Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

happened here in Phoenix. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/uber-driverless-fatality.html

And that's the thing... As they say in the article, there was no indication that the car attempted to slow down. This one even had LIDAR (unlike Tesla)... Weather was clear and the roads were dry, so no issues there.
Truth is that none of these cars will be perfectly safe, due to the laws of physics. If a car is traveling 45 mph and a pedestrian walks in front of it, you can't stop that inertia immediately.
But when these cars don't even try to stop, you know you have a software problem. You can't claim it didn't "see" the person with LIDAR. It just decided that whatever it saw wasn't an obstacle it needed to avoid. 

Good stuff, SFBadge... I looked at Riffraft's link but it was right after it occurred and didn't seem to have all that contextual information.

So that's good (obviously bad for that woman) that this wasn't actually a "driverless car" failure, in that it should have been handled by the safety driver because some features had been disabled.

I still think the point stands. Nobody other than Tesla is claiming Level 5 autonomy in the near future. But Tesla is talking about the robotaxis going live next year and removing steering wheels within 2 years. Which is just fantasy as far as I'm concerned.

I look forward to the autonomous car future as well. Hell, i drink. Never having to worry about a DD would make life easier. But even beyond that, my chivalrous nature leads me to be the almost 100% sole driver on basically every road trip I go on with my wife. I don't mind it, but it'd be FAR more enjoyable to let the car handle it instead of me wasting my energy and concentration on it. 

I just think that everyone is engaging in hype like this is going to be here next weekend, when it's--at best--5 to 10 years out. 

I think Elon has gone around the bend myself.  I have thought he was borderline for a while, and now he's pure bat crazy.

They are a remarkable achievement, and Space X is doing some neat things, but I think Elon needs to be put out to pasture.

All the promises made over the years and a few of them delivered.  Remember the cheap solar roof tiles?  Come on.  Focus, get something done, and then move along.

I'll keep my car because I like driving it. You'd have to peel my cold dead fingers from the steering wheel to get me to give it up. Grrr...

Driverless cars could populate our roads tomorrow and there would be thousands of fewer auto deaths......but we wait and squabble and debate.  

we are human, reluctant to change
especially if the folks in power aren't sure how the cash flow will be affected

Driverless cars could populate our roads tomorrow and there would be thousands of fewer auto deaths......but we wait and squabble and debate.  

With all due respect, I think you're underestimating the difficulties in full autonomous driving. It's a much more difficult issue than you'd think, unless we have "geofenced" purpose-built infrastructure.
The transition to autonomous driving is going to take a while. It's expensive, it needs to coexist for now alongside human driving during the early adoption phase [which makes it even more difficult], it needs to be functional in all times of day, all weather, all road conditions, etc. 
It's not trivial. If it were merely a technical/price issue, we'd already have autonomous luxury vehicles. I'm sure rich people would spend for it. But we don't. The BEST we can do with current technology is driver assist.