alt Hacker News> Waymo said its robotaxi struck the child at six miles per hour, after braking “hard” from around 17 miles per hour. The young pedestrian “suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle’s path,” the company said in its blog post. Waymo said its vehicle “immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle.”
As this is based on detection of the child, what happens on Halloween when kids are all over the place and do not necessarily look like kids?
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You're right: a quick search shows that pedestrian fatalities are 43% higher on Halloween.
Lidar would pick up a moving object in 3D so unlikely to just keep going.
"Oh that obstructing object doesn't look like a child? Gun it, YOLO." Lmao.
I suspect the cars are trying to avoid running into anything, as that's generally considered bad.
These systems don't discriminate on whether the object is a child. If an object enters the path of the vehicle, the lidar should spot it immediately and the car should brake.