back to article Uber robo-ride's deadly crash: Self-driving car had emergency braking switched off by design

One of Uber’s self-driving cars killed a pedestrian crossing the road at night partly because its emergency braking systems were turned off, according to the US government's National Transport Safety Board. The watchdog's four-page preliminary report into the smash, released on Thursday, is a grave reminder that today's …

    1. Aaiieeee
      Stop

      This bothers me too. The situational awareness of the 'driver' was totally lost. Has it started to rain? Is the a HGV close behind? Is the driver aware of current speed so as to estimate and action stopping distances within 1.3 seconds? What are other cars doing? etc

      1. Adam 1

        If being aware of these things is the driver's job, then being a data entry clerk cannot be a simultaneous task. You can't expect a human to diligently perform both tasks at the same time. Human brains aren't wired that way.

  1. Wellyboot Silver badge

    Beyond contempt

    Uber had less AI working in this car than the ones I can actually go and purchase now.

    Thanks to $deity I've never given them a penny but I would like to spend one on the senior management.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Wellyboot Silver badge

        Re: Beyond contempt

        I'm not blaming the AI, it can't help when the safety features are deliberately switched off. Uber execs considered the risks involved with (very?) early stage testing as acceptable.

        Did Uber use public roads just to save the cost of test track time?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not ready for prime time

    As has been noted by technically astute industry people these prototype AVs are not ready for prime time operation and have no business on public roadways until they are independently tested and certified to be safe, secure and reliable. Federal governments worldwide have abdicated their responsibility to the public by allowing these compromised vehicles to operate on public roadways.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not ready for prime time

      From the likes of Uber you are correct. Google on the other hand haven't put a foot wrong, any incidents involving them have not been their fault, and would have occurred with a meat sack in control as well.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not ready for prime time

        > From the likes of Uber you are correct. Google on the other hand haven't put a foot wrong, any

        > incidents involving them have not been their fault, and would have occurred with a meat sack in

        > control as well.

        Thats because most of their test miles driven are on 101 and 280. Freeways. Where at least in the case of 280, I can use cruise control on a regular basis. Stick Googlecars on real city streets like say El Camino and they run into buses. The accident at El Camino and Castro in Mountain View being the classic example. A human driver would have known that any bus in lane 3 accelerating away from a bus stop was not going to stop for right turn traffic in a blocked turn lane. The bus driver could not see the obstacle at the kerb. All they saw was just another idiot in a SUV doing random stuff.

        All self drive cars are dangerous. Their software stacks are all as shambolic as the Uber one. The only difference is the sensor arrays. Which range from the utterly negligent to the barely adequate in absolutely perfect driving environment.

        Roll on the negligent product liability lawsuits.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Not ready for prime time

          "The bus driver could not see the obstacle at the kerb. All they saw was just another idiot in a SUV doing random stuff."

          No, the bus driver saw a SUV signalling and turning into his lane in good time, following all the rules, yet carried on regardless in an intimidatory manner despite the SUV having right of way, with predictable results.

          This is a good example of WHY humans in control of heavy machinery are a bad idea. He's far from the only asshole bus driver around. In my home town bus drivers were complaining about school run bicycles, so the police put a few cops on intersections one day. They warned a few dozen cyclists about unsafe behaviour (mostly no hands and 3 abreast), but prosecuted more than a dozen drivers for dangerous driving, in particular it was noted the bus drivers were nudging bikes with their vehicles whilst consistently jumping red lights and causing pedestrians to have to scatter at one intersection.

          1. Stoneshop
            FAIL

            Re: Not ready for prime time

            No, the bus driver saw a SUV signalling and turning into his lane in good time, following all the rules, yet carried on regardless in an intimidatory manner despite the SUV having right of way, with predictable results.

            Actually, the Google Lexus SUV sideswiped the bendy bus at its joint, so a good way back from the front. Even if it was already signalling to pull away from the kerb before the bus was level with the car, it only started moving once the bus was fully beside it.

            And never mind the stupidity of pulling up from standstill into the path of a moving and much heavier vehicle, the moving lane simply has precedence. Maybe one of the drivers will allow you in, but that takes active acknowledgement from both sides.

      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Not ready for prime time

        "Google on the other hand haven't put a foot wrong, any incidents involving them have not been their fault, and would have occurred with a meat sack in control as well."

