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Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

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

#321

Post by kafquaesque »

patcheudor wrote: post #107
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…

>t's a tool to help attentive drivers avoid accidents that might have otherwise occurred. This needs far more discussion. I just don't buy it. I don't believe that you can have a car engaged in auto-drive mode and remain attentive. I think our psychology won't allow it. When driving, I find that I must be engaged and on long trips I don't even enable cruise control because taking the accelerator input away from me is…

If a person uses a device while using autopilot, (which seems highly likely—not sure in thi instance) wouldn’t it be advisable to have the alerts come to them directly on whichever device they are using? The alert breaks them out of whatever task they are focusing on. If the alert is coming from the car I can see how a lot of us could ignore it.

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

#322

Post by stale2002 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #120
Gerardo1 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This same thing can be said of auto-pilot in planes. Not saying it invalidates your argument, just that there are pretty wide-reaching consequences to that idea.

Which is why pilots are still in control of the plane while autopilot is active. Even while active, there is still a "pilot flying" and pilots are still responsible for scanning gauges and readouts and verifying the autopilot is doing what they expect. They do not just turn on autopilot and goof off

Uhhhhh, I think you are misinformed.

They aren't going to literally fall asleep, but much of the time pilots are reading a book and not directly paying attention in the same way that a driver is.

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

#323

Post by Analemma_ »

dewski wrote: post #306
txcwpalpha wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because he was assured by Tesla that it was working, and there was no problem. They were clearly wrong. As for the relevance: sure I can. My post about Tesla's contradiction has no relevance on what kind of autopilot it was. Tesla denied there was an issue, contradicted themselves by then saying there is an issue, and now is casting blame on the user for that issue. That's not acceptable. It would be unacceptable if…

Nobody was forcing him to use the feature if he knew it wasn’t working as intended on that particular stretch of road. My issue with your statements are you’re shifting 110% of the blame to Tesla when that isn’t remotely the case.

And my issue with your statements is that you're trying to have it both ways: you're claiming both that "there is no problem" and "Tesla told him about the problem so it's his fault". You have to pick one.

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

#324

Post by lmm »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #278
CPLX wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you're describing is called a train.

Are you going to having a train running every few minutes to really make the delays comparable? And you need a fleet of rental cars so that people can actually get to their destination. What's the relative cost of all that vs. pavement?

> Are you going to having a train running every few minutes to really make the delays comparable?

Commuter rail systems run at 2 minute headways or less. Long-distance trains mostly don't but that's largely due to excessive safety standards - for some reason we regulate trains to a much higher safety standard than cars. Even then, the higher top speeds of trains can make up for a certain amount of waiting and indirect routing. (Where I live, in London, trains are already faster than cars in the rush hour).

> What's the relative cost of all that vs. pavement?

When you include the land use and pollution? Cars can be cheaper for intercity distances when there's a lot of similarly-sized settlements, but within a city they waste too much space. And once you build cities for people rather than cars, cars lose a lot of their attraction for city-to-city travel as well, since you're in the same situation of having to change modes to get to your final destination.

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

#325

Post by gamblor956 »

whistlerbrk wrote: post #244
txcwpalpha wrote: post #59

I used to be in awe of Teslas and I have always been a big fan of Musk, and even after the crash I still imagined myself one day buying a Tesla. But after this response, I've completely lost respect for the company, for Musk, and I don't think I'll ever buy one or advocate for someone buying one. The driver had previously reported to Tesla 7 to 10 times that there was an issue with autopilot, but Tesla told him "no t…

> The driver had previously reported to Tesla 7 to 10 times I understand this is not a popular opinion on news forums anywhere nor do I write this to absolve in my view Tesla of their poor response nor of their poor choice in naming the system 'autopilot' to start. But at what point does corporate or government responsibility end and personal responsibility start? If I knew something didn't work and that something co…

In the US, we have laws that require products to work as advertised. If they don't, generally strict product liability applies to the manufacturer, seller, and all middleman (in this case, they're all Tesla), regardless of whether the customer-victim was misusing the product.

In this case, there is no evidence that the driver was misusing the car. But there is a carload of evidence that Autopilot failed.

At this point, the only thing Tesla is accomplishing with these public statements is adding more zeros to the eventual settlement/damage award.

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

#326

Post by fmihaila »

gamblor956 wrote: post #318
fmihaila wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the man died because of that issue Tesla would argue that the proximate cause was that the driver was not paying attention. > And now Tesla is saying that there is an issue, and that it's his fault for using the system. Tesla is not saying that it's his fault for using the system. They are saying it is not Tesla's fault if the driver wasn't paying attention, despite being presented with repeated warnings closely pr…

Proximate cause is irrelevant. This is a product liability issue because the product failed, which means strict liability applies.

