An Update on Last Week’s Accident • Hacker News Board

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#171

Post by pja » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:08 AM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #161

jVinc wrote: post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

Yeah, it's pretty crafty PR. The CPC must be green with envy, while Uber is still ruing their reputation. Such a difference in conversation; so many people laying the blame squarely on the driver(he is ultimately the PIC tbh, but Tesla and particularly CalTrans messed up bad), however Uber is being raked through the coals when somebody literally walked in front of their car.. Just Say'n EDIT: While I believe Tesla an…

somebody literally walked in front of their car..

The analysis I've seen suggested that the self-driving system in the Uber vehicle had 4 or 5 seconds to detect the pedestrian crossing the road in front of them. Driving into a pedestrian on the road in that circumstance is /not/ acceptable for any driver, be they human or automated.

Don't be fooled by the video footage Uber released from the in-car camera - the quality is appalling. Compare it with the dashcam footage taken by people driving the same road at the same time & you'll see that visibility should have been perfect & a human driver would easily have avoided the pedestrian who was doing something that all of do every day - crossing the road.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#172

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:11 AM UTC

evincarofautumn wrote: post #114

mozumder wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if Tesla is comparing their luxury car's death rates to motorcycles, which have 10x-50x the fatality rate of passenger cars, then, yes, it's dangerous. Remember, there are several very normal cars models that have had ZERO deaths: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/record-9-models-have-... These autopilot cars are death traps.

I wonder if it’s possible to determine whether those cars have zero death rates in part because someone who would buy that model is less likely to get in a fatal accident in the first place—whether because of who they are, or how they were advertised, or whatever. I imagine a minivan owner as a very cautious driver…then again, I have been in the passenger seat when a friend was doing drifts in his mom’s minivan, so y…

Yes, one might quip that males under the age of 25 wouldn't be seen dead in any of those vehicles.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#173

Post by what_ever » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:14 AM UTC

DrScump wrote: post #128

shambolicfroli wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CalTrans doesn't diagonally stripe spaces like that? It would seem that they should.

There has been a lot of repaving work on 101, so these may well not be the final markings.

I don't think that area has been repaved in a while.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#174

Post by cornholio » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:15 AM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #161

jVinc wrote: post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

Yeah, it's pretty crafty PR. The CPC must be green with envy, while Uber is still ruing their reputation. Such a difference in conversation; so many people laying the blame squarely on the driver(he is ultimately the PIC tbh, but Tesla and particularly CalTrans messed up bad), however Uber is being raked through the coals when somebody literally walked in front of their car.. Just Say'n EDIT: While I believe Tesla an…

I think CalTrans owed up to its limitations: you should expect the road to be flat and not end abruptly without appropriate signage. But you are fully responsible to control the vehicle at all times and maintain an appropriate speed - so that when the road does inevitably end you can react safely. At no point are the crash atenuators a guaranteed component that the user of the road can expect to be in place and should rely on to save his life.

That is not to say CalTrans did not break some contractual obligations to replace that infrastructure in a reasonable timeframe, and shouldn't be held responsible in a commercial sense. But they are not in any way liable for the accident, the missing hardware was not a reason to stop traffic and all such devices are offered on a best effort, good to have, basis.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#175

Post by pja » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:16 AM UTC

jVinc wrote: post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority.

Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles with (relatively) wealthy drivers who can afford to keep them maintained & will themselves be in better health than the mean US driver.

Don't tell us how safe Tesla's are compared to the entire US driving population: Tell us how safe they are compared to equivalent vehicles from other manufacturers. My working assumption is that Tesla doesn't do that because it would be far less flattering to the 'A Tesla is totally safe, honest' PR boosterism that runs through every Tesla press release.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#176

Post by rkagerer » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:16 AM UTC

If the driver had "five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider", then didn't the car, too?

I'm not disputing their statistics, but reading past the first two paragraphs of this article left a sour taste in my mouth. Feel like a better message ought to have been "we're going to learn from this, and won't stop improving until the crash rate is 0".

