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<DIV><FONT face=Calibri>you know, this makes lots of sense as far as humans
being bad drivers all the way around. I personally can't wait to see how waymo's
self driving ride sharing program unfolds since I'm one of the folks who follows
this program very closely and who wants very badly for it to come to virginia. I
look forward to the day when I'll be able to get into one of these vehicles and
be able to program it to take me from point a to point b without my having to
interveen in any way. This is why I'm such an autonomous vehicle and driverless
car supporter, because I truly believe that these machines will be a god send to
us all and will open up doors for us that have been previously inaccessible or
at the most, very hard to get through. If they roll this technology out right,
these vehicles will be as indespensible as the iPhone is now.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt Tahoma">
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=autonomousvehicles@nfbnet.org
href="mailto:autonomousvehicles@nfbnet.org">Cheryl Orgas & William Meeker
via AutonomousVehicles</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, October 4, 2018 2:20 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=autonomousvehicles@nfbnet.org
href="mailto:autonomousvehicles@nfbnet.org">'autonomous Vehicles Discussion'</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=meekerorgas@ameritech.net
href="mailto:meekerorgas@ameritech.net">Cheryl Orgas & William Meeker</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [AutonomousVehicles] Waymo's Self-Driving Car Crashed
Because itsHuman Driver Fell Asleep at the Wheel</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV class=WordSection1>
<P class=MsoNormal>Colleagues,<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>In addition to blind pedestrians becoming Autonomous Vehicle
Crash Victims, I fear the liability and negative publicity stereotyping that
blind drivers and all blind people, will face when the vehicle they drive,
becomes involved in any type of collision, regardless of cause or
fault. Fortunately, all crashes to date involve sighted drivers, safety
drivers, and victims, which carry no stigma for the blind or the sighted.
As the below article states “<SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">One thing everyone
working on driverless cars agrees on is that humans are bad
drivers.</SPAN>”<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>But at the first crash involving a blind driver, the above
statement will be forgotten and the thought will be “Blind humans are worse
drivers.”<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>I believe blind individuals and constituency organizations
must be prepared for the blowback the first time a blind driver’s vehicle
crashes into anything at any time, under any conditions. Have we discussed
this issue yet?<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Donning my “Future Autonomous Vehicle Crash Victims of
America” T-shirt with hope,<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Bill Meeker<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B><SPAN lang=EN style="COLOR: black">Waymo’s Self-Driving
Car Crashed Because its Human Driver Fell Asleep at the
Wheel</SPAN></B><o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=content-byline><B><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #999999">By
</SPAN></B><SPAN class=authors-multiple2><B><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto">Alison
Griswold</SPAN></B></SPAN><SPAN class=author-organization-sep2><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: black">,</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
lang=EN style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: black"><BR><SPAN
class=author-organization4><A href="http://qz.com/" target=_blank><SPAN
style="COLOR: black">Quartz</SPAN></A></SPAN></SPAN><B><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #999999">
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN class=content-byline-date-sep2><B><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #999999">|</SPAN></B></SPAN><B><SPAN
lang=EN style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #999999"> October
3, 2018 <o:p></o:p></SPAN></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN lang=EN style="FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: black">The
dozing driver didn’t respond to any of the vehicle’s
warnings.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">In June, one of
Waymo’s self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans crashed on the freeway outside
of the company’s office in Mountain View, California, after its lone safety
driver fell asleep at the wheel.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">Tech news site The
Information, which <A
href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/waymo-collision-shows-flaws-in-self-driving-car-tests?shared=82d7c8e62c2bdd94"
target=_blank>first reported the crash</A>, said the human driver manning the
vehicle “appeared to doze off” after about an hour on the road, according to two
people familiar with the matter. The safety driver unwittingly turned off the
car’s self-driving software by touching the gas pedal. He failed to assume
control of the steering wheel, and the Pacifica crashed into the highway
median.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">The dozing driver
didn’t respond to any of the vehicle’s warnings, including a bell signaling the
car was in manual mode and another audio alert, the Information reported. He
regained alertness once the car crashed, then turned around and headed back to
