The latest reports on the recent incident of a woman with a bike killed by a test of a self-driving Uber car indicate that the woman was at fault. The driver monitoring the automatic controls said that she jumped out of the dark and he didn't see her until the sound of the impact.

could you imagine a jury of your "peers" trying o assess the percentage of guilt that was due to the software design or the sensor package used or maintenance of that package. Not to mention the effects of weather or strong sunlight or lack thereof on the performance of the autonomous vehicle. What a nightmare for your average juror !!

The problem would be switching from a simple liability system which determines damages and assesses them to the responsible party to a product liability case which would potentially have millions or billions in punitive damages.

Clearly a law firm would want that to happen so as to get a chunk of the windfall.

It might take legislation that limits the liability to actual damages. There still will be a problem assessing the responsibility between autonomous, non-autonomous cars and individuals.

In the case of the bicyclist, the bicyclist might have partial liability from their own negligence. I was party to a case where I pulled out of a blind driveway partially onto a sidewalk and a bicyclist struck the front of my car. The jury assessed me 60% at fault and the bicyclist 40%. He did have the right of way even if I couldn't see the sidewalk until I got partially on it. The landlord subsequently put up a mirror.

Insurance would probably be adapted to cover the damage costs, and an autonomous car might have different insurance costs. Distributing blame between parties could be a nightmare. How much blame is to be assessed on the autonomous car and its programmers....

No wonder the appeal of "prepper" lifestyle has become more attractive.

Basically freeing onself of the need for trade with the society at large, and replacing that with immediate inventory of things that would be hard to obtain, plus setting up methods of providing food, water, electric power, somewhat remote shelter, defense, and basic medical care on a somewhat long term basis.

Then start moving to a less crowded location, with the idea of moving to the chosen remote location if/when socialism collapses our country.

To the extent this can be done in conjunction with other freedom loving peoples, all the better. But that group has to be small so as not to attract the attacks from collectivists who didnt prepare for the ravages of socialism.

I guess they call it the GULCH...

That is the key issue. When an autonomous car has an accident do they treat it as any automobile accident and use standard claim adjustments or is there a multi-billion dollar lawsuit?

Sadly I fear the latter so we kill almost 100 people a day in car accidents but postpone automatic vehicles because someone might get killed.

Of course the idea of 'identical' programs is close to what is happening. I suspect different manufacturers would have different software but your car would regularly get updated as the algorithm gets refined based on experiences.

I would suspect that the autonomous car companies would even share problem examples since they all depend on the industry as a whole.

Of course the other cool thing is to be able to analyze the sensor readings. Currently it's just some guy saying "they came out of nowhere!".

Agreed. Big city life has few thing to attract and many things to repel and disgust me. The alternative of a smaller college town that once had open minds, rational discussion and scientific method now has disgusting political correctness and irrationality with little understanding of the reason that made America attractive and successful. Socialism has destroyed it.

I am beginning to think that we have moved from the difficulties of living essentially alone through the advantages of living in and trading with a cooperative group to the disadvantages of living in a collectivist group like we are in now. I have been less interested in interacting with people in general in the last few years, especially since Obama was elected.

In driving around Las Vegas, I witness a LOT of stupid things that drivers and pedestrians do. How software is going to account for and properly respond to these things perfecrly seems impossible to me. What if there is a pedestsrian darting out between two parked cars, and a child running out on the other side of the street into traffic. Which one do you avoid hitting?

Anonymous laser sealing the trunk of such cars has been my dream for decades, term.

You are prescient, today there was a report of a woman killed by an autonomous car, on her bike, I haven't read it yet, but it was a Lyft car driving on its own.

It's not just there, they are in Oregon, and I drive a rural highway, and they still do stupid stuff from jumping in and out, to driving 40 mph on the highway. It is all part of the decay of society.

Makes me wonder how on earth autonomous vehicles will ever work UNTIL all the cars are autonomous and programmed with essentlally the identical programs. Until then there are nearly an iinfinite number of reactions the program would need to have to avoid accidents in all cases.

Of course, all the autonomous vehicle has to do is be safer than the typical human driver is. But that idea will never fly in this litigious environment. Imagine the liability that would flow to car mfrs and software engineeres.

You hit the nail on the head... they don't understand that no matter what their driving skills are - you can't predict what someone else is going to do.

The only wildlife here is the idiot residents who are driving offensively or mindlessly rather than defensely. I understand your situation totally, and it appears setting speed limits or giving tickets isnt working either. Drivers routinely go 80-90 on the freeways around Vegas, even though the limit is posted at no more than 65, and often 55. They cut in and out and follow at insane 10-15 foot separations. I dont even want to drive here anymore.

