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Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

latimes.com

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Re: Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

#51

Post by trhway »

asdsa5325 wrote: post #15
DmenshunlAnlsis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a solved issue, but Tesla doesn’t use LIDAR so it will never be solved for them.

But they use Radar and ultrasonic sensors, which should be enough (and even better, since LIDAR doesn't work in fog).

They doesn't seem to build any 3D scene. Their radar doesn't seem to be sweeping in any axis, so it is good only for detection in narrow sector along the road surface. This is in particular was stated as the reason behind that case of driver being decapitated by driving under the road crossing semi truck. Their ultrasonic i'd suppose have similar fixed direction functionality and probably for much smaller distances.

Re: Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

#52

Post by smnrchrds »

olliej wrote: post #6

I really wish all the car manufacturers would stop with this bullshit "you still have to be driving it" self driving nonsense. Claiming that the driver is still responsible for driving the car, while using a system designed to encourage the "driver" to not pay attention is a dumb idea, and all I can see is this kind of thing leading to regulations the delay actual self driving cars. I'm not a self-driving car fanboy…

We have seen time and time again that if corporations can wash their hands off of something, they do so. For the past few decades, and perhaps for much longer, the operating principle of corporations have been "if it's not illegal, it's moral."

As an example, rationally speaking credit bureaus and financial institutions are 100% responsible if they give someone a loan or open an account for them under your name. But they were allowed by the legal system to put the onus on the victims of the fraud to prove they are victims not perpetrators of it, and they called it "identity theft" instead of "bank fraud," and now we have victims who never did anything wrong or could have done anything differently battling CRAs and FIs for years to get out of a situation they should have never been put into in the first place [0][1].

If the laws allow companies to sell Level 5 autonomous vehicle while keeping the passenger (because it's not really a driver anymore) responsible for all legal matters, they would do so, and they would lobby against any law which puts the burden correctly where it belongs. And we would be forced to put our financial, mental, and legal well-being on the line just to get from point A to point B because it will be impossible to avoid autonomous tech then like it is impossible to avoid credit bureaus now.

[0] Like this case: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/credit-report-error-f...

[1] Obligatory Mitchell and Webb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c57WKxeELY

Re: Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

#53

Post by lopmotr »

mikeash wrote: post #30

How many non-Autopilot cars have crashed into parked vehicles? It happens a lot, to the extent that a lot of states have “move over” laws explicitly designed to reduce it. Does Autopilot actually make the problem worse, or is it just more newsworthy?

That's a general problem with most news about accidents or deaths. They cherry pick the interesting stories, not the significant ones. The way I see news is that it's like fiction but with the extra excitement of being real, much like watching a movie that's "based on a true story". Its purpose is entertainment, not information or understanding of the world. Nobody should be making a decision to buy a Tesla or not based on stories like these.

I recently mentioned self-driving cars to somebody and her response was "Oh, one killed a woman recently, didn't it?" That was about the extent of what she knew about them because she watches the news.

Re: Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

#54

Post by ModernMech »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #14
olliej wrote: post #6

I really wish all the car manufacturers would stop with this bullshit "you still have to be driving it" self driving nonsense. Claiming that the driver is still responsible for driving the car, while using a system designed to encourage the "driver" to not pay attention is a dumb idea, and all I can see is this kind of thing leading to regulations the delay actual self driving cars. I'm not a self-driving car fanboy…

Blame Elon Musk. I'm serious. He's been promising "self-driving" for years, except the damn technology isn't ready/safe enough for what people are clearly using this from. The manufacturer puts a warning label, but the usage model/UI is clearly flawed. His engineers know this, which is why Tesla's self-driving group has had such a high turnover rate over the last few years. Musk keeps overriding them.

> The manufacturer puts a warning label, but the usage model/UI is clearly flawed.

Not just the model/UI but the actual sensor suite. Remember, the Tesla that resulted in a decapitation had over-saturated cameras that couldn't see a tractor trailer. Of course, that's where the UI comes into play, because if the driver hadn't been watching Harry Potter, he would have seen the tractor trailer as well.

Re: Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

#55

Post by hndamien »

jonknee wrote: post #40
olliej wrote: post #6

I really wish all the car manufacturers would stop with this bullshit "you still have to be driving it" self driving nonsense. Claiming that the driver is still responsible for driving the car, while using a system designed to encourage the "driver" to not pay attention is a dumb idea, and all I can see is this kind of thing leading to regulations the delay actual self driving cars. I'm not a self-driving car fanboy…

I don't follow it super closely but there is exactly 1 car manufacture that I can think of guilty of pushing the self driving myth. The established car makers seem to market it as an assist, not as an autopilot. Tesla is the outlier, everyone else is much more conservative.