the Mountain View office. He no longer works for Waymo.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">Waymo got lucky
with the accident. The safety driver wasn’t hurt and no other vehicles were
involved. Waymo reported the vehicle sustained “moderate damage to its tire and
bumper.” The company told The Information in a statement that it is “constantly
improving our best practices, including those for driver attentiveness, because
the safe and responsible testing of our technology is integral to everything we
do.”<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">Improvements in
this case meant altering night-shift protocol to have two safety drivers instead
of one, to guard against someone nodding off at the wheel. At a company meeting
to discuss the incident, one attendee reportedly asked whether safety drivers
were on the road too long, and was told that drivers can take a break whenever
they need to.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">Waymo is pursuing
fully self-driving software that wouldn’t require any intervention from humans,
in contrast to automakers like Tesla and General Motors, which have started with
selectively automated features to assist human drivers. As Waymo has gotten
closer to true autonomy, it has also tried to reduce its reliance on human
safety drivers by, for example, cutting the number of safety drivers in a test
vehicle to one from two. Waymo plans to launch a <A
href="https://qz.com/1208897/alphabets-waymo-googl-is-readying-a-ride-hailing-service-in-arizona-that-could-directly-compete-with-uber/"
target=_blank>commercial ride-hail service with driverless cars</A> in the
Phoenix area this year.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">After a
self-driving Uber struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona in March, one
point of focus was Uber’s safety-driver policies. <A
href="https://jalopnik.com/just-about-everyone-uses-two-safety-drivers-when-testin-1823984330"
target=_blank>Jalopnik pointed out</A> that “almost everyone”—Toyota,
Nissan, Ford’s Argo AI—uses two people to test self-driving cars. In the Uber
Volvo that crashed, on the other hand, Rafaela Vasquez was a lone safety driver,
at night. She was later found by police to be <A
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-selfdriving-crash/uber-cars-safety-driver-streamed-tv-show-before-fatal-crash-police-idUSKBN1JI0LB"
target=_blank>streaming The Voice on her phone</A> at the time of
impact.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">One thing everyone
working on driverless cars agrees on is that humans are bad drivers. People from
Waymo CEO John Krafcik to disgraced former Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski—try
finding a more diametrically opposed pair—like to talk about how driverless cars
will save lives by eliminating thousands of <A
href="https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/faster-rollout-self-driving-cars-would-save-lives/"
target=_blank>preventable highway fatalities</A> a
year.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">It is baffling,
then, that these companies trust the very humans they seek to unseat to watch
over their adolescent technology, alone and for hours on end. An autonomous
safety driver once described to me working 10- to 11-hour shifts unaccompanied,
including nights that began in the early evening and ended well past midnight.
Drivers could take breaks whenever they wanted, this person said, but it was
still a challenge to stay focused for that long without anyone to talk to, or
much to do beyond watching the road.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">A
few months after the Tempe accident, Uber laid off <A
href="https://qz.com/1326155/uber-has-terminated-its-self-driving-car-operators-in-pittsburgh/"
target=_blank>most of its self-driving car operators</A> in Pittsburgh and
San Francisco. Uber said it would replace these people with “mission
specialists” trained to monitor its cars on roads and on specialized test
tracks. These mission specialists are supposed to be more involved in the actual
development of the cars, tasked with tracking, documenting, and triaging any
issues that might crop up. Per a <A
href="https://www.uber.com/careers/list/34593/?iis=uber.com/careers&iisp=he-6594079"
target=_blank>current job listing</A>, they should have “the ability to operate
independently with little or no supervision.”<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN lang=EN
style="FONT-SIZE: 7.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Roboto; COLOR: #212529">There is a <A
href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/crash-how-computers-are-setting-us-up-disaster"
target=_blank>great essay by reporter Tim Harford</A> about how our quest
to automate all things may be setting us up for disaster. The more we let
computers fly planes, drive cars, operate machinery, and so on, the less time
the people we’ve put in place for backup—pilots, safety drivers, and other
operators—are able to practice their skills, and the greater the odds they’ll be
unprepared in a true emergency. This problem is known as the paradox of
automation, and it applies to benign problems as well, like how we struggle to
remember phone numbers that are stored in our mobile devices, or to do mental
math that we can punch into a calculator. Like any skill, these need to be
practiced to be maintained, and become rusty with disuse. Instead of designing
technology for humans to babysit, Harford wonders, why aren’t we making
technology that babysits humans? <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P></DIV>
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>_______________________________________________<BR>AutonomousVehicles
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