Uber may not be at fault, legally speaking. That's up to the legal authorities to decide.

However, as a society and civilization, and even more so, as engineers and scientists, we are going to expect that the autonomous car matches or exceeds human-level performance in critical situations like this.

Therefore the time spent on investigating, understanding, and discussing the root causes of the accident is worth understanding. Accidents like these generally do not happen due to a single factor. It is necessary to understand all the necessary factors if we want to make autonomous driving systems more reliable.

At the very least we need to understand whether the pedestrian appeared in the other sensors that a human could have identified by looking at the sensor data, and if yes, whether the autonomous system matched or exceeded human-level performance by detecting the pedestrian, and if the pedestrian was indeed detected, why the autonomous driving system failed to respond to the situation.

In North America, isn’t the vehicle owner usually liable, regardless of who is driving?

Surely not? Cars are routinely driven by people who are not owners, and liability for traffic offences (including that the vehicle must be insured) is with the driver.

In my experience typically only minor infractions like parking violations are assigned to the registered owner of the vehicle, but in other case – accidents, running red lights etc. – the driver is liable regardless of who owns the car.

parking violations are assigned to the registered owner because they are not present at the moment they are imposed

I mean in terms of who gets sued for personal injuries. Or to repair damaged vehicles.

No. The general rule is that negligence is required to be held responsible. If I let my next door neighbor borrow my car to go to the grocery store, and he hits someone, I'm not responsible. Unless, the person can prove "negligent entrustment", i.e. it was irresponsible just to let this person borrow my car, e.g. they're a habitual drunk, or blind, or 11.

However, most auto liability insurance covers whoever you permit to drive the vehicle, so the owners policy does typically cover the fender bender on the way to the grocery store.

Correct, the owner's insurance policy is the primary coverage when the owner lends their car to a 3rd party. Obviously in the case of a moving violation the driver is at fault and receives the penalty, but damage is still covered by the owner's policy. In the case where the other driver is at fault, that car's owner's insurance is liable.

This car failed the moose test. Legal details aren't relevant, it's plain rubbish. This is test track pre-alpha stuff, for crying out loud.

The bike probably had a reflector on its pedals.

I would be very interested to learn whether or not the car's autonomous system identified a bicycle at any point prior to the collision.

The car likely didn't identify an obstacle at all, let alone a bicycle, as it didn't apply the brakes.

exactly this. what's the response time of software? it ought to be close to zero and significantly faster than human's. let's say it's a generous 0.5s - no brakes where applied at all, and even with the crappy darkened video we got (place isn't that dark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XOVxSCG8u0 ) the pedestrian was in view for 2 to 3 seconds.

car didn't see it at all even in those last moments.

Which is weird, because regardless of reflectors, it should show up on IR and lidar imaging.

Usually other reflectors are required when riding at night.

But this was a pedestrian, not a cyclist.

Personally, while riding at night, I look like a Christmas tree. $10 on EBay goes far these days in the reflective tape and bike light department:

Well it was a pedestrian but they were walking their bike across the road. It's not like the software should make a distinction between a cyclist in the way and a bicycle with no rider in the way.

In some places (UK for example) you need to have lights on your bike as well--not just reflectors.

If everyone followed the law, this wouldn't have happened for a multitude of reasons. Alas, here we are.

Indeed, it's hard to find pedals without them. Even ones that cost $10 a pair have reflectors. Unfortunately, pedal reflectors are ineffective when the bicycle's path of travel is perpendicular to the light source. The video doesn't reveal evidence of other reflectors, such as the common spoke-mounted ones whose purpose it is to highlight a bicycle traveling crosswise. For a moment, the bicycle is clearly illuminated by the headlights; I don't see any spots of light on the wheels or elsewhere.

When travelling perpendicular to the car, bike pedal reflectors are not visible.

What is surprising is that the bike didn't seem to have Tire reflectors like these:

https://www.wired.com/2011/11/fiks-reflective-rim-strips-for...

They are mandatory in lots of countries, to the point that it's impossible to buy tires without them. All brands come with them.

I have literally never seen that. Wow, that's a good idea!

For a side view, the reflectors on the tires (visible at the end of the video) are way better indicators of “watch out! Bicycle” than those reflectors.

It was a side impact, so pedal reflectors aren’t going to be visible.

Wheel spoke reflectors ought to have been - from what I've seen in the video, there were none (they're surprisingly bright at night).

See this video for a comparison of visibility (not in English, but that's immaterial - set speed to 2x ;)): starting with a "bike ninja" and going all the way to "Christmas tree" https://youtu.be/oAFQ2pAnMFA?t=1m0s

This video looks too dark, as if the camera had not enough sensivity.

It's from 2011, there's been a lot of improvement in consumer-grade cameras since. Even so, it fits my perception IRL: even a small reflector is orders of magnitude better than no reflector, and adding multiple (esp. covering 360 viewing angles) makes you stand out at night; same goes for pedestrians.