Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

abc7news.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 850 posts

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#81

Post by jijojv »

etjossem wrote: post #75
redial wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeez, that damned media again misinforming people. Who could have expected a feature called AUTOPILOT to mean self driving, who?!

Anyone who knows what an autopilot [1] is understands that it does not make an aircraft autonomous. It's an assistive device - a stabilizer for wings and pitch. To call the Tesla Model S an "autonomous vehicle" simply because it has a feature called autopilot is disingenuous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

Only licensed aviators know the difference... Also in that In 1947 a US Air Force C-54 made a transatlantic flight, including takeoff and landing, completely under the control of an autopilot.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#82

Post by saas_co_de »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #14
eridius wrote: post #8

I have to wonder why Tesla keeps doubling down on victim-blaming. Is this a case of Elon Musk being insecure about criticism (since he's demonstrated a tendency in the past to react poorly to it)? Or is Tesla trying to actually lower their legal liability? Edit: To clarify, in most of these crashes, it's usually a combination of Tesla's fault and the driver's fault. Which is to say, the driver could have avoided the…

Tesla is exerting and reinforcing that it is not liable for poor driver decisions. If you use any vehicle safety aid while not paying attention, and you die or kill someone while in control of the vehicle, that is your liability. Whether they call their system "Autopilot" is immaterial. You are the responsibly party as the driver, and this is made clear both at purchase time and during vehicle use.

The driver is not responsible for defects in the vehicle

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#83

Post by makomk »

brandon272 wrote: post #31
selectout wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of being allowed to take your hands off the wheel is probably "how do I detect the hands are on the wheel?". In current S/X with no interior camera the way autopilot works is you have to "yank" the wheel every now and then to prove you have your hands on. Requiring constant "yanking" wouldn't work, and there are often long stretches of roads on highways (where Autopilot is meant to work) that wouldn't requ…

Every time I learn about how these cars are handling things I end up disappointed and concerned because the actual implementation is way less impressive and seemingly less foolproof than I - and I'm sure many other people - are assuming they are. I would have never guessed "hands on wheel" is detected only if the driver yanks the wheel. I figured it was camera based or that the wheel had capacitive sensors.

Now compare this with Tesla's PR statement which makes it sound as though they have proof that the guy who was fatally steered into a barrier by their Autopilot had taken his hands off the wheel. They resort to this kind of sleazy, dishonest misrepresentation every time their software screws up.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#84

Post by fmihaila »

etjossem wrote: post #75
redial wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeez, that damned media again misinforming people. Who could have expected a feature called AUTOPILOT to mean self driving, who?!

Anyone who knows what an autopilot [1] is understands that it does not make an aircraft autonomous. It's an assistive device - a stabilizer for wings and pitch. To call the Tesla Model S an "autonomous vehicle" simply because it has a feature called autopilot is disingenuous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

> Anyone who knows what an autopilot [1] is [...]

I strongly suspect that is a small minority of buyers.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#85

Post by jijojv »

NickM wrote: post #66
eridius wrote: post #8

I have to wonder why Tesla keeps doubling down on victim-blaming. Is this a case of Elon Musk being insecure about criticism (since he's demonstrated a tendency in the past to react poorly to it)? Or is Tesla trying to actually lower their legal liability? Edit: To clarify, in most of these crashes, it's usually a combination of Tesla's fault and the driver's fault. Which is to say, the driver could have avoided the…

I think they're trying to hammer home the point that autopilot is very much not level 5 self-driving. The media is constantly referring to "self-driving" Teslas, so of course it's easy for members of the public to get confused, but this is very different from e.g. the Uber self-driving fatality that occurred recently, where the car was supposed to be able to drive 100% autonomously. Tesla is extremely clear that thes…

> Tesla is extremely clear

Oct'16 video on https://www.tesla.com/autopilot says Driver is only there for legal reasons

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/823632597284691969 " Yes, safety should improve significantly due to autonomy features, even if regs disallow no driver present 23 Jan 2017"

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#86

Post by Jemmeh »

redial wrote: post #74
jhall1468 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autopilot is a marketing term here. It's correct if we think of Autopilot = autonomous but it isn't. The thing alarms at you (visually and via sound) when you take your hands off the wheel. The fact that drivers ignore that isn't Tesla's fault, and saying it's "not enough" is kind of absurd. What the hell are they going to do if you take your hands off the wheel? Stop the car in the middle of a freeway? I could use y…

> Stop the car in the middle of a freeway? Yes. When the alternative is having a crash they should find a way to stop. [edit: of course I don't mean to suddenly stop. But if the system can't trust the driver is alert it should disengage or stop. As we've seen now multiple times, if it continues it will result in a crash.] The current behavior is not only dangerous to the driver of a tesla. It puts everyone in the roa…

