This is a topic that sort of irks me, and I have a feeling that anyone on two wheels are going to disproportionately at risk from this technology. I'm just too familiar with computers to have any faith in a computer program having the reliability to drive on public roads, especially off the interstate. This combined with so many people saying that soon manually operated cars will be phased out / illegal.
A while back, a self driving car collided with a truck, mistaking it for a sign. The exact sort of thing you might expect.
Recently, a self driving car from Uber collided with a pedestrian pushing a bicycle across a road.
The initial reports were simply UNTRUE: that a pedestrian abruptly exited the median into traffic. In fact she was just finishing crossing three lanes when she was hit. The video shows it to be very dark, but I'm quite sure that human eyes would have seen much more. Even in the video though, I detected movement in the dark that would have alerted me about three seconds prior to impact.
The car evidently NEVER detected her, AT ALL! Even when she was in the headlights (that it was outdriving). Never slowed down in the least, never swerved.
What if it had been a bicycle legally driving in its lane? Small scooter? Would it have picked up a large scooter? Who knows.
Here's the video:
