it seems like the Uber vehicle was by itself?

In most places the driver isn’t an experimental automated vehicle. Maybe while trying new tech that can apparently fail to see a woman with LIDAR, stick to the damned speed limit? That seems fair to me.

"Exceeding the stated speed limit by 8.5%" better for you?

So? That is because the traffic is speeding. What sort of twisted logic do you have that someone has just been killed, and the point you want to make is that 3miles over is not really speeding?

This really isn't an argument. It's just saying that because someone has been killed we shouldn't be able to have rational discussion because our logic is "twisted".

It's region specific. In many regions, yes, it is speeding, and ticketable, sometimes automatically by speed cameras. I have no idea what is normal in this particular region.

I thought computers excelled at matching numbers?

I've seen people charged with a misdemeanor for going 5 over the limit where noone was harmed. If a human can be held to that standard I think a self-driving car should in the case of a fatal collision.

+1. Calling this speeding is willful ignorance of the practical flow of traffic everywhere in the country.

Police write tickets for being 3mph over the speed limit. Can’t speak for other states but California DMV test does not give any kind of allowance to go over the speed limit. So why is this “ignorance”?

The DMV might not give any allowance but enforcement is no where as harsh in California. The i-5 in Southern California is filled with people cruising at 80 (even the highway patrol!), 15 miles above the limit and no one gets a ticket.

The same could be said for the 85 and 101 in the Bay, where the cruising speed is 75-80 during low traffic and almost always in the carpool lanes.

I wasn’t claiming that enforcement was strict or consistent. Just that it is patently absurd to say that 38mph in a 35mph isn’t “speeding”. I don’t care what your personal anecdotal experience is, we’re talking about what a court can penalize you on and what is written in the legal code.

And yes, I go over the speed limit plenty of times myself. I remember in HS how my friend was let go even after being caught at +10mph because he told the officer he was late to our calculus study group. Cops, and all human entities, make tons of allowances and exceptions.

Request denied. The sign says speed limit. What about a plain language sign are you not groking? Legally it is speeding, and it's an opinion to call it impeding traffic. And as a result of speeding, there's certainly civil liability attached because the car would not have been where it was, when it was, had it been driving at or below the speed limit.

Well the funny part is that it turns out it wasn't speeding. The limit was 45 and it was doing 38. If it had been speeding it wouldn't have been where it was when the person was jaywalking.

LIDAR indeed doesn't care about ambient light, but it can get confused by certain surfaces. I've seen LIDAR not be able to see a clean black car. The light just got absorbed and there wasn't enough return for it to register.

I think he is saying that she probably would have died even if a human were driving.

Sure, but presumably that's because a human wouldn't be able to see the pedestrian in the dark; you would expect LIDAR to be able to detect them and so the autonomous car should have had the same chances to spot this person in the daytime or the nighttime.

Well LIDAR certainly doesn't care it's dark.