Stopping in the middle of the road is dangerous (people will crash into you) and it would also be hard to make something have a feature to pull them off the road. If the computer reads it wrong you'll be in a ditch from the car trying to pull you off the road into something with no shoulder. The shoulder of a road is also dangerous as well even if there is a proper one because people often do not stay exactly in their lane. This is why officers often come around to the passenger side.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#87

Post by BeetleB »

tshannon wrote: post #42
tc wrote: post #18

Tesla probably shouldn't be saying anything about this at all, even just to avoid giving it more news cycles. But if they were going to say something, here's what they should have said the first time. ---- We take great care in building our cars to save lives. Forty thousands Americans die on the roads each year. That's a statistic. But even a single death of a Tesla driver or passenger is a tragedy. This has affecte…

See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16814565 Doesn't your statement admit that Tesla is at least partially at fault? Something their lawyers would probably never allow.

>Doesn't your statement admit that Tesla is at least partially at fault? Something their lawyers would probably never allow.

IANAL so take with a grain of salt. I once talked to a lawyer who used to work for a big hospital and handled the malpractice lawsuits against them. Three takeaways from the discussion:

1. Implying that a possibility exists that the hospital was at fault has no legal ramifications whatsoever.

2. The studies show an apology and admission has a significant impact on the amount paid to the patient if there is a settlement (in favor of the hospital).

3. Despite knowing 1 and 2, he and other lawyers advise their clients to deny wrongdoing all the way to the end.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#88

Post by cjhopman »

jhall1468 wrote: post #62
joering2 wrote: post #53

Autopilot means it will pilot itself.. automatically. Tesla is using "guidance assistant". Huge difference. Their terminology is either very confusing at the best, or bluntly deceiving at the worst.

Twice now people using absolutely stupid arguments to defend the driver here. He knew what Autopilot was and STILL took his hands off the wheel. Autopilot is a name in the same way Amazon.com isn't a damn rain forest. It's a term taken from aviation, but "autopilot" in a plane and "Autopilot" in a Tesla aren't even remotely the same thing. And literally everyone understands that, yet any time this occurs we start bla…

> STILL took his hands off the wheel

That's not clear. The car didn't detect his hands on the wheel, but that doesn't mean his hands weren't on it. Tesla's implementation of hand detection (like many of their other systems) is rather unreliable.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#89

Post by John_KZ »

otoburb wrote: post #11
otalp wrote: post #2

Full statement: "We are very sorry for the family's loss. According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect and, specifically, he told them it was not reliable in that exact location, yet he nonetheless engaged Autopilot at that location. The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is i…

>> If the system detects that hands are not on, it provides visual and auditory alerts. This happened several times on Mr. Huang's drive that day. If the system detects that hands are not on the wheel, perhaps something else should be done that will incentivize the driver to disengage Autopilot. Perhaps, send warnings alerts to law enforcement, insurance companies, or emergency contacts? Not sure what the fallback pr…

>perhaps something else should be done that will incentivize the driver to disengage Autopilot.

There's a very simple solution: Don't fucking include it in the car. Require the users to show up at the car dealership and sign a legal waiver to allow the activation of the new, insecure, and dangerous feature.

There are no cars on the road with airbags that sometimes work and sometimes cause 3rd degree burns. There are no seatbelts that only work if the road isn't shiny.

If you want to advertise the autopilot as a safety feature available to the general public, make sure it is one. If it's not, and you advertise it as such, you're legally liable for all the deaths your lie will cause.

Personally, I'm technically knowledgable enough and I know enough about Tesla's history to be wary of their products and never trust them, but what if you're the average consumer? You would rightly expect any car automation system that comes pre-installed in your car and actually drives your god damn car to be safe enough to be there in the first place! Tesla is just taking advantage of the lack of legislation and standards on autonomous driving. They're selling a defective and dangerous product. They should be held liable for it.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#90

Post by etjossem »

jijojv wrote: post #81
etjossem wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who knows what an autopilot [1] is understands that it does not make an aircraft autonomous. It's an assistive device - a stabilizer for wings and pitch. To call the Tesla Model S an "autonomous vehicle" simply because it has a feature called autopilot is disingenuous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

Only licensed aviators know the difference... Also in that In 1947 a US Air Force C-54 made a transatlantic flight, including takeoff and landing, completely under the control of an autopilot.

That's really cool - but just like driverless cars, it's the exception to the rule for what an autopilot system does.
Post reply on HN