Looking at the video it's clear that at least some evasive action could have been taken by an attentive driver; at the least it should have been possible to hit the pedestrian at a lower speed. This article claims the car had six seconds to react (although I'm not sure what sense that's based on) and that the crash was avoidable if the operator had been paying attention, according to police.
You know. So what?
I always think it's especially galling when, for example a cop shoots a black teenager, the police departments spinmeisters immediately start to smear the victim.
As if smoking marijuana is a character fault and makes the victim implicitly a crook with low morals.
In the case of a jaywalker, this might be as simple as crossing with no warning when a sober person might not cross. Any driver (human or machine) should of course do their absolute best to avoid a collision, but whether or not that collision is avoidable is determined in part by the object you collide with.
In the case of violence by the police, somebody who is holding a weapon and behaving erratically is inherently more of a threat then somebody holding a weapon and complying.
There's nothing per-say "evil" about drugs, but somebody with meth in their system is a hell of a lot harder to predict then somebody sober, whether that's in terms of jaywalking or a violent confrontation.
When we evaluate situations, especially emotionally involving situations, we have to try and gather the totality of evidence.
This, however, is part of the problem.
She had traces of drugs _in her system_. Without knowing the amounts, you cannot say she was _under the influence_.
You can detect marijuana in the system several days after smoking a single joint. You're certainly not high at that point.
I'm not sure what the detection timeframe is for meth.
Certainly, if someone is _under the influence_ of a drug or drugs, that's one thing.
Similarly, I also work for Medic One in my area, training new EMTs. One of the perennial discussions is about being "altered", and consent, because we discuss implied consent in the context of intoxication. It has to be explained that just because someone has had one drink, does not impair them, or their ability to consent, and that tests more revolve around ability to comprehend consequences of decisions and actions. Simply put, I ask them, "You had a beer. Are you allowed to drive home?" "Yes, of course!" "So why would you not be allowed to make your own medical decisions?" "Ohhhh..."
Except that in a lot of cases the victims were unarmed.
Any case of self defense needs to be evaluated by a court. I'm not suggesting police should get a free pass, but that somebody is unarmed does not mean they are not a lethal threat.
But if you have a gun and the person that you target hasn't then threats as you describe them usually don't come to play.
It especially doesn't explain that cops shoot people into the back, when they very clearly pose no threat.
And they often used to get away with it would it not be for video.
And still victims are smeared.
Holding a gun doesn't make you immune to being injured or killed. Pointing a gun at someone doesn't always make them comply. A gun is a deadly weapon, but it's not a token of immunity and compliance. Shooting someone doesn't magically stop them or cause them to become a statue or a corpse.
> cops shoot people into the back
You're a police officer. You're called to investigate a violent rape by a suspect armed by a knife. The suspect runs and is quickly getting away. Do you:
1. Shoot them in the back
2. Let them escape and possibly rape someone else, hoping you catch them in the future
Neither of those is a good outcome and, just to make things more confusing, different states and departments have different rules in those situations.
> still victims are smeared
You can't know who the victim is until after the chips have landed. If someone gets shot by a police officer, they might have been an innocent person doing nothing wrong, or they might have been a violent predator who sexually assaults and murders kids for fun. When we're trying to assess that situation, you need all the evidence to come out - whether that hurts the cop (How many times have they used their weapons before? Do they have previous misconduct charges? Have they made racially charged statements previously?) or the person on the other side (Do they have a history of violence and crime? Are they a known felon? Were they on drugs?)
There are a few YouTube videos of use-of-force activists undergoing police training (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfi3Ndh3n-g) and one of the things that stands out to me is that they are very, very fast to pull the trigger compared to most police officers. That isn't to say their points are invalid, but it's easy to criticize from a sofa and it's a different thing to be in that fight-or-flight life-or-death moment of decision making.
Deny
Accuse
Reverse Victim and Offender
It’s a playbook that’s as old as people, and sadly it works, especially when there’s a significant power asymmetry at play.
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did...
You deserved it.
All of this is usually applied to narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths, but it works equally well for immoral corporations.
If the car can't handle a jaywalker, it can't handle a toddler running into the street. That's a problem that shouldn't be hand-waved away.
I had a near-collision when I was headed to work one day. I was going the speed limit on a major four lane road. I noticed ahead of me that a car was stopped in a neighboring lane. It wasn't clear if it had broken down or what, so I started slowing down. Cue a group of kids jaywalking, and running in front of my car causing me to slam on my brakes.
Had I not seen or reacted to the already stopped car (or had it simply not been there), I probably could not have stopped in time. Not that I wouldn't have absolutely tried my best, but physics dictates that a compact SUV going at 45 mph doesn't come to a stop immediately.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't evaluate whether Uber seriously messed up and should face dramatic consequences - it certainly seems like they disabled a critical safety system that would of saved the pedestrians life.
Rather, we shouldn't make such grandiose statements like "Jaywalking shouldn't carry a death sentence" which don't really touch on the facts of the case. We should instead ask, "Did Uber's negligence cause this to result in a death when it shouldn't of been one?"
I'll point out that in this case the crash was "entirely avoidable" according to the official police report.
Does Uber do that? Does any of the more advanced systems (lidar, radar etc) do that?
"A toxicology test carried out on Ms Herzberg after the accident returned positive results for methamphetamine and marijuana.
She did not look before crossing the road in a poorly lit area and was wearing dark clothes, the NTSB report says. And the reflectors and lights on her bike were at right-angles to the Uber car's path."
Even though, the self-driving software failed to recognise her, and also totally not excusing the lack of attention of the Uber driver, you cannot rule out that under normal circumstances with a non-automated car, the pedestrian would not have been hit.
Although this is a sad event, the pedestrian does carry a certain amount of blame here. It also shows that the biggest blocker to effective self driving vehicles is people, not technology.
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[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44243118