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Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

latimes.com

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Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#11

Post by Animats »

Figure 7 depicts the movement of the Tesla and the two lead vehicles in the last 15 seconds before the crash. In the left panel—covering 15 to 8 seconds before impact—the Tesla is accelerating from 9 to 18 mph while following a lead vehicle (red car) at 30 to 46 feet.In the middle panel—covering 7 to 4 seconds before impact—the Tesla is traveling at a constant 21 mph while following a lead vehicle (green car) at a distance decreasing from 148 to 108 feet. In the right panel—covering the last 3 seconds before impact—the Tesla is accelerating from 21 to 31mph, with no lead vehicle and a forward collision warning half a second before impact.

...

About 0.49 second (490 milliseconds) before the crash, the system detected a stationary object in the Tesla’s path. The forward collision warning activated, displaying a visual warning and sounding an auditory warning to the driver. By the moment of impact, the Tesla had accelerated to a speed of 30.9 mph.

...

AEB did not activate during the event, and data show no driver-applied braking or steering before the crash. Tesla’s AEB is a radar/camera fusion system that is designed for front-to-rear collision mitigation or avoidance. According to the company, the system requires agreement from both the radar and the camera to initiate AEB; complex or unusual vehicle shapes can delay or prevent the system from classifying vehicles as targets or threats. [1]

Notice the last line. The system still has to recognize an obstacle as being visually car-like before braking to avoid hitting it. If it's not recognized as a vehicle, the car will not stop.

This was in January 2018, but it was a 2014 vehicle, which would mean the old Mobileye vision based collision system, right? We know Mobileye works that way, trying to draw boxes around car rear ends, because people have bought them and made videos showing what they see. Did that get fixed? Can it be fixed with a vision-based system? This is the big weakness of a no-LIDAR system.

Here, the driver had 3 seconds to react, because the car ahead turned out of the lane to evade the fire truck well before reaching it. Compare this 2017 video of a Tesla hitting a construction barrier. The car ahead didn't turn until just before the barrier, only giving the driver under 1 second to react.[2] Same failure to detect a lane obstruction, but not enough time for the driver to do anything about it.

[1] https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTdcWnGnnJQ

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#12

Post by danhak »

vkou wrote: post #10
Confusedcius wrote: post #2

The driver was found using his phone, over-relied on the autopilot system, and lied about what he was doing when being questioned. Sadly, we can't 100% trust these automated driving systems yet so folks need to stay attentive behind the wheel. The more accidents like this will cause lawmakers to create laws that can potentially slow down automated driving development.

What is the point of a self-driving system where you need to stay attentive behind the wheel? The physical act of turning a wheel isn't the hard part of driving. Paying attention is.

> The physical act of turning a wheel isn't the hard part of driving. Paying attention is.

As an avid user of Tesla Autopilot I'll disagree with this. On a long road trip, monitoring my surroundings and making sure everything is generally ok is far less fatiguing than making constant microadjustments to steering, speed and following distance.

Even while paying close attention to the ride, long trips (especially in stop-and-go traffic) become significantly less stressful and exhausting.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#13

Post by vkou »

danhak wrote: post #12
vkou wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point of a self-driving system where you need to stay attentive behind the wheel? The physical act of turning a wheel isn't the hard part of driving. Paying attention is.

> The physical act of turning a wheel isn't the hard part of driving. Paying attention is. As an avid user of Tesla Autopilot I'll disagree with this. On a long road trip, monitoring my surroundings and making sure everything is generally ok is far less fatiguing than making constant microadjustments to steering, speed and following distance. Even while paying close attention to the ride, long trips (especially in st…

> is far less fatiguing than making constant microadjustments to steering, speed and following distance.

Adaptive cruise control and lane assist, available in every modern car under the sun will make microadjustments to steering, speed, and following distance all day long.

What exactly does autopilot bring to the table?

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#15

Post by macintux »

diminoten wrote: post #8
c3534l wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to stay attentive behind the wheel is to actually be the one driving. There's virtually no way of being both attentive and passive for long periods of time. If a driver can't check their email or whatever on their phone while autopilot is on, then autopilot is not safe to put in cars. And while I'm okay with not-exactly-safe for most things people willingly consume or use, driving is not an area where it…

It is certainly okay when the rates at which these things happen is lower than the rates at which non-self driving cars have accidents. A 0% accident rate is unrealistic and unfair.

Statistics makes for a tough sell to the survivors.

“Yes, this autonomous vehicle killed your son who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but someone else’s son would have died in an unrelated accident somewhere else were it not for autonomy.”

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#17

Post by macintux »

vkou wrote: post #13
danhak wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The physical act of turning a wheel isn't the hard part of driving. Paying attention is. As an avid user of Tesla Autopilot I'll disagree with this. On a long road trip, monitoring my surroundings and making sure everything is generally ok is far less fatiguing than making constant microadjustments to steering, speed and following distance. Even while paying close attention to the ride, long trips (especially in st…

> is far less fatiguing than making constant microadjustments to steering, speed and following distance. Adaptive cruise control and lane assist, available in every modern car under the sun will make microadjustments to steering, speed, and following distance all day long. What exactly does autopilot bring to the table?

I also wonder whether “dumber” systems are easier to predict. I’d feel much more comfortable knowing what the car won’t do (change lanes on me, e.g.).

(Update: to be clear, I’m not inherently opposed to a car changing lanes if I need it to, but it seems easier to deal with a potential emergency, and easier to persuade myself to pay more attention, if I know definitively it won’t do something that sophisticated.)

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#18

Post by smt88 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #9

Fire truck driver here: People crash into parked fire trucks and ambulances and cop cars all the damn time . That's why we park the Big Red Truck at an angle behind the accident -- so that when the 2-ton car crashes into the 30-ton truck, the car will bounce off and the people behind the truck (us) won't be injured. I don't disagree that Tesla's software is partly to blame here, but the null experiment also has a lou…

The null experiment is the human driver of that particular Tesla, not an average of all drivers

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#20

Post by olliej »

Confusedcius wrote: post #2

The driver was found using his phone, over-relied on the autopilot system, and lied about what he was doing when being questioned. Sadly, we can't 100% trust these automated driving systems yet so folks need to stay attentive behind the wheel. The more accidents like this will cause lawmakers to create laws that can potentially slow down automated driving development.

If you create a system that by design will cause the driver to lose focus, you are responsible for the driver losing focus.

Saying “we told the users that they must pay attention while they are not driving”, or “we told them that the system called ‘auto-pilot’ is not actually able to autopilot the car”, and “we advertised the car’s self driving ability but had documentation saying it doesn’t actually have that ability” then you are responsible for that system driver behaving exactly as you would predict.

Their have been numerous studies that show that people stop paying attention when they are given menial or non-focus dependent tasks. Saying that the only safe way to use autopilot is by not being a human is fundamentally the same as saying “the brakes in the car only work if you press them continuously for 5s or apply 300lbs of force”.

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