Auto pilot != Self driving. People love to conflate these two so much that the people saying it rely on everybody else conflating it to justify their ignorance.

This is just like Fox "some people say" - Fox people say! Or Javascript Bitcoin miners - Monero is not Bitcoin! It's snowing so there is no global warming - It is "climate change" but the entire globe is warming! This hurricane is just weather, not climate change - it is the 10th 1 in 500 year hurricane we have had this month!

I could go on. Sure, talking about the future self driving features (and selling them) is poor form to avoid this from Tesla, so they aren't helping - but they have always been clear that it is not self driving. It is the listeners/ readers that are incorrectly connecting the dots.

Re: Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

#56

Post by mikeash »

lopmotr wrote: post #53
mikeash wrote: post #30

How many non-Autopilot cars have crashed into parked vehicles? It happens a lot, to the extent that a lot of states have “move over” laws explicitly designed to reduce it. Does Autopilot actually make the problem worse, or is it just more newsworthy?

That's a general problem with most news about accidents or deaths. They cherry pick the interesting stories, not the significant ones. The way I see news is that it's like fiction but with the extra excitement of being real, much like watching a movie that's "based on a true story". Its purpose is entertainment, not information or understanding of the world. Nobody should be making a decision to buy a Tesla or not ba…

Yes, I say that any risk that makes the news is probably not worth worrying about.

What I don’t get is all the HN commenters acting like a few crashes proves that Autopilot is irredeemably dangerous.

Re: Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

#57

Post by ceejayoz »

bazooka2th wrote: post #37
na85 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called "Autosteer". That's misleading to non techies who don't have a firm grasp on the limitations of the tech. They should be legally required to call it something like "lane assist".

You're right, 'lane assist' is probably more appropriate. However, it's not 'autobrake' or 'auto-no-crash', the feature is actually called 'autopilot'. (why does that article say 'autosteer') An autopilot maintains heading, and that's all. Many sailors are not techies --- an autopilot on a boat will run you right into an obstacle.

> An autopilot maintains heading, and that's all.

Aircraft autopilots can follow a flight plan, maintain an altitude or rate of climb/descent, do an instrument approach, and (using ADS-B) perform an automated avoidance maneuver when another aircraft is too close.

Re: Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

#58

Post by shanghaiaway »

askafriend wrote: post #20
shanghaiaway wrote: post #9

Another auto pilot crash. List so far: 1 Hebei, Fatal China crash https://jalopnik.com/two-years-on-a-father-is-still-fighting... 2 Florida, Fatal Joshua Brown crashes into truck. https://jalopnik.com/tesla-driver-in-fatal-florida-crash-got... 3 Mountain view, Fatal Model X crash. https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/30/tesla-autopilot-was-o... 4 Reference to auto-pilot crash in Hayward. http://abc7news.com/automotive…

This list is misguided. How many crashes do we have from people using regular cruise control features? Is the incident rate per mile when using Autopilot from Tesla higher or lower than regular cruise control? Those are the right questions in my opinion.

Why are you asking me? Ask Tesla! And they won't answer. Don't be a fan boy.

Re: Tesla in autopilot mode crashes into parked Laguna Beach police cruiser

#59

Post by Schwolop »

foobar1962 wrote: post #13
olliej wrote: post #6

I really wish all the car manufacturers would stop with this bullshit "you still have to be driving it" self driving nonsense. Claiming that the driver is still responsible for driving the car, while using a system designed to encourage the "driver" to not pay attention is a dumb idea, and all I can see is this kind of thing leading to regulations the delay actual self driving cars. I'm not a self-driving car fanboy…

>I'm not a self-driving car fanboy or anything. I don't think it's just around the corner, but it's clearly going to happen /eventually/ ... Self driving vehicles have been used at Rio Tinto's Pilbara mine for a couple of years. Sure, it's on private land and the complexity of the task is far smaller than for public roads, but it's happening now. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/rio-tinto-opens-worlds...

I wrote the initial interface specification for the co-ordination system in Rio's open-pit mines. The mere fact that we were able to account for the state of every moving thing in the pit makes this a completely different proposition to self-driving vehicles in an uncontrolled real-world environment. At a guess it's at least ten to a hundred times easier.
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