If it can’t avoid pedestrians, what chance does it have in reliably and safely performing any of the requirements of driving on public streets?

Cameras, the one recording the video, don’t do well in low light conditions. A human would have seen her much sooner, if they are paying attention.

It should have at least slowed down if it detected an object in the road. Not continue, speed and heading unchanged.

A human, paying attention, would have absolutely seen the pedestrian and avoided collision.

The level of lighting is of no significance. The sensors on the vehicle don’t need light.

Barely worth $5k.

We can’t automate trains which is enormously more simple than automating vehicles. I don’t see a commercially available automated personal vehicle in my lifetime, I’m 33.

Stats and math? I must have missed those. The comments have given plenty of real world scenarios where an extra gear is beneficial.

It can see the pedestrian on the sidewalk, were it’s safe. If the pedestrian jumps into it’s path abruptly, what’s the vehicle supposed to do?

Lets say the vehicle’s sensors did pickup the pedestrian, on the sidewalk, where they belong, why would the vehicle ever believe it needed to slow down or steer away? It appears the pedestrian abruptly came onto the roadway.

Well this settles that.

Yeah, being ready to take the wheel in the event of an emergency is asking a lot from a driver not actively controlling the vehicle.

That would make more sense.

This seems to be the location of where she was hit.

If she was crossing from the median and the vehicle stopped where it hit her, than by the photo of the damaged vehicle, the pedestrian made it all the way across and was hit just before they reached the sidewalk.

But on a four lane road, would a human be reasonably expected to swerve? Would a human notice the pedestrian close to the road and slow down or move over as a precaution?

Pedestrians jaywalk all the time without being hit. It’s to early to know whether this was avoidable or not, but we can’t just dismiss it because they were jaywalking.

How many more vehicles are on the road driven by humans? Comparing incidents with autonomous vehicles and human operated vehicles makes zero sense. Until autonomous vehicles are more than ~0.0000001% of miles driven, comparing safety between the two is nonsense.

The more the merrier. Sure you get into complexity and reliability concerns, but this might be the first time I have ever seen someone complain about too many gears. I can’t count the many times I’ve wished for another gear after reaching fifth.