I talked about "lawyers" because I don't know which part of Uber is responsible for damage control and would carefully vet all public statements in such scenarios. I assume it's the legal dept. because that's my understanding of procedures in the place I worked at.
The facts are that:
1. The dashcam video is highly misleading, as many people assumed that the accident would have been hard for a human to avoid based on the video. See threads like [1] - please read the top comment there.
2. The police released a misleading statement, echoing the same sentiment - that the accident was hard to avoid.
3. Uber sat silent for 50 days - long enough for people to stop caring - before admitting fault.
There is no conspiracy here. The actions of the police department have misled the public in Uber's favor (yes, we can assume incompetence as the reason), and Uber used this to their advantage by keeping silent for two months (as any company likely would). This is expected.
What I don't expect is the public cutting Uber any slack in this scenario.
> which part of Uber is responsible for damage control
Damage control typically falls in the realm of public relations, not legal. Legal can help inform PR on what to say, but then again, so can any other relevant department, including engineering.
> Uber sat silent for 50 days
I was under the impression this was by request from NTSB. I mean, even your own criticism is that the dashcam video being released prematurely caused the public at large to reach inaccurate conclusions. Investigations take time. We can't have the cake and eat it too.
BTW, the comment you linked to seems pretty representative of the general response to the video: "yes it looks dark, but Lidar should've seen her"
>I mean, even your own criticism is that the dashcam video being released prematurely caused the public at large to reach inaccurate conclusions.
That is correct.
>BTW, the comment you linked to seems pretty representative of the general response to the video: "yes it looks dark, but Lidar should've seen her"
LIDAR is the red herring here. The less crappy camera would have seen her. The naked eye would have seen her. Pretty much anything but that dashcam would. Even the dashcam, perhaps, if it was set to higher exposure.
And that was someone who knows about LIDAR talking - most of people don't know what a LIDAR is. And so a lot of people really accepted the "it was dark" line of reasoning, never stopping to think that it would simply imply that Uber was driving beyond its headlights.
>I was under the impression this was by request from NTSB... Investigations take time.
Right, that's where "cutting Uber some slack" comes in. It can't feasibly take 50 days to come to the following conclusion: "we screwed up here, the pedestrian clearly shows up on vehicle cameras/sensors the moment she steps into the roadway" - which seems to be the case here (again, even now, we can't say that for sure!).
I can't blame Uber for not admitting fault - it's in their interest to do so. I do blame the city and the general public for letting Uber get away with that, and creating an overall victim-blaming sentiment (which was there from day 1 - including searching the public records of the victim).
The facts are that:
1. The dashcam video is highly misleading, as many people assumed that the accident would have been hard for a human to avoid based on the video. See threads like [1] - please read the top comment there.
2. The police released a misleading statement, echoing the same sentiment - that the accident was hard to avoid.
3. Uber sat silent for 50 days - long enough for people to stop caring - before admitting fault.
There is no conspiracy here. The actions of the police department have misled the public in Uber's favor (yes, we can assume incompetence as the reason), and Uber used this to their advantage by keeping silent for two months (as any company likely would). This is expected.
What I don't expect is the public cutting Uber any slack in this scenario.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/uberdrivers/comments/866xmv/video_f...