Some residential streets have speed bumps in attempts to force drivers to go 25. The real solution is for drivers to be more responsible- I mean who in their right mind wants to endure all the hassle of an accident ? I sure dont.

People here are into what I call MTV driving. They are concerned only with getting there quickly and as such make last minute decisions that they havent thought through. They assume other drivers will just adjust and keep THEM safe. Not always possible though, and accidents here are EVERYWHERE as a result.

I dont think tickets work here. I have noticed that when there is an accident, BOTH parties get expensive tickets. One to the driver who is at 'fault", and the other for "failure to avoid an accident". Maybe THAT will work to encourage a bit more defensive driving.

The problem is, speeding is usually something done by younger and inexperienced drivers. To put some context, I had a dip shit "too busy watching his Google Maps directions" (by his own admission) to not see that traffic had stopped and rear ended my truck. Normally, that would bounce-off, but he happened to be driving an old Suburban. The interesting thing - he thought he was a master-of-the-universe driver at 24 years of age. It had actually been longer than that (close to 27 years) since I had been in a fender-bender (not including laying a motorcycle down a few times).

So here's the issue - speeding causes others to misjudge the distance. I live off a dead-end side road that T's into a state route 2-lane highway. The speed limit is 45 on the highway, but most drive well over 60-65. We don't have another route out of the neighborhood, that's it, and it's most frequently a left-hand turn. At 60 +/-, we can judge the distance well, though in the opposite direction there is only about 500 yards of visibility to a corner. Many, many, many times I have been nearly hit by someone going well over 70 around a mostly-blind corner with over a dozen similar streets that come out of residential neighborhoods. We've had a few youngsters in their own or their dad's corvettes wrapped around a tree - the last time was a politician's kid and they went into weeks of pavement analysis - blah blah blah - but he was doing over 65 around a corner on a wet road with a sports car driving with track tires.. suicide.. A month later the taxpayers are wasting 100s of thousands ripping up perfectly good pavement to replace with some ridiculous textured stuff to 'channel the water' presumably so people can drive faster, safely, in a residential area.

The downside of all of this - we live in a 7-figure neighborhood, and no one can go for a walk more than a block away - it would be stupid to walk along the 2-lane with idiots flying by.

Speed limits do multiple things - safety of pedestrians, traffic calming, quality of life, safety for areas with reduced visibility (and you would never know what you are about to hit).

Granted - Las Vegas (and Nevada for that matter) is rather devoid of wildlife... but you are speaking as though it is the gospel. Driving 85 mph in the dark in Minnesota where I grew up would be suicide - I've driven stretches of road of maybe 10 miles and seen 30 deer in the ditch (struck by cars).

speeding by itself IS victimless crime. Causing an accident or Hitting another car or person ISN'T a victimless crime, and should have legal consequences.

I am far more concerned about the idiot drivers in Las Vegas, where I live, who cut in and out, make last minute decisions that require evasive maneuvers to avoid running into them. Those thing make me mad, and I have wanted to develop some sort of laser device that I could use to bore holes in the back of their cars that they wouldnt see until they got home. Illegal of course, so I havent done it.

Unfortunately , that is true. Its hard to actually object to their nonsense, as they simply squirm around and change the subject. The arguments go on forever. All you can do really is disagree with them, and indicate you are not wasting your time dealing with them and walk away.

I think political correctness is a form of intellectual violence, not that far away from physical violence. The left depends on violence, as it certainly doesnt depend on reason.

Yep, and they are so brook they cannot fix their school buildings and had to evacuate several in winter weather because of pipe breaks etc, no heat. But the state requires your support! Onward heros of the revolution!

Yup, indeed so.

Fox did a thing on all the funding and support from Soros and company, including celebs such as Clooney and Winfrey. So, no, this is not a student thing, it is a Libertard thing masquerading as students..

The libtard slant strikes again.

There are also the stories about kids who wanted to go to the rally and express their opinions about their objections to more gun control, who were prevented from speaking. Yeah, really spontaneous! Free speech, as long as you tow the line for the Leftist-controlled NEA (National Education Association). And of course, how come Schumer and all the other usual suspects show up to speak at these rallies, but Wayne LaPierre didn't get invited? The answer is obvious!

What a crock! So the school system said that kids can't be left unsupervised....well, yes in a way. Someone, probably a secretary or an administrator stayed in the school. All they had to do to accommodate this student was to have him go to the school office and sit with an approved adult while the walk off was going on. This is a lousy excuse on the part of the school system, and they should be accountable.