        If someone points out the incident where the google car crashed into a bus, I'll point out that the car signalled to go around the obstruction and was being cautious. The bus driver took no account of the vehicle ahead of him even though it was obviously trapped in its lane and need to go around an obstacle and had the car gunned it as a human would have the bus was required to give way to it. When the car realised the bus driver wasn't slowing down it stopped and the bus driver just ploughed right into its corner instead of going around it.

        That's no great surprise. I've seen asshole bus drivers like that in a number of cities, including ones who _deliberately_ take off car doors. not their bus, not their insurance. etc.

    2. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: Not ready for prime time

      Uber maybe - but there is no evidence that the various other manufacturers are doing anything so stupid as disabling the braking systems, failing to alert the driver that the car thinks braking is probably needed...

      By your logic we shouldn't ever train learner drivers, because they aren't certified as safe, secure and reliable yet.

      Actually, we shouldn't have anyone driving anything...

      1. Paul 195

        Re: Not ready for prime time

        Except learner drivers are usually accompanied by an experienced instructor with dual controls, * who is paying attention because he isn't expected to be doing paperwork while instructing *

        1. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: Not ready for prime time

          "Except learner drivers are usually accompanied by an experienced instructor with dual controls, * who is paying attention because he isn't expected to be doing paperwork while instructing *"

          Pretty sure that the same rules should be applied here...

          Interestingly of course in the UK the driving examiner is expected to make notes.

          And that's clearly with someone not yet qualified...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Not ready for prime time

            Except that the examiner has a distinct advantage over an instructor. If a learner does something unreasonable with an instructor, in general the instructor will continue the lesson. If the same thing happen on your test, the examiner immediately aborts the test. It is a reasonably common occurrence for a test examiner in the UK to walk back to the test centre, leaving the student stranded in the car until the instructor finds them and picks them up. I knew someone at school who that happened to them twice during tests.

            1. Alan Brown Silver badge

              Re: Not ready for prime time

              "I knew someone at school who that happened to them twice during tests."

              I'm surprised that they weren't permanently blacklisted from being tested after that.

              1. Stoneshop
                WTF?

                Re: Not ready for prime time

                I'm surprised that they weren't permanently blacklisted from being tested after that.

                I failed my first car test. Not because of some egregrious error, but because the examiner had had a serious accident during an exam a year before. Because of that he became quite anxious, and braked more than I did when approaching a fork in the road (no actual need to reduce speed for the shallow left bend I should be taking and both forks free of any traffic for over several hundred meters, no stop signs). Examiner takes control? Fail.

                His condition was known to the instructor, who was not allowed to tell me, and to other instructors and examiners as well (I asked around afterwards). Despite this he was still licensed to take exams.

          2. Stoneshop

            Re: Not ready for prime time

            Interestingly of course in the UK the driving examiner is expected to make notes.

            And that's clearly with someone not yet qualified...

            Sufficiently qualified to go up for examination. It's not something the instructor puts you up for after the first lesson.

            And for my motorcycle license the note calling me up for the exam allowed me to go there on my own motorcycle. But that was 25 years ago, things may have changed in that respect.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Uber

    Why am I not surprise?

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Uber

      Because Uber are scumbags...

  4. tim292stro

    This confirms my suspicion, that the SW stack from sensor fusion on down (well after the sensors themselves) was to blame. That and the completely moronic decision tree at Uber that led to a vehicle having all control of a vehicle except the >>>safety<<< controls. I agree with other posters here that there needs to be a federal fine and probably a prohibition on Uber ever going near AV development again. This car saw the person conflicting with the vehicle, couldn't make heads or tails about what was going on but wanted to stop - and was prevented from doing so by an administrative decision. Kind of like a new driver being on the road with an annoyed parent in the passenger seat, and the new driver coming across a situation they are not certain how to handle and wanting to stop, and the parent blindly yelling - "JUST KEEP GOING!!" without looking up from their iPhone. Total negligence on Uber's part.

    Of course I just had a vehicle totalled by a real Uber driver on April 30th, 2018 - because his passengers told him to "make a u-turn", and he just did it. Across 3+ lanes of 30MPH traffic coming up from behind him and oncoming. Without looking first. In a cut-through in the median where left and u-turns were forbidden. After stopping to pick up passengers in a bike lane that was very clearly posted "No Stopping Any Time". Yeah, none of those descisions were right either. I managed to not kill or injure him or his passengers even though I was driving a 6,000lb 1980's Chevy Blazer, and he was driving a little 20-teens Honda Civic 4-door.

