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NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

arstechnica.com

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Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#281

Post by caf »

wjamesg wrote: post #115
zo1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. The start of that concrete lane-divider looks incredibly dangerous for a highway. It pretty-much just "starts", with only some sort of object that they call a "crash attenuator" in front of it. I would imagine its purpose is to dampen/dissipate kinetic energy and maybe deflect oncoming objects from hitting the concrete slab directly. I don't even see any sort of road-bumps to warn drivers of this dangerous obsta…

Agree. The area leading up to the barrier could at least be striped off.

Yes, I'd expect to see something like https://goo.gl/maps/dbp2fx79ihz

I could easily imagine a stressed human driver unfamiliar with the area following that unstriped gore area as a 'lane', too.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#282

Post by darkerside »

omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #214
txcwpalpha wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This isn't an issue specific to Tesla as all automakers are now making cars that are more and more dependent on software. Cars have been dependent on software for a long time (literally decades). This isn't something new. Even combustion engine cars have had software inside of them that controls the operation of the engine, and this software is vigorously tested for safety issues (because most car manufacturers unde…

>Cars have been dependent on software for a long time (literally decades). This isn't something new. Even combustion engine cars have had software inside of them that controls the operation of the engine, and this software is vigorously tested for safety issues (because most car manufacturers understand a fault with such software could result in someone's death). Tesla seems to be the only major car manufacturer that…

This comparison just sold me on how morally wrong it is what Tesla is doing. Intentionally misleading and marketing to customers a feature called Autopilot that is only a marginal improvement on what other cars already offer. What if Volvo started calling their (clearly not independent) feature Autopilot and saying it was the future of hands-free driving? Seems inexcusable.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#283

Post by erobbins »

27182818284 wrote: post #13

The NTSB report confirms that. The crash attenuator—an accordion-like barrier that's supposed to cushion a vehicle when it crashes into the lane separator—had been damaged the previous week when a Toyota Prius crashed at the same location. The resulting damage made the attenuator ineffective and likely contributed to Huang's death. kinda sounds like maybe that part of the road isn't well designed or marked too.

The previous crash was a drunk driver, at night. Tesla has hit a milestone, they are almost as good as impaired drivers!

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#284

Post by zo1 »

panopticon wrote: post #127
zo1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. The start of that concrete lane-divider looks incredibly dangerous for a highway. It pretty-much just "starts", with only some sort of object that they call a "crash attenuator" in front of it. I would imagine its purpose is to dampen/dissipate kinetic energy and maybe deflect oncoming objects from hitting the concrete slab directly. I don't even see any sort of road-bumps to warn drivers of this dangerous obsta…

Out of curiosity, are you not in the U.S.? These types of lane dividers are incredibly common throughout the country. Note that I'm not defending the safety of them; I'm just surprised to see someone call them out as a hazard as they're such a common sight.

I live in South Africa. We see items such as this more commonly:

https://www.google.com/maps/@-25.833477,28.2391574,3a,75y,75...

https://www.google.com/maps/@-25.8317095,28.2407035,3a,75y,7...

However, it's not consistent. Some end quite abruptly as well, and have a plain sign in the middle without any slowly-rising divider.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#285

Post by prawn »

wjamesg wrote: post #115
zo1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. The start of that concrete lane-divider looks incredibly dangerous for a highway. It pretty-much just "starts", with only some sort of object that they call a "crash attenuator" in front of it. I would imagine its purpose is to dampen/dissipate kinetic energy and maybe deflect oncoming objects from hitting the concrete slab directly. I don't even see any sort of road-bumps to warn drivers of this dangerous obsta…

Agree. The area leading up to the barrier could at least be striped off.

And you'd think that basic paint striping would be comparably cheap. It's incredible that such a deadly point wouldn't have it.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#286

Post by prawn »

TheLoneAdmin wrote: post #83
Animats wrote: post #42

NTSB: • At 8 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was following a lead vehicle and was traveling about 65 mph. • At 7 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla began a left steering movement while following a lead vehicle. • At 4 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was no longer following a lead vehicle. • At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increas…

Makes me wonder about the future of self-driving cars. I would think that the first thing that should be programmed in is to not run into objects that are not moving. IMO, maybe the roads need to be certified for self-driving. Dangerous areas would be properly painted to prevent recognition errors. Every self-driving system would need to query some database to see if a road is certified. If not, the self-driving syst…

I wonder if we'll see it speed-limited. For commutes, if my time is freed up to read/work, then I don't need to be going 70 mph. If I'm travelling across a continent overnight, the gain I'd get from 10+ autonomous hours overnight would beat having to rush when driving personally.

