That is speeding and also the car was inattentive to potential hazards outside of its vision. Normal human drivers slow down when they see a wild lady on the median looking like she might dart into the road. Normal people slow down when there are kids playing with a ball on the sidewalk. Do these cars do that? Do they even drive the speed limit?
edit: Also accidentally killing someone with your car because of minor speeding or inattentiveness usually results in a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge. Who is getting that charge here?
If I'm imagining this scenario correctly, I've experienced it tons of times and never seen traffic slow down. It's a road with a median and a person attempting to cross the road has temporarily stopped in the median waiting for a break in traffic so they can cross. Maybe I've just lived in 2 crazy states, or maybe I'm not imagining this scenario correctly, but I can't recall ever having seen traffic slow down for this situation.
It's possible to believe that the sensors/AI failed (no braking) while also acknowledging that the vehicle/driver is not at fault for the death. I suspect that may ultimately be the case here.
Where have you lived? Here in DC you regularly have to slow down because tourists and homeless people will blithely jump into the street. Same thing in Philadelphia or New York.
You might also rest your foot on the brake in anticipation.
But neither attention nor anticipating controls is a concept that really exists in these autonomous system. They're "always ready". (yeah "attention" can exist in perception neural networks, but I am not sure that has much to do with keeping an eye out for a risky event)
> Normal people slow down when there are kids playing with a ball on the sidewalk.
The driving-exam manual I had to read before getting my license was mentioning this exact scenario, i.e. if one sees kids playing on the sidewalk close to the road that the driver should slow down. It was even included among the questions given at the written exam itself.
But, then again, the authorities over here in Europe are more attentive when handing out driving licenses to people who are about to handle 2-ton pieces of metal inside populated areas. In this case it seems like the "US driving mentality" (only the driver counts, damn be the pedestrians) has also affected the actual engineers who have programmed these "AI" cars.
I found this based on the photo of the accident location in this article [2]. I went to Tempe, AZ on Google Maps, entered the name of the building in the background of the photo ("First Solar"), and from there it was pretty easy to find the photo location. Then it was just a matter of going backward until the speed limit sign for that road in that direction was found.
edit: Also accidentally killing someone with your car because of minor speeding or inattentiveness usually results in a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge. Who is getting that charge here?