    I'm still shocked that anyone intentionally works at Uber any more or that they haven't been sued out of existence long ago...

    1. Allan George Dyer

      @tim292stro - "I agree with other posters here that there needs to be a federal fine and probably a prohibition on Uber ever going near AV development again."

      While I'm in general agreement, I would suggest that the entire Uber Board of Directors and the VP with direct control of this project should be jailed for manslaughter.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Megaphone

        I like the idea of jailing them for manslaughter. But the alternative would be to tie them up and sling them in the back seats of a bunch of their shitty non self-driving cars, and then setting the lot of them to go round the Indy 500 circuit at full speed. Then see if any of them survives the 500 laps, perhaps with a few armoured cars chucked out there for variety.

        Any survivors will then learn why you should connect the fucking brakes you morons!

        1. J. Cook Silver badge
          Pint

          @ I ain't Spartacus:

          And film it, or televise it on pay per view.

          Death race, anyone?

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          "sling them in the back seats of a bunch of their shitty non self-driving cars, and then setting the lot of them to go round the Indy 500 circuit at full speed. "

          Any self-driving car can do circuits.

          Add solid moving obstructions and then you're testing them.

  5. Richocet

    What could they do to be even bigger arseholes?

    Try to attack the reputation of the deceased victim by investigating her toxicology.

    The video clearly shows that the pedestrian with the bike didn't jump in front of the car or do anything erratic.

    I am appalled.

    1. Brenda McViking
      Facepalm

      Re: What could they do to be even bigger arseholes?

      What, you're suggesting a report into the fatality should start censoring factual information now?

      I sincerely hope you're never involved in a root cause investigation...

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Re: a root cause investigation

        I don't see what her physical state has to do with the fact that this accident could have been avoided if the driver simply had his eyes on the road.

        Besides, the article is misleading because returning positive for substance abuse does not indicate just how positive the victim was and frankly, I don't give a damn. She could have been tripping over Saturn, she should still be alive today and she would be if it weren't for a despicable company having yet again taken every single shortcut to profits.

        Uber is directly responsible for placing a broken and dangerous vehicle on public roads and mandating the driver to not look at the road periodically to fill in fucking administrative paperwork. It's basically manslaughter with intent, and I hope Uber's management will get nailed to the wall on this.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What could they do to be even bigger arseholes?

      Hey I hate Uber as much as the next guy, but where does it say that Uber investigated her toxicology? That's standard police practice in a fatality - it isn't as though Uber had the ability to order her autopsy and what tests would be conducted as part of it.

      Now clearly it had nothing to do with the fact she was hit, and while some initial defenders were suggesting she should have crossed at a crosswalk (which could be up to half a mile away depending on where in Phoenix this happened, for those who have never been there) it is clear 100% of the fault rests with Uber, and not the pedestrian or the poor woman in the car who was doing her job as Uber instructed (i.e. having to enter a bunch of crap into her computer, compromising her ability to act as a safety driver)

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: What could they do to be even bigger arseholes?

        "or the poor woman in the car who was doing her job as Uber instructed (i.e. having to enter a bunch of crap into her computer, compromising her ability to act as a safety driver)"

        IANAL, but in legal terms, she was in charge of the vehicle. "Only following orders" isn't an excuse since corporate rules/instructions can't override the law. In law, she should have refused or quit. In practice, people will take risks and sometimes they lose.

  6. Ahab Returns

    Sensors and electrickery may work when it is brand spanking new, but what happens when it is ten years old and getting an annual MOT, maybe?

    My three 12 year old cars regularly throw up sensor faults, from oxygen sniffers to ABS - what do we do when the "don't run over that kid on the crossing" sensors go bad?

    My 45 year old car has zero sensors (it only has a dozen or so wires) and no airbags. I really concentrate when driving that. Oh, and it is far more reliable than any of my moderns (or my neighbours brand new BMW that cost more than my first house).

    1. tim292stro

      Design Life Limitations

      "...Sensors and electrickery may work when it is brand spanking new, but what happens when it is ten years old and getting an annual MOT, maybe? My three 12 year old cars regularly throw up sensor faults, from oxygen sniffers to ABS - what do we do when the "don't run over that kid on the crossing" sensors go bad?..."

