I wish articles about this crash would continue to hammer on the basics, to keep front¢er this crash was completely avoidable.
Even if there were no technical issues,
(1) the driver was on her phone before and during the crash. The whole reason for the driver to be present is to intervene in a situation like this.
(2) the car was driving too fast for conditions. Nobody should drive this fast in the middle of the city in the middle of night. It doesn't look like the car could have come to any kind emergency stop. Self-driving cars should drive more carefully than humans, not push against and over the speed limit regardless of outside conditions.
This is one of the core problems of the car culture: ignoring the envelope except where mandated by law. A speed limit means, literally, "you are not allowed to go any faster than this" - but is interpreted as "you are supposed to go at this speed, or better 5 above". Nowhere else is this so prevalent: "there are 50 apples here, so you can't eat any more" is "you must eat all 50 of them" by the same logic.
I wish articles about this crash would continue to hammer on the basics, to keep front¢er this crash was completely avoidable.
Even if there were no technical issues,
(1) the driver was on her phone before and during the crash. The whole reason for the driver to be present is to intervene in a situation like this.
(2) the car was driving too fast for conditions. Nobody should drive this fast in the middle of the city in the middle of night. It doesn't look like the car could have come to any kind emergency stop. Self-driving cars should drive more carefully than humans, not push against and over the speed limit regardless of outside conditions.