Yes, the lidar and radar would have seen that pedestrian. The car should have been able to detect, predict and prevent this accident. This accident shouldn't have happened and was ultimately a software failure. Even if the sensors were malfunctioning and sending false data to the computer the software should have detected the malfunction and acted accordingly. Well, I suppose there is a theoretical possibility the sensors were sending false data that looked real enough that a hardware error couldn't be detected, but I find that highly unlikely. A thorough technical analysis will tell eventually. But I find it very likely that Uber really **** up and a person died because of it.
I'm sure a lot of naysayers who doesn't know how the tech and software works were waiting for this to happen, but having been following the progress of Google's self-driving car over the years, this accident really surprised me. I can say with 99 % certainty* that it would NOT have happened to any of the Google cars. Please realise that all software is NOT created equal.
(* 1% to allow for some really weird and unlikely technical problem that couldn't possibly have been predicted or avoided.)
But to say this proves self-driving cars are bad and should never be allowed is really disingenuous. What it proves is that Uber's technology is bad and shouldn't be driving on public roads. I hope Uber are held accountable if they are found to have made an error that should have been avoided if they followed good engineering practices. I can't imagine how the software could fail in such a predictable scenario, surely they would have tested the software with thousands of test cases of exactly this kind of situation, before allowing it to drive on public streets.
It is humans who create the software and humans makes mistakes (which is why it's a good idea to try to replace human drivers to begin with). But once you have a system that is a provably better driver than the average human, that system is the better option, that's a simple fact.
And all evidence to date shows that self driving cars have (the potential) to be far superior to humans in almost every regard. (I'll admit Daves point that they will probably not be good at determining if a parked car is about to leave, at least for now, but even so, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages).
Take a look at this presentation from 2011 of how the google cars work (and keep in mind, this is NOT the same as the Uber system). Clearly, avoiding pedestrians and cyclists is a rudimentary task their system solves successfully all the time: