Why are we treating the jaywalking here with such a light touch? If the pedestrian had crossed at a crosswalk, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.
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?"
One of the scenarios that sticks in mind from learning to drive in the UK is the bouncing ball. Drive through residential area, ball bounces out in front, you immediately go for the brakes because there's a good chance there's a kid chasing it.
Does Uber do that? Does any of the more advanced systems (lidar, radar etc) do that?
If the car didn't detect and stop for a jaywalking pedestrian, how can we be sure it would have detected a pedestrian in a crosswalk under the same conditions?
Have you seen the overhead picture of the area in question? There's a path through the median that she was crossing from. If they didn't want people to cross there, the median should be designed differently.
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