Re:Uber backup driver indicted in 2018 self-driving crash th...
by foerbert on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:20PM
(#24495635)
You're still missing what I'm trying to say, I think. I'm not talking about fatigue, or brief inattention, or anything like that.
I'm saying that the inattention was basically a given. Yeah, at some point the driver went and grabbed a phone. It may have been fiddling with junk in the car, or their fingers, or day dreaming to the extent they were unaware of the world around them.
Yeah, they grabbed a phone. Is that really any different from any of the above? I don't think so. Particularly considering how ingrained the reflex is to grab and fiddle with a phone when bored is. I wouldn't be surprised if they never consciously decided to pick the thing up.
The task was simply unreasonable. Uber should have foreseen this problem and implemented systems to aide and monitor their drivers.
If she had been negligent, i.e., too tired to notice the pedestrian, that would have been a different matter. If she had been paying attention most of the time but inadvertently reached over to drink some coffee, that would have been a different matter.
But she wasn't too tired, and she wasn't momentarily reaching for a drink; she was simply choosing not to pay attention to her job so she could do something else instead.