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U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#201

Post by filoleg »

treesknees wrote: post #156
CrazyStat wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want safety? How about a Tesla that is electronically incapable of speeding. That would be unsafe in many situations. If the flow of traffic is substantially above the speed limit--which it often is--being unable to match it increases the risk of accident. This is known as the Solomon curve [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve

> Subsequent research suggests significant biases in the Solomon study, which may cast doubt on its findings With the logic presented in the theoretical foundation section, it seems that the safer move would actually be slow down and match the speed of all the trucks and other large vehicles... which won't happen. Matching speed sounds great, except there are always people willing to go faster and faster. In my state…

To address your last paragraph, everyone going 85-90 is less safe than everyone going 70-75, you are correct.

However, you individually going 70-75 when everyone else is going 85-90 is less safe than you going 85-90 like everyone else in the exact same situation.

>there are always people willing to go faster and faster

That’s why no one says “go as fast as the fastest vehicle you see”, it is “go with the general speed of traffic”. That’s an exercise for human judgement to figure that one out, which is why imo it isn’t a smart idea to have the car automatically lock you out of overriding the speed limit.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#202

Post by peeters »

sandworm101 wrote: post #166
peeters wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Illegal (no signal) lane change results in a steering wheel shaker (and optional audio alert). To be clear, tying the warning to the signal isn't about preventing unsignaled lane changes, it's gauging driver intent (i.e. is he asleep and drifting or just trying to change lanes). It's just gravy that it will train bad drivers to use their signals properly.

Is a lane change without signal always illegal? I know that it almost certainly make you liable for any resulting accident, but I'm not sure that it is universally illegal.

This is technically true in Ontario (TIL).

> 142 (1) The driver or operator of a vehicle upon a highway before turning (...) from one lane for traffic to another lane for traffic (...) shall first see that the movement can be made in safety, and if the operation of any other vehicle may be affected by the movement shall give a signal plainly visible to the driver or operator of the other vehicle of the intention to make the movement. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 142 (1).

That said there's zero cost to doing so regardless of whether other drivers are affected.

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90h08#BK243

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#203

Post by dragonwriter »

sandworm101 wrote: post #166
peeters wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Illegal (no signal) lane change results in a steering wheel shaker (and optional audio alert). To be clear, tying the warning to the signal isn't about preventing unsignaled lane changes, it's gauging driver intent (i.e. is he asleep and drifting or just trying to change lanes). It's just gravy that it will train bad drivers to use their signals properly.

Is a lane change without signal always illegal? I know that it almost certainly make you liable for any resulting accident, but I'm not sure that it is universally illegal.

> Is a lane change without signal always illegal? I know that it almost certainly make you liable for any resulting accident

Usually, it makes you liable because it is illegal. CA law for instance reqires signalling 100ft before a lane change or turn.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#204

Post by merrywhether »

jdavis703 wrote: post #45
mrfusion wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be curious if there are studies out there on how to do automated assists in machines that require vigilance that don’t have this problem.

Both airplanes and trains have automated “assist.” At least in the case of WMATA they give up on automatic train control after a fatal crash.

This is a misrepresentation of the dumpster fire that was the WMATA train situation. Yes, the fatal crash was the last straw, but the root problem was not the automation system but rather the complete lack of maintenance that led to its inability to work properly. Congress refusing to fund maintenance and then falling behind 10-15 years on it lead to all kinds of systems failing. The fatal fire in the blue line tunnel under the river occurred with a human at the controls, but we’re similarly not blaming that incident on the perils of human operation.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#205

Post by politician »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #162
politician wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn’t defeating the self-driving attention controls a crime like reckless driving? Isn’t that the obvious solution?

It almost certainly is, at least when combined with the intentional inattention that follows. Making it a crime isn't an "obvious solution" to actually make it not happen. Drunk driving is a crime and yet people keep doing it. Same with texting and driving.

The problem is determining who is liable for damages, not prevention. Shifting the liability for willfully disabling a safety control puts them on notice.

Prevention as a goal is how we end up with dystopia.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#206

Post by nradov »

ra7 wrote: post #173
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall a particular incident where Waymo was marketing their car being able to drive a blind man to a drive-thru, way before the thing could safely drive more than a mile on it's own. My understanding is that in 2021, it still can't navigate parking lots (which would preclude using it for drive-thrus). Later, they were talking about how sophisticated their technology was: It can detect the hand signals of someone d…

> I recall a particular incident where Waymo was marketing their car being able to drive a blind man to a drive-thru, way before the thing could safely drive more than a mile on it's own. How is a marketing video relevant from 2015 relevant to their safety record? They weren't even operating a public robotaxi service back then. > My understanding is that in 2021, it still can't navigate parking lots (which would prec…

The workers doing road repairs in my neighborhood don't even use handheld stop signs. Just vague and confusing gestures.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#207

Post by ra7 »

nradov wrote: post #206
ra7 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recall a particular incident where Waymo was marketing their car being able to drive a blind man to a drive-thru, way before the thing could safely drive more than a mile on it's own. How is a marketing video relevant from 2015 relevant to their safety record? They weren't even operating a public robotaxi service back then. > My understanding is that in 2021, it still can't navigate parking lots (which would prec…

The workers doing road repairs in my neighborhood don't even use handheld stop signs. Just vague and confusing gestures.

I think in those cases a Waymo vehicle would probably require remote assistance. It's a really difficult scenario for a computer to make sense of.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#208

Post by laichzeit0 »

judge2020 wrote: post #14
crubier wrote: post #9

Predictable outcome of a sensing system fully based on deep learning. Rare unusual situations don't have enough training data and lead to unpredictable output. I still think that Tesla's approach is the right one, I just think they need to gather more data before letting this product be used in the wild unsupervised.

Current TACC/auto-steer doesn’t use deep learning except on the newest Model 3/Y vehicles with “TeslaVision”. All cars with radar use the radar and radar only to determine if they should stop for the following car.

How does TeslaVision work with stationary objects at night? Like say a big ass truck with its lights off? Do you just pray the vision system recognizes “something” is there? I know they want to pursue a pure-vision system with no radar input, but it seems like there will be some crazy low light / low visibility edge cases you’d have to deal with.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#209

Post by hermitdev »

zip1234 wrote: post #179
aembleton wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, these cars know the speed limits for the road Does it always get this correct, or does it sometimes read a 30mph sign on a side road and then slow the car on the motorway down to that speed?

I'm not sure how the cars know the speed limit. Maybe someone else knows? My guess is combo of GPS/camera to position correctly on road and the lookup of known speed limit data. Perhaps it reads signs though?

My car shows the speed limit of roads it knows. It uses GPS and stored limits. It also doesn't know the limits of non-major roads and doesn't attempt to show a limit then. My car is a 2013, and I've not paid the $$ to update the maps in that time (seriously, they want $200-$400 to update the maps).

Since I bought my car, Illinois (where I live) has raised the maximum limit on interstates by 10 MPH. My car doesn't know about it. If my car limited me to what it thought the limit was, I'd probably be driving 20 MPH slower than prevailing traffic, a decidedly unsafe situation.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#210

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

Retric wrote: post #199
Brakenshire wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have empirical data showing how safe actual level 2 self driving cars are in practice. Do we? Where does that come from? The data Tesla provides is hopelessly non-representative because it makes the assumption that the safety of any given road is independent of whether a driver chooses to switch on the system there.

Only overall numbers actually mater here, if self driving is off then that’s just the default risk from human driving in those conditions. Talk to your insurance company, they can give you a break down by make, model, and trim levels.

I am pretty sure that if I call Geico they will not provide me with those data. Am I wrong?
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