Self-driving Uber car kills pedestrian in Tempe, AZ

Substance induced amnesia perhaps.

 

I forget...

 

I brought up Uber turning off the car's collision avoidance system, but that might be the norm for testing autonomous cars.

 

you can't escape the long arm of justice.

 

....which is a shame. I thought they were lovely.

 

arm@250. Thanks for the laugh.

 

Fisker:


BMW i8?


Just don't look at the BMW i8 rear quarter panels.

Bob Wilson

 

From the size of the hips, I'd say that's a female car.

 

the only kind i buy.

 

I don't feel your statement is unfair; look at the Ford Pinto gas tank fires during rear impacts. Ford's shortcuts to save a few dollars per car resulted in greater vulnerability of the Pinto during rear-enders. Trust me (said the salesman!), this is only the tip of the iceberg. Bean counters at these big corporations and their bosses are NOT my favorite people!!

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AChoiredTaste.com

Software and STRICTER Laws to track and jail as MURDERERS these drunk drivers!! We are WAY too kind to these murderers! Oh poor little drunk, it was his first time (killing somebody); or poor little drunk, he has ISSUES! It's time for people to take responsibility! Put 'em in jail; throw away the key!!

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AChoiredTaste.com

I know a Screaming Yellow Monkey who's trying to escape justice right now!!

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AChoiredTaste.com

 

His estranged daughter has since posted online that he has mental issues. FWIW.

Interestingly, Elaine Herzberg, the Arizona victim was a "homeless person"; folks known for having mental challenges too. That certainly helps answer my question, "Why would a person cross in front a car at night that has its headlights on?". Defunding of mental health resources comes with a huge price tag that society pays everyday in so many different ways.

 

Careful, you're assuming that just because she was homeless, she had mental ISSUES(I just hate that word; where I come from, we call those PROBLEMS. Issues are for magazines!). Hey, everybody's got mental problems of some kind; it just makes life that more interesting!! Har, har.

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AChoiredTaste.com

 

you got that right. i'm no different, just cause i have a home.

 

Sadly today, many are just a paycheck away from being homeless, while others suffer huge medical expenses and lose everything. Where's that kinder, gentler attitude here in this country? We've got to do a lot more individually to "Pay it Forward"; our institutions seem to be failing more often in that area.

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I guess you guys don't realize that Fisker was sort of reborn as VLF (basically with the "why not shove an LS motor in it?" thought process).

Here is their newest car, the Force 1 (basically a rebodied Viper):

One thing I've been noting lately is how quite a few self-driving car supporters like to character-assassinate victims of crashes involving these cars (take a look at the discussion threads: you often see something like "a self-driving car ran into his car - it's clearly his fault!"). I personally don't understand why anyone would be willing to start these kinds of trials without major-high-grade insurance against accidents of any sort, since all it will take is a small handful of these bad incidents to get themselves banned.

 

In 1948, the De Havilland company flew an aircraft that, literally and fundamentally, changed global transportation.
I know the aircraft well, because it would go on to be developed into a platform that would be my nemesis in the North Atlantic some 40 years later,
de Havilland Comet - Wikipedia.

We Navy Chiefs always like to tell long and entertaining tales about life back in the good old days, but I think that Wikipedia sums things up very succinctly for this ground breaking advance in transportation:

The de Havilland DH 106 Comet was the world's first commercial jetliner.
Developed and manufactured by de Havilland at its Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It featured an aerodynamically clean design with four de Havilland Ghost turbojet engines buried in the wing roots, a pressurised cabin, and large square windows. For the era, it offered a relatively quiet, comfortable passenger cabin and was commercially promising at its debut in 1952.
However, within a year problems started to emerge, with three Comets lost within twelve months in highly publicised accidents, after suffering catastrophic in-flight break-ups. Two of these were found to be caused by structural failure resulting from metal fatigue in the airframe, a phenomenon not fully understood at the time. The other one was due to overstressing of the airframe during flight through severe weather. The Comet was withdrawn from service and extensively tested. Design and construction flaws, including improper riveting and dangerous concentrations of stress around some square openings in the fuselage, were ultimately identified. As a result, the Comet was extensively redesigned, with oval windows, structural reinforcements and other changes. Rival manufacturers meanwhile heeded the lessons learned from the Comet while developing their own aircraft......

The early worm gets the bird....
BUT!!
Sometimes?
It's the second mouse that gets the cheese.....


My takeaways:
1. There's nothing new under the sun.

2. In the final analysis, we're all product testers. Had humans not continued to develop transcontinental jet aircraft, then it would not be possible today to pay less than one percent of our income to a company that could deliver us safely and relatively comfortably to nearly any other major city on earth in about one day.
Sometimes?
Tests fail. That's why we do them.

3. Sometimes people like to imagine that life was more pleasant at some time in the past, and yet nearly everyone (of sound mind) would not willingly go back 100 years without benefit of TODAYs tech or the possibility of a return trip.

4. The price we pay for living in today's world is the same as the penalty that we pay for the promise of seeing tomorrow's world:
See above:#2

 

Yes, I have flown in a DH Comet 4 and a defence modified version called the Nimrod.

On the other hand, it seems that UK has experience an insipid trial of driverless vehicle today without any expensive, newfangled AI, or technology. It's back on the long list of "Could have done better" projects...

Runaway van on the A38: Vehicle with no driver rolls into traffic - Plymouth Herald