My takeaway from the comments in this thread: self-driving Ubers don't drive defensively, almost surely can't "read" pedestrian behavior, and even with lidar may never have seen Elaine Herzberg. Oh, and they speed.
This sounds like straight out of the "hell" scenario for driverless cars: "we cannot accept responsibility for what happens to pedestrians and cyclists foolish enough to stray out of their designated safe zone".
For a recent, thoughtful talk about the damage self-driving cars might do to the city if we are not careful, see this Congress for the New Urbanism talk about "Autonomous Vehicles & The Good City" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utnPEbDNbrE
It's also worth mentioning that there's a bill (AV START, or S. 1885) in the current Senate that would actually preempt local and state regulation of autonomous car safety, but it has been put on hold.
This sounds like straight out of the "hell" scenario for driverless cars: "we cannot accept responsibility for what happens to pedestrians and cyclists foolish enough to stray out of their designated safe zone".
I'm referencing Robin Chase (the Zipcar founder)'s "heaven or hell" framing - https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/04/will-world-dr...
For a recent, thoughtful talk about the damage self-driving cars might do to the city if we are not careful, see this Congress for the New Urbanism talk about "Autonomous Vehicles & The Good City" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utnPEbDNbrE
It's also worth mentioning that there's a bill (AV START, or S. 1885) in the current Senate that would actually preempt local and state regulation of autonomous car safety, but it has been put on hold.