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Comment by phyller | Hacker News Reader

This was not what I was expecting. If this had been an accident with a normal vehicle, I think the driver would have been found to be at least partially at fault, and guilty of involuntary manslaughter. But I'm not a lawyer.

I thought the victim jumped out into the street, but that clearly isn't the case. The pedestrian always has the right of way, a human would have seen her and slowed and swerved, and no one should be driving so fast that they can't stop for an obstacle that is just coming into view. And like many others mentioned, I'm sure she was visible to the human eye where the camera's exposure was set up to not wash out what was in the headlights.

Uber screwed up on this, maybe they were just lucky it didn't happen earlier.

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> The pedestrian always has the right of way

That's a very common misconception, but in fact in the majority of states in the US vehicles have the right of way on roads over pedestrians outside of marked crosswalks and crosswalks at an intersection [1].

I think this misconception arises because many people overestimate what privileges and protections having the right of way confers. Some people seem to think having it means that you can go come hell or high water, no matter what the people who are supposed to yield are doing.

It is not nearly as powerful as that.

All that having the right of way actually means is that others that want to use the same resource as you are supposed to let you go first. If they ignore that and try to go ahead of you, it doesn't mean you can unsafely force your way ahead of them.

For example, if I'm standing beside a highway, nowhere near an intersection or a marked crosswalk, looking toward the other side clearly wanting to cross, the cars have the right of way in most states. I'm supposed to wait until there is a gap in the traffic sufficient to let me cross safely.

If no such gap comes and I start to step out into the street the cars have to stop even though they have the right of way. If police witness this they can ticket me for something like "failure to yield".

[1] http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/pedestrian-cross...

Yea good points. I didn't mean "right of way" as a legal term, but as a common phrase which means you are responsible as a vehicle driver to not hit people, even if they are doing stupid, illegal things. If you've had a bad day at work you don't get to speed up and swerve into little Johnny as he runs across the street after his ball, then tell his parents "he shouldn't have been in the street" and drive away.

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