Victim in critical condition
Good thing it has some good amou of context. But I feel like this kind of incident can only be better analyzed with images and simulations of what happened.
According to reports, the pedestrian was illegally crossing the road at a traffic light with a red light for the pedestrians and a green light for the cars.
The human driven car presumably didn’t see the pedestrian and hit her at high speed, she then bounced into the path of the autonomous car. The autonomous car, which was empty, slammed on the brakes but could not stop in time.
Would a human have stopped in time? That would depend on the human…
I think the problem here is more that it parked on her after hitting her. Presumably a human wouldn’t have done that.
Do you think it would have been better to continue driving over someone? What would you like the car to do after a person is thrown under it? Hover mode?
Would a human have stopped in time? That would depend on the human…
Unlikely. These SDCs have reaction speeds far faster than any human driver. The biggest issue here is just simple physics; trying to stop a car that’s already at speed requires a certain amount of distance, and from what I’m understanding, it’s sounding like avoiding hitting the woman was literally impossible in this scenario (short of delaying the initial takeoff, which - in traffic - is a safety hazard in and of itself).