      Anything with electrolytic capacitors has a useful life limit of about 10 years, then the seals leak or the caps dry-out, and the whole thing starts behaving badly. I had a '93 Toyota pickup with a speedometer that stopped working - turned out the stiffening cap on the +5V rail after the regulator leaked, ate the copper trace to the point it wouldn't support the stepper driver's current, then the remainder of the trace blew like a fuse. Simple enough to fix with a new $0.30 cap and some wire to bridge the burnt trace if you have ever worked on electronics, but the dealership tried to sell me a $1500 instrument cluster, then they wanted to charge the labor to put it in...

      There is a reason nobody in the automotive world offers a >10 year warranty ;-)

      IMHO, more electronics seems like a solution to whatever ails the automotive industry, but the potential waste stream from all of these is huge. Assuming anyone tries to keep these vehicles on the road past the design life, and that's assuming the manufacturer was making customer-oriented descisions when they produced the parts (yeah right).

      1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

        Re: Design Life Limitations

        @tim. Knackered electrolytics won't be a problem in the brave new world of the manufacturers because they want us to buy cars the way we buy phones. Mobility as a service means that I buy miles by the month or year and either get a car to go with them or use a local pool of cars. It will be better for everybody - honest.

        I went to a lecture recently by the bloke who makes hydrogen cars in Wales. He wants to run this model - lease the car and everything, including fuel and servicing, is included. He pointed out that car manufacturers only get a small fraction of the driver's total spend during the lifetime of the car - the initial cost of the car. The rest of the money we spend - insurance, fuel, servicing, spares, second hand sale, etc. - all go to someone else, and the manufacturers want it. By going to a lease model or a service model they think they can get more of it. So if they get their future then buying a car will be a simple as choosing a phone and tariff from Vodafone, O2, EE, etc. or signing up for an UBER-type autonomous vehicle scheme based an annual mileage. It will be better for everybody - honest.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Design Life Limitations

          My car has recently started throwing out warnings about the brake lights, even though the brake lights are working fine. I would get a quick warning about the right brake light when I hit it sometimes that would instantly clear. Then today when I started my car I got a warning about the left brake light, then the right brake light, which persisted for a 20 minute drive (at a stoplight I asked someone waiting for a bus whether my brake lights were on, and she confirmed they were)

          I guess a warning that they are out when they aren't is better than failing to warn me when they are, but in the long run if I can't resolve this I'll just get used to these false warnings and someday one of them will burn out and I won't know it. And while a left rear brake light out isn't likely to kill anyone, a broken left rear LIDAR on a self driving car just might...

          1. The Boojum

            Re: Design Life Limitations

            Alternatively, the problem can come from the opposite direction.

            On a previous car the engine warning light started flashing. A quick check of the manual came back with the instruction not to drive the car and to seek immediate assistance. So i did.

            The Recovery mechanic quickly identified the problem: a brake light bulb had blown. The reason for the engine warning light was that the engine's control software took input from the braking system to reduce fuel flow under braking. In short the car's designers identified the wrong problem and massively overstated the severity of the problem.

          2. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: Design Life Limitations

            "My car has recently started throwing out warnings about the brake lights, even though the brake lights are working fine."

            My brother's car did that.

            On investigation, I dfound that he'd somehow managed to force a 5W lamp into a socket intended to hold a 21/5 lamp.

            When one of my cars started doing it, cleaning all the socket contacts fixed the problem. In another, it was a bad earth connection (lights seemed ok as path to earth goes via the other lamps in this case)

        2. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
          Mushroom

          Re: Mobility as a service means ...

          that I buy miles by the month or year and either get a car to go with them or use a local pool of cars. It will be better for everybody - honest.

          If an example were ever needed of a concept that needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice, here it is.

        3. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Design Life Limitations

          " the bloke who makes hydrogen cars in Wales."

          Hydrogen cars _MUST_ use a lease model model with everything supplied. The risks of something going boom if the vehicles are outright purchased and then poorly maintained are too high to countenance.

          That's why the makers who test these vehicles with great fanfare never actually sell them. Hydrogen embrittlement and pressurisation cycles are an extremely dangerous combination.

      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Design Life Limitations

        "Anything with electrolytic capacitors has a useful life limit of about 10 years, then the seals leak or the caps dry-out"

        Nope., only if they're bad caps.

