Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#121

Post by cjhopman » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:41 AM UTC

bobsil1 wrote: post #3

Gore point stripe faded: https://imgur.com/a/xHq57 Street View: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.6346515,-122.104109,3a,75y,8...

Based on (1) my experience seeing that people in non-Tesla vehicles tend to cross late from the 85 ramp to 101, (2) the wear pattern in that photo, (3) the number of Tesla vehicles travelling that route, and (4) the numerous examples of Tesla autopilot being total shit at handling that situation from the #2 lane, I wonder how much of that paint fading is due to Tesla autopilot being completely terrible.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#122

Post by cjhopman » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:43 AM UTC

Declanomous wrote: post #48

Someone1234 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your point is "Autopilot only works on perfect roads" then they might have well pull the plug right now. Dirt, snow, rain, fog, dark, and other common conditions could obscure even correctly painted lines, and it just isn't realistic to expect perfect roads throughout such a large network anyway (in particular as human drivers can infer the line is meant to be there from the neighboring lines). At its core, a syst…

Man, that's incredibly bad. I drive that route all the time and it's not even remotely difficult to follow the highway there. Considering Tesla's must have driven through there hundreds of thousands of times, they should have data to make sure the car at least follows the highway. I don't crash in to a barrier when a paint stripe gets scuffed in between my Monday morning commute and my Tuesday morning commute.

I'm curious if they have data about how often users need to take over from autopilot in that area. It seems like this shitty behavior was easily reproducible, so...

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#123

Post by Jasper_ » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:45 AM UTC

oldgradstudent wrote: post #116

Jasper_ wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proper way to prove "it's 100 times more safe" isn't to let it cause some number of deaths and then go "welp, we tried our best but we were wrong, turns out it's less safe. Shucks". But that's exactly what Tesla, Uber, etc. all seem to be doing. "We'll compare our statistics once the death tallies are in and we'll see which is safer". The most we have to go on for a rough approximation of safety is the nebulous a…

> the nebulous and ill-defined "disengagements" in the public CA reports. The usual description of disengagements: "Disengage for a perception discrepancy" or "Precautionary takeover to address perception". Except when referring to others, then its plain English: "Disengage for a recklessly behaving road user" or "Other road user behaving poorly".

For clarity on this point, "disengagement" has a specific meaning to the California DMV[0]:

> For the purposes of this section, “disengagement” means a deactivation of the autonomous mode when a failure of the autonomous technology is detected or when the safe operation of the vehicle requires that the autonomous vehicle test driver disengage the autonomous mode and take immediate manual control of the vehicle.

However, some self-driving car manufacturers have been testing the rules quite a lot by choosing which disengagements to report[1]. Waymo reportedly "runs a simulation" to figure out whether to include the disengagement in its report, but there's no mention of what the simulation is or how it might fail in similar ways the technology inside the car did! Thus, the numbers in the reports are likely deflated from being actually every single disengagement.

[0] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/d48f347b-8815-458e... [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sel...

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#124

Post by danso » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:45 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #117

danso wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether the statement from the regulatory agency can be independently verified is immaterial You believe independent verification of study results are "immaterial"? OK.

Because I do not have access to raw data does not make the resulting facts any less true (see: proprietary hurricane models). The NHTSA made a determination and I’m using it as a data point.

OK, and all I said in my comment was that the NHTSA was asked for elaboration and proof -- because its findings seemed curious with respect to other study results -- and so far they have declined further explanation. This may be relevant information for anyone who sees you using the NHTSA's claim as a premise.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#125

Post by 0xB31B1B » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:46 AM UTC

m_mueller wrote: post #61

njarboe wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the current climate of "all new things must be super extra safe to be used, even if it displaces much worse technology", I think machine driving cars will have a hard time being accepted. Imagine the autopilot is 100 times safer than human drivers. Full implementation would mean about a fatality a day in the US. It does not seem this would be acceptable by the public even though 30,000 annual human car fatalit…

Does it currently really reduce fatalities if you control for car cost, age group and area driven? I‘m unconvinced of the current statistics.

Biggest factor to control for is drunk driving, which is ~30% of all deaths IIRC.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#126

Post by bsder » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:47 AM UTC

njarboe wrote: post #53

ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I have now talked with two people who have autopilot in their model S's and both said the problem with autopilot is that it is "too good". Specifically it works completely correctly like 80 - 90% of the time and as a result, if you use it a lot, you start to expect it to be working and not fail. If it beeps then to tell you to take over, you have to mentally get back into the situational awareness of the road and the…

And in the current climate of "all new things must be super extra safe to be used, even if it displaces much worse technology", I think machine driving cars will have a hard time being accepted. Imagine the autopilot is 100 times safer than human drivers. Full implementation would mean about a fatality a day in the US. It does not seem this would be acceptable by the public even though 30,000 annual human car fatalit…

> Imagine the autopilot is 100 times safer than human drivers. Full implementation would mean about a fatality a day in the US. It does not seem this would be acceptable by the public even though 30,000 annual human car fatalities could be avoided.

Your opinion will be irrelevant--the insurance companies get the final say. When that safety point arrives, your insurance rates will change to make manual driving unaffordable.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#127

Post by kwhitefoot » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:48 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #91

brennankreiman wrote: post #28

Biggest thing I gathered was the public safety barrier was damaged from a previous crash, 12 days earlier, so the driver basically hit a hard wall. This has more implications for the US’s infrastructure than Tesla’s safety IMO.

via an earlier story: http://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-i-team-investigates... > CalTrans finally sent ABC7 News a statement later Thursday"confirming" it's their policy to fix broken safety barriers within seven days, or five business days ... but storms delayed the work. As Dan Noyes reported Wednesday, the family told me they believe Walter Huang would have survived, if CalTrans fixed that safety barrier in…

Until the barrier is fixed that part of the road should have some sort of marking to indicate that there is an extra danger there, that's what cones were invented for.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#128

Post by 0xB31B1B » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:48 AM UTC

creato wrote: post #114

njarboe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently it is probably worse than the average driver. But here is a trolley problem for you. What is the ratio of people killed who volunteer to test out an auto-drive to the number of lives saved by that early testing? 1:1, 1:10, 1:100, 1:1000, 1:1,000,000? A million people die in vehicle wrecks each year.

Those are clearly not the only two options. Waymo appears to be far and away the leader in this space, and they've killed zero people.

Yea, most self driving miles are simulated, not done in meat space.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#129

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:49 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #124

toomuchtodo wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I do not have access to raw data does not make the resulting facts any less true (see: proprietary hurricane models). The NHTSA made a determination and I’m using it as a data point.

OK, and all I said in my comment was that the NHTSA was asked for elaboration and proof -- because its findings seemed curious with respect to other study results -- and so far they have declined further explanation. This may be relevant information for anyone who sees you using the NHTSA's claim as a premise.

Fair point. I upvoted your posts; thinking about it further, it’s a legitimate line of inquiry.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#130

Post by m_mueller » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:49 AM UTC

0xB31B1B wrote: post #125

m_mueller wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it currently really reduce fatalities if you control for car cost, age group and area driven? I‘m unconvinced of the current statistics.

Biggest factor to control for is drunk driving, which is ~30% of all deaths IIRC.

Good point. I wonder whether the ratio of drunks behind autopilot wheels is different than average. Could be lower (because richer) or higher (because richer).