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#177

Post by what_ever » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:18 AM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #79

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm obviously not privy to the details of the prior crash, but I'm pretty sure any healthy human would not deliberately drive into the barrier. The most likely scenarios I can think of would be not paying attention and drifting into the barrier, attempting to avoid a car merging into the lane (and not paying enough attention), or being struck by another car and being forced into the barrier.

I think the answer is that the path into the barrier looks just like an actual lane, and that this was enough confusion that a human driver apparently had made the same exact mistake a week earlier. https://imgur.com/a/iMY1x https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/screen-sho...

It's not that straightforward. It's two adjacent lanes, which gets separated. Left one becomes an exit, the lane next to that one continues. The space between them keeps growing. The two lanes in question have a solid line between them before they separate to indicate you can't cross between them.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#178

Post by Rapzid » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:19 AM UTC

pja wrote: post #171

Rapzid wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's pretty crafty PR. The CPC must be green with envy, while Uber is still ruing their reputation. Such a difference in conversation; so many people laying the blame squarely on the driver(he is ultimately the PIC tbh, but Tesla and particularly CalTrans messed up bad), however Uber is being raked through the coals when somebody literally walked in front of their car.. Just Say'n EDIT: While I believe Tesla an…

somebody literally walked in front of their car.. The analysis I've seen suggested that the self-driving system in the Uber vehicle had 4 or 5 seconds to detect the pedestrian crossing the road in front of them. Driving into a pedestrian on the road in that circumstance is /not/ acceptable for any driver, be they human or automated. Don't be fooled by the video footage Uber released from the in-car camera - the quali…

It is acceptable though, most people wouldn't even get involuntary manslaughter which still requires criminal negligence. People are really spouting off here and project in their own superiority onto the situation. It's a situation similar to when a child gets left in a car or jumps a zoo fence, "I never take my eye off my kids even for one second even when I'm sleeping. I would never allow that to happen to my kids. Worst parent/person who has ever walked the earth".

Not only did the pedestrian instigate that, the failsafe(which are supposed to be very simple to back up complex and more fallable systems) to not getting hit and killed by a car was entirely in the pedestrians area of responsibility; don't walk into traffic.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#179

Post by bambax » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:24 AM UTC

> In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident.

This is incomplete and therefore, very misleading. One has to compare what's comparable: what is the sample size for each? That is, how many miles are driven by Tesla vehicles per year, versus how many miles total for all US vehicles on US roads?

It seems, Tesla puts up around 3.2 billion miles/year, vs 3.2 trillion miles for all US vehicles; while the numbers are both big, that's a 1000x times difference, or 3 orders of magnitude.

Tesla numbers seem to imply there are around 10 people killed per year using a Tesla or being hit by a Tesla (because 3.2 billion / 320 million = 10). So, if a Tesla with 5 people on board crashes into a wall this year, and kills everyone inside, that will represent a 50% increase in the fatality rate.

And the phrase "3.7 times less likely" is also very misleading. People who drive Teslas usually wouldn't be driving dangerous vehicles (such as small, 4-door cars which are the deadliest), if they didn't have a Tesla. They would probably drive a German car (BMW, Audi, Mercedes) which are the safest cars in the US today.

> There are about 1.25 million automotive deaths worldwide. If the current safety level of a Tesla vehicle were to be applied, it would mean about 900,000 lives saved per year.

This is another level of nonsense entirely. "Worldwide"? A lot of things happen worldwide; in some countries there are more scooters than cars; in others, there are many very unsafe and poorly maintained country/dirt roads. The Tesla numbers are shady enough when limited to the US, but expanding them for a worldwide comparison is ludicrous.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#180

Post by kristianc » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:24 AM UTC

pja wrote: post #175

jVinc wrote: post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority. Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles wit…

> Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles with (relatively) wealthy drivers who can afford to keep them maintained & will themselves be in better health than the mean US driver.

You're going to have to explain to me how the wealth of a driver has any bearing on their ability to pilot a self-driving car.