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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

#121

Post by alkonaut »

dahfizz wrote: post #79
matt-attack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only highlights how incredibly dumb these autopilots are. They’re incredibly diligent but completely fail at the necessary skill of understanding . What is the point of any of this if the car with all of its sensors knowingly plows into a stationary red 30-ton obstacle. It’s something that a 4 year old human would understand instantly as an object to be avoided at all cost. I really think folks don’t realize how c…

This is completely ridiculous. Adults drive into stationary objects all the time. 4 year olds walk into stationary objects all the time. As far as I'm concerned, there is only one criterion that matters when evaluating self driving cars: is it better than human drivers? The fact that we are still discussing this _one_ accident that happened _a year ago_ indicates to me that the answer is a resounding yes.

> is it better than human drivers?

The bar is much higher than that. People accept people killed by other humans suddenly becoming ill or briefly not paying attention. We accept human error. We do NOT accept machine error.

So the criterion is that autopilots should avoid a lot of accidents that humans risk getting into (e.g. lack of attention) but it must not be involved in ANY accidents that a human paying attention would get into.

In the end, no one really cares about the overrall safety or the statistics of it all, when it comes to acceptance of new systems. What matters for public perception (so in the end legislation) will be an almost impossible bar for autonomous vehicles, because they don't have the benefit of acceptable human error that we give flesh drivers.

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

#122

Post by FireBeyond »

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…

As another fire engine driver (now officer), this is why more and more departments are employing "blocker engines", old decommissioned, stripped engines to provide this security, without risking a $500,000 engine to $1.5MM tiller.

Also, anything that fails to assume that emergency traffic may be at a vastly differing speed from other traffic, or that emergency lights should _almost exclusively result in an autopilot disengagement_ (because their behavior should but is not always entirely predictable, particularly to a machine without sufficient context and/or experience) is to me inherently poorly designed.

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

#123

Post by FireBeyond »

smogcutter wrote: post #98
bg24 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going at 30-40mph in the right lane on a 4-lane all empty highway, when a gentleman flies at 60-70mph and hits us right behind, goes 360 turn with us and we hit the wall. Everyone survived without any medical incident (other than that I do panic and respectfully avoid those fliers now-a-days). Relevant because: - I hope my sprinter (size of mini truck, with upfittings) had an autopilot in the front/rear to spee…

This... sounds like it’s on you. If this is in the US, the “flier” is going the normal speed of the road, and you’re driving dangerously slowly. It’s hard to tell that something directly in front of you is approaching. It’s just not something our brains are good at, compared to detecting lateral movement. Especially when it’s so unexpected. One of the first things they tell you in motorcycle safety class is that “con…

He mentions being in a truck, but it's a Sprinter, which unless it's dangerously overloaded, should be able to manage more than 30mph up a freeway hill.

Australian driving law/principles state that "drivers should drive at the _maximum_ possible speed that is: within the speed limit, and safe for the conditions". Notably absent in this is "within your ability" as if you're not capable of safely driving on all roads, the balance of probabilities says you probably shouldn't be driving on _any_ roads.

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

#124

Post by gnicholas »

gbrown wrote: post #71
bg24 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going at 30-40mph in the right lane on a 4-lane all empty highway, when a gentleman flies at 60-70mph and hits us right behind, goes 360 turn with us and we hit the wall. Everyone survived without any medical incident (other than that I do panic and respectfully avoid those fliers now-a-days). Relevant because: - I hope my sprinter (size of mini truck, with upfittings) had an autopilot in the front/rear to spee…

The other driver was clearly 100% totally at fault, but I'm just curious: why were you going 30-40 on a four lane highway? Where I live that's at least 25 below the speed limit. Here it's mostly tractors and other farm equipment driving at those speeds.

In some parts of the US, the word "highway" is used to refer to roads (sometimes quite wide) that have stop lights and with speed limits around 40 MPH. I grew up in northern California, and we call roads without stop lights "freeways" and roads with stop lights "highways". There are various other terms, of course (e.g. "expressways"), but these are the most common generic descriptors.

I wouldn't assume that the driver going slowly was much under the speed limit, if at all.

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

#125

Post by gnicholas »

FireBeyond wrote: post #123
smogcutter wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This... sounds like it’s on you. If this is in the US, the “flier” is going the normal speed of the road, and you’re driving dangerously slowly. It’s hard to tell that something directly in front of you is approaching. It’s just not something our brains are good at, compared to detecting lateral movement. Especially when it’s so unexpected. One of the first things they tell you in motorcycle safety class is that “con…

He mentions being in a truck, but it's a Sprinter, which unless it's dangerously overloaded, should be able to manage more than 30mph up a freeway hill. Australian driving law/principles state that "drivers should drive at the _maximum_ possible speed that is: within the speed limit, and safe for the conditions". Notably absent in this is "within your ability" as if you're not capable of safely driving on all roads,…

GP said "highway", not "freeway". In some parts of the country/world, these refer to different types of roads.