> Proximate cause is irrelevant. This is a product liability issue because the product failed, which means strict liability applies.

I am not a lawyer, but it is not clear to me just yet that the product failed. We don't know what the investigation will show.

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

#328

Post by lifeformed »

supreme_sublime wrote: post #21
exotree wrote: post #10

This is a very upsetting response. Yes, the driver could have paid more attention, and yes, he shouldn't have activated Autopilot in an area where he knew Tesla's autopilot was not working correctly. However, Tesla calling it "Autopilot" should be no longer allowed. It's clear that it is most certainly not that, and customers are not treating this feature in a careful and cautious fashion, and I do believe that's due…

I see your point on calling it "Autopilot", but if you think about the application of the term in terms of aviation, I think it makes more sense. Autopilot in planes won't land the plane for you. It basically will just keep you at a certain elevation and direction. I think that Tesla's Autopilot function is comparable to planes. That's probably how they will justify it. However there might be a legitimate point in th…

In a domain like marketing, it doesn't matter what something technically means, but what people think it means.

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

#329

Post by perennate »

fapjacks wrote: post #155
patcheudor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>t's a tool to help attentive drivers avoid accidents that might have otherwise occurred. This needs far more discussion. I just don't buy it. I don't believe that you can have a car engaged in auto-drive mode and remain attentive. I think our psychology won't allow it. When driving, I find that I must be engaged and on long trips I don't even enable cruise control because taking the accelerator input away from me is…

I have to preface my post to say that I think developing self-driving automobiles is so important that it's worth the implied cost of potentially tens of thousands of lives in order to perfect the technology, because that's what people do; make sacrifices to improve the world we live in so that future generations don't have to know the same problem. But I think you're right. I think the "best" way to move forward unt…

> because that's what people do; make sacrifices to improve the world we live in so that future generations don't have to know the same problem.

Whose lives are we sacrificing? In the case of the Uber crash in Tempe and this Tesla crash in California, the people who died did not volunteer to risk their lives to advance research in autonomous vehicles.

I highly respect individuals who choose to risk their lives to better the world or make progress, like doctors fighting disease in Africa and astronauts going to space, but at the same time, I think this must always be a choice. Otherwise we could justify forcing prisoners to try new drugs as the first stage of clinical trials. Or worse things. Which is why there are extensive vetting before approval for clinical trials is given.

I do think that, once the safety of autonomous vehicles have been proven on a number of testbeds, but before they are ready for deployment, it is justifiable to drive them on public roads. Maybe without safety drivers. But until then, careful consideration should be given to their testing.

Uber should not have been able to run autonomous vehicles with safety drivers where the safety driver could be allowed to look away from the road for several seconds while the car was moving at >30mph. The car should automatically shutoff if it is not clear whether the safety driver is paying attention. And there should be legislation that bans any company that fails to implement basic safeguards like this from testing again for at least a decade, with severe fines. Probably speeds should also be limited to ~30mph for the first few years of testing while the technology is still so immature, as it is today.

Similarly, Tesla should not be allowed to deploy their Autopilot software to consumers before they conduct studies to show that it is reasonably safe. Repeated accidents have shown that Level 1 and Level 2 autonomous vehicles, where the car drives autonomously but the driver must be ready to intervene, is a failed model unless the car actively monitors that the driver is paying attention.

Overall I think justifying the current state of things by saying that people must be sacrificed for this technology to work is ridiculous. Basic safeguards are not being used, and if we require them, maybe autonomous vehicles will take a few years longer to reach deployment, but that thousands of lives could become tens.

Edit: I read in another comment that the Tesla car at least "alarms at you when you take your hands off the wheel". In that case I think what Tesla is doing is much more reasonable. (Not Uber, though.) Although I still feel like it is going to be hard to react to dangerous situations when the system operates correctly almost all the time (even if you are paying attention and have your hands on the wheel). But I'm not sure what the correct policy should be here, because I don't fully understand why people use this in the first place (since it sounds like Autopilot doesn't save you any work).

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

#330

Post by wstrange »

Phrodo_00 wrote: post #193
tathastu wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's autopilot page ( https://www.tesla.com/autopilot ) says (as of today): Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.

While it might imply otherwise, the message is clear about the _hardware_ being ready for self-driving. That doesn't mean the car is capable of self-driving in general.

At this point it is not even clear that the hardware is in fact capable of self-driving, ever.

I think there is a reason everyone else is using Lidar.

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