        I have equipment with 30 year old caps in them that is just fine.

        Bad caps was an issue we thought had been nailed down in the 1970s. It came back due to industrial espionage and counterfeit manufacturing. In any case if you know it can happen you design for the possibility.

        1. tim292stro

          Re: Design Life Limitations

          "..."Anything with electrolytic capacitors has a useful life limit of about 10 years, then the seals leak or the caps dry-out"

          Nope, only if they're bad caps.

          I have equipment with 30 year old caps in them that is just fine.

          Bad caps was an issue we thought had been nailed down in the 1970s. It came back due to industrial espionage and counterfeit manufacturing. In any case if you know it can happen you design for the possibility..."

          You forgot, bad quality control out of Taiwan as recently as the 2000's, and I presume you understand that anecdotal examples of still-functioning-presumably-well-cared-for-kit does not equal statistically significant data. Electrolytics can lose their electrolyte and still appear to function, but not have the same technical characteristics required when they were implemented in a circuit design (typically the capacitance begins to decay and the ESR spikes). Also don't confuse "appearance of function" with engineering design margin - in a safety critical system, the limit of the engineering margin should occur far before the system fails to behave in a way that puts safety under threat.

          All that said, I do feel I should revise my statement - 10 years is the maximum one can expect nominal performance without service intervention. As I had already described, I have presonaly repaired an instrument cluster, and just this weekend, I replaced a few caps in the standby power supply of a Yamaha AV receiver to bring it back from the dead (higher ESR from dried out electrolyte resulted in too much ripple on the standby rail, and made the microprocessor trip it's brownout reset constantly). Age related failures can be managed, but it's not a hands-off deal, and let's be honest - most auto repair shops have turned into part-replacer shops. I haven't seen one in 25 years that would do component level debugging, unless it was a classic car, numbers matching and the parts were actually impossible to obtain. Even Tesla seems to suffer from this, I've heard anecdotally that if a car throws an error code, they start carpet bombing possible causes until it goes away, then they leave in all the extra parts they installed and toss the other parts working or not - this is all second hand info though for what it's worth.

          I just went back over the big four aluminum electrolytic capacitor manufacturer site (Nichicon, Panasonic, KEMET, Vishat, etc...) looking at longevity application notes, and none of them guaranteed >15 years life, and all agreed that seal life time was the reason. Even worse, depending on hot and cold maximums, life can be exceptionally short (1,000s or 10,000s of hours). We all can appreciate the severe environments automobiles operate in, it's hardly 25C ambient on the exterior of the vehicle.

          the takeaway is no engineer would, in light of those app notes, recommend to the company's legal team that they should extend out the warranty. The more potential failure points one puts in a design, one must assume that the probability of any failure mode occuring would only increase, so you'd reduce the warranty period to only cover infant mortality and possible but unlikely edge cases, and then let the bulk of expected failures cause the customer to replace the major component or the entire product on their own dime once it begins to fail.

          Cheers! :-)

    2. Steve the Cynic

      My 45 year old car has zero sensors

      None at all? Not even;:

      * Coolant temperature

      * Oil level

      * Oil pressure

      * Speed

      * Distance travelled ("odometer")

      * Battery charge/discharge current

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        My 45 year old car has zero sensors

        Perhaps he meant to say zero digital sensors? The analog ones tend to be pretty reliable. OK, fuel floats can stop working, but analog devices to measure temperature and voltage are pretty much foolproof. The needle in the dial on the dash is far more likely to get stuck than for anything else to fail on something so simple.

        1. Alistair

          @DougS :

          Even fuel floats from the 70's are "digital" in a way, its a passive resistance meter based on a negative voltage feed. They typically die not because of mechanical failure but because the cables to and from corrode sufficiently to toss the reading out the window. In the case of a camaro I once knew it went off when the rust levels on the crossmember the tank was strapped to consumed better than 30% of the steel.

          1. Stoneshop

            Even fuel floats from the 70's are "digital" in a way

            As in "works" or "doesn't". While working it is analog, with the current through a variable resistor showing on a meter in the dashboard. And the ones I've seen were all single wire, meter fed from + battery, other side of the resistor to chassis.

        2. tim292stro
          Megaphone

          "...The analog ones tend to be pretty reliable. OK, fuel floats can stop working, but analog devices to measure temperature and voltage are pretty much foolproof..."