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

#126

Post by FireBeyond »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #55
matt-attack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only highlights how incredibly dumb these autopilots are. They’re incredibly diligent but completely fail at the necessary skill of understanding . What is the point of any of this if the car with all of its sensors knowingly plows into a stationary red 30-ton obstacle. It’s something that a 4 year old human would understand instantly as an object to be avoided at all cost. I really think folks don’t realize how c…

Except humans crash into stationary vehicles in lane all the damn time. Most highway pile ups are a simple crash lots of folks drive into the back of. Why's it hard? A vehicle coming from a side road has a lot of movement within your field of vision. When driving on a highway we're well used to the fact and expectation that stuff isn't stopped. When the vehicle ahead emergency brakes or stops you have the growth of s…

By the time emergency vehicles are on scene, traffic has slowed. It's not like you're driving unimpeded at 60mph until "Oh crap, stationary fire engine with lights on immediately ahead of me".

> Except humans crash into stationary vehicles in lane all the damn time.

And Tesla's argument is that Autopilot is far safer than humans.

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

#127

Post by FireBeyond »

toast0 wrote: post #99
dahfizz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely ridiculous. Adults drive into stationary objects all the time. 4 year olds walk into stationary objects all the time. As far as I'm concerned, there is only one criterion that matters when evaluating self driving cars: is it better than human drivers? The fact that we are still discussing this _one_ accident that happened _a year ago_ indicates to me that the answer is a resounding yes.

Well, we could also talk about the time the Tesla accelerated into a gore point when the lead car followed the lane to the overpass. Or the couple of times the Tesla drove into a semi trailer. Or the several other stationary emergency vehicles they've hit. At least the semi's were moving. We don't really know how well the Tesla automation does vs human drivers, because the statistics are complex, and Tesla only gives…

> The capabilities that Tesla cars have aren't that much different than other luxury cars, ... because their marketing

It's actually somewhat impressive, if frustrating, how well Tesla's marketing works.

In a previous article here a couple of weeks ago, a Tesla owner was touting "how much better" Tesla's blind spot monitoring was than "other manufacturers", because it took speed differentials into account, while my 2015 Audi A4 did exactly the same thing. If you were faster than someone in your blind spot, it wouldn't activate. If speeds were similar, it'd activate at close range. If they were vastly outpacing you (I'd see it when adjacent to a HOV lane), it'd activate well within a safety distance to factor in speed differential.

While there are "dumb" Blind Spot sensors, multiple Tesla owners were of the fervent belief that this was an example of how unique Tesla's technology is.

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

#128

Post by StreamBright »

matt-attack wrote: post #37
Animats wrote: post #11

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 di…

It only highlights how incredibly dumb these autopilots are. They’re incredibly diligent but completely fail at the necessary skill of understanding . What is the point of any of this if the car with all of its sensors knowingly plows into a stationary red 30-ton obstacle. It’s something that a 4 year old human would understand instantly as an object to be avoided at all cost. I really think folks don’t realize how c…

Exactly. This is what I always point out to autonomous car people, driving a car cannot be modeled by ML too well, a simple fire truck parked in the lane makes it obvious.

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

#129

Post by FireBeyond »

jmpman wrote: post #108
Gustomaximus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they?

Because self driving car companies are putting a dangerous product onto the road, citing “safer than human drivers” in a disingenuous manner. Musk likes to cite autopilot as safer than human drivers, based upon accidents per miles driven. However, where are autopilot miles primarily being driven? On the highway. I expect a sober human driver to have a much lower accident rate than Tesla’s autopilot when driving the s…

> However, where are autopilot miles primarily being driven? On the highway.

Precisely. Autopilot has the luxury (need) for disengagement in suboptimal conditions. Human drivers don't have that. So Autopilot stats self-select for ideal miles. Of course, we don't have as concrete metrics for "how humans drive in clear dry well marked highways" to the exclusion of crappy conditions.

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

#130

Post by Simon_says »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #27
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…

This one time I go stopped at a fruit fly control point on the border between South Australia and Victoria, near Bordertown. The person staffing the control point indicated with hand signals for me to stop on the highway in the lane I was in. So I slowed down to walking speed and pulled off the highway into the car park next to the office. The agent then lectured me about not following instructions and that she could…

It's not the staff's fault. They're not working there because they display great independent thought.
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