And I agree with certified roads. But even then, if a truck drops cargo in the middle of the lane, you'd want to be in a car that can detect something sitting still in front of you.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#287

Post by sowbug »

alasdair_ wrote: post #186
metalliqaz wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would it speed up beyond the speed limit?

In CA traffic (and many other states) driving at the speed limit is likely more dangerous than driving with the flow of traffic (roughly 10 MPH over the limit - sometimes more than that). One of the options for Autopilot is that you can tell it "Never go more than X MPH over the speed limit" with a common setting being a few miles an hour over.

This statement is not quite correct. The setting indicates the speed, as an absolute offset of the currently detected speed limit, at which the car will emit audible or visual warnings that the driver has set the cruise-control speed too fast. That setting is also the speed for a specific gesture that sets the cruise control to the maximum speed for the circumstances. E.g., if the posted speed limit is 45 and the setting is 5, then the gesture sets cruise control to 50 mph.

The car never adjusts the cruise-control set speed by itself, with one exception: if the current road has no center divider, then it clamps the current speed to no more than the posted speed limit + 5 mph. The term "clamps" is in the programming sense: if cruise-control is already set below that speed, nothing changes.

The car never increases the cruise-control set speed. Only the driver can do that.

In other words, the driver had already set the cruise control to 75 mph and likely had the setting at speed limit + 10, which is aggressive. The reason the car accelerated is because it determined there were no cars ahead of it traveling at a speed lower than the set speed. Unfortunately, that conclusion was absolutely correct.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#288

Post by aero142 »

Maybestring wrote: post #25
MBCook wrote: post #3

“[Driver’s] hands were not detected on the steering wheel for the final six seconds prior to the crash. Tesla has said that Huang received warnings to put his hands on the wheel, but according to the NTSB, these warnings came more than 15 minutes before the crash.” This kind of stuff is why I’ve lost all faith in Tesla’s public statements. What they said here was, for all intents and purposes, a flat out lie. Clearly…

>This kind of stuff is why I’ve lost all faith in Tesla’s public statements. I don't understand why they would issue any statement other than, 'condolences, we're committed to safety, we're working with the NTSB to understand what happened'

I think Musk strongly believes that flipping the switch to sacrifice 1 and save 5 in the trolley problem is clearly the correct choice. If the numbers show that less people die with self driving cars than with them, then that is the right choice. I suspect he even believes that the people that die along the way in the transitional periods are worth it if that is what it takes to save hundreds of thousands of lives in the long run. Most people aren't ok with this kind of utilitarianism, but I suspect he is. The PR is just another tool of keeping people from banning self driving cars before they get to the place where they are really ready.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#289

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

GeekyBear wrote: post #134
tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedantic: Mobileye cut ties with Tesla, not the other way around.

More relevant in this situation: Mobileye's stated reason for cutting those ties. >On Wednesday, Mobileye revealed that it ended its relationship with Tesla because "it was pushing the envelope in terms of safety." Mobileye's CTO and co-founder Amnon Shashua told Reuters that the electric vehicle maker was using his company's machine vision sensor system in applications for which it had not been designed. "No matter…

> Mobileye's CTO and co-founder Amnon Shashua told Reuters that the electric vehicle maker was using his company's machine vision sensor system in applications for which it had not been designed.

Props to Sashua for deciding to put safety above profit. We need people in leadership like this.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#290

Post by manicdee »

Short version: due to poor lane markings, Autopilot made the same mistake as many humans in the same situation and collided with the divider. Due to the frequency of this kind of accident, the crash attenuator had been collapsed and not reset meaning the Tesla hit the concrete divider at full speed, as has happened in the past with humans in control.

But please continue to blame Autopilot for not being smarter than the human operating the vehicle.

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