          You are glossing over the other problem with the tight integration for digital systems rather than analog sensors: What is interpreting the collected data. This is where I really balk at AVs removing all drivers from the road - a code flinger sitting in a cube will program the ECU/BCM/Autonomous system to rely on only what is made available to it. Since it's too expensive to put a sensor of everything, and sensors fail, the decision tree to resolve what is actually the problem will be very limited in some cases (a roundabout way of saying the result will be wrong - and probably often).

          In ye olde days, where your fuel sensor was a variable resistor attached to a float, and the signal varied the current on a wire which heated a bi-metal element in a gauge based on that current - if something went wrong, to the "skilled" (i.e. anyone who had to deal with the cars available), a stuck fuel gauge became obvious rather quickly. Likewise an engine water temperature sensor that suddenly spiked when the vehicle ran over a bump (suddenly meaning faster than the physics of heating water with an engine allows for), you could tell that the value was B.S. In that case the data was presented to the human operator, and they applied their experience with their specific vehicle to determine the validity of the data in relation to the total vehicle function.

          Most engine computers etc. are designed to catch the large distribution cases - a specific vehicle with a specific chronic problem may thus be an outlier, and the ECU may mis-diagnose a problem. I am reminded of my wife's '90's Chevy Cavalier which after running over an extension ladder on the freeway never stopped complaining about how the emissions system was out of spec - because GM put the wiring harness from the ECU right under the front bumper where it was most likely to be hit by road debris. I'm also not aware of any vehicle manufacturer who currently implements a smell sensor or a camera underneath, to detect leaking coolant, power steering fluid, transmission fluid, or oil - even though the driver can easily look at the spot the parked in after they leave or before they get in, and the smell of each fluid is unique. They wait until the problem has gotten pretty severe (low level) to detect/report it.

          We in the USA already put a majority people on the road who don't care to understand maintaining their vehicles, how to interpret what the vehicle is telling them. I lament how much less useful we are trying to make ourselves in order to save the 0.012% of the population that dies as a result of automobile accidents. I take the less popular position that we need fewer safety warnings and more heard thinning...

        3. Alan Brown Silver badge

          "The analog ones tend to be pretty reliable. "

          Unless wired by Lucas or made by Smiths.

      2. Stoneshop

        Sensors

        * Speed

        * Distance travelled ("odometer")

        On nearly all 1975 cars you'll find those two driven by a cable off the outgoing side of the gearbox, and fully mechanical. It'd be quite a stretch to call those 'sensors'. The others are either analog electrical or occasionally (oil/coolant temp and pressure) still mechanical as well.

        1. Roland6 Silver badge

          Re: Sensors

          >* Oil level

          This tends to be a dipstick. The oil light on the dash is more of a pressure sensor - ie. there is an absence of oil - either the pump has broken or there is no or insufficient oil in the system...

          Personally, although one of my current cars has an oil level sensor, I don't use it, I still check the dipstick, that way I can top the oil up BEFORE I leave home not 10 miles down the road...

          >* Battery charge/discharge current

          This is just a very simple piece of circuitry: if there is electricity coming off the alternator/dynamo then dash light is out, no current then display ignition light. I think many forget (or don't know) just how few instruments cars had prior to circa 2000.

    3. I am the liquor

      Re: what do we do when the "don't run over that kid on the crossing" sensors go bad?

      I expect the answer from the car-makers will be "you'll have to take over manual control." And then we just have to hope that after 10 years of relying on the computer, we're somehow better-prepared to do so than this Uber car-supervisor was after 19 minutes.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: what do we do when the "don't run over that kid on the crossing" sensors go bad?

        "And then we just have to hope that after 10 years of relying on the computer, we're somehow better-prepared to do so than this Uber car-supervisor was after 19 minutes."

        Many years ago, when I worked local and rarely drove more than 50-100 miles per week, I was stuck at home ill for just over week and never left the house. Getting back into the car was a strange feeling for the first 20-30 minutes. Nowadays, I drive about 60,000 miles per year and had a similar length of time off work, no driving at all, and getting back into the car felt a bit strange for maybe the first 5 minutes or so.

        I can only imagine how weird it would be for people doing an average 10-20 mile trip to work every day without having to take charge at all for years at a time, suddenly being faced with having to take control.

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