So, that's not legally an unmarked crosswalk under California rules, then? (Streets are not meeting at approximately right angles and the local authorities have posted 'no pedestrians'.)
The end of that walking path is perpendicular to the roadway. The other end of that walking path is perpendicular to the roadway on the other side. How it behaves in the middle (not perpendicular) is irrelevant. The walking path itself is legally considered a roadway.
The "no pedestrians" sign does not face pedestrians crossing as this pedestrian did, it faces the road.
So... in California drivers would be expected to give the right of way to anyone crossing the street.
Assuming that the argument is won that this was not an unmarked crosswalk - California also has a blanket vehicle code law that requires drivers to "exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian upon a roadway".
Arizona actually does have a similar law:
1. Exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on any roadway.
2. Give warning by sounding the horn when necessary.
3. Exercise proper precaution on observing a child or a confused or incapacitated person on a roadway.
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Everything is arguable. Uber threw the first shot in the PR war by producing a sub-par video and pushing the social media perception that the pedestrian was in the wrong. In a civil courtroom, different lines will be drawn. You'll have statements from Volvo, Google, and the LIDAR manufacturer that say the accident was entirely preventable. You'll have video showing that the time to react by an alert driver at the same time of night was plentiful. You'll have a dead body that was thrown a significant distance. You'll have an undertrained driver, who was without a partner in the first month of that experience. You'll have a driver not paying attention to the road. And you'll have Uber staff testing the vehicle without the full use of it's available safety systems.
The question isn't fault. It's how much damage was done to Uber's self-driving vehicle program and self-driving vehicle programs in general, and how much it's going to cost Uber both financially and in PR - both of which can effect future investment, which was already nearing a close.
Is there another walkway/roadway intersection that's approximately perpendicular that I'm not seeing? (I have to assume that we're looking at different areas of the map, because I give you enough credit that you aren't arguing that these two characters are perpendicular right at the end: \| )
I agree with your closing notion that there is a question of contributory fault. What started this sub-branch was my argument that the pedestrian's contribution was not 0.00%. I also don't think that the Uber Volvo's share is 0.00%.
It is sufficiently close to perpendicular that I would call it an unmarked crosswalk. If it is not intended to be a crosswalk, it is not the pedestrian's fault to use it as a crosswalk... it is the traffic engineer's fault for designing an unsafe crosswalk.
The pedestrian's contribution may not be 0%, but it is definitely lower than both the traffic engineer's share and Uber's share.
(From Eric's twitter stream, it seems like the collision may have even been at the pink line, which is even farther from perpendicular than the red line.)
