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Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

latimes.com

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Re: Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

#41

Post by syrrim »

ajross wrote: post #22
lacker wrote: post #16

Automatic braking doesn't get much attention, but it seems like something that could be incredibly valuable if it got to the "clearly better than human" level. This is purely anecdotal, but I find the automatic braking system on my Mazda CX-9 to be fairly annoying. Once every couple months or so, it has a false alarm and brakes while blaring out alerts, in an urban environment where I don't observe anything out of th…

> Automatic braking doesn't get much attention, but it seems like something that could be incredibly valuable if it got to the "clearly better than human" level. It's important to point out here that a handful of back of the envelope analyses are out there that show that Tesla's autopilot is already "clearly better than human" level at avoiding emergency vehicles. These are very common accidents. Emergency vehicles i…

>In fact (and I don't have a link handy) if you extrapolate out from a few different data sources it looks like Tesla's on AP get in these crashes about half as much as vehicles in the general fleet.

Why use that as a comparison? The obvious confounder would be that people would disable autopilot in poor conditions, making such crashes a priori more likely. The relevant comparison would be Teslas (with and without AP) against a similar class of cars, maybe BMWs.

Re: Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

#42

Post by pmcollins »

asdff wrote: post #36
carabiner wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty neutral on Tesla/Musk, but I looked at this guy's (Russ Mitchell) writing history and it appears to be an unhealthy fixation on Tesla. His Twitter, and almost every article he writes, is about bashing Tesla. It's like he has real personal beef with Musk, a person he's probably never met.

He's a journalist, they typically get assigned to cover certain topics. Not surprising that he focuses on the EV space, that's probably in his job description for LA times.

focusing on the ev space != relentlessly bashing one ev company

Re: Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

#43

Post by sparker72678 »

gorkish wrote: post #19

My hypothesis on this is that all automaker's automatic emergency braking systems likely function at approximately the same level, but Tesla drivers are disproportionately likely to rely on it due to the use of Autopilot being so incredibly common. Statistically, drivers of other brands that include similar lanekeeping abilities are far less likely to use them compared to Tesla owners' use of Autopilot. Should it be…

This article addresses automatic emergency breaking, which is ON by default in the vehicles discussed.

Re: Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

#44

Post by seoaeu »

lacker wrote: post #16

Automatic braking doesn't get much attention, but it seems like something that could be incredibly valuable if it got to the "clearly better than human" level. This is purely anecdotal, but I find the automatic braking system on my Mazda CX-9 to be fairly annoying. Once every couple months or so, it has a false alarm and brakes while blaring out alerts, in an urban environment where I don't observe anything out of th…

How would you define "clearly better than human" for a driver assist technology? Like if 'driver + automatic breaking' gets into fewer crashes than 'driver', is that a success? What if the assist is constantly doing phantom breaking, but never hits anything?

Re: Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

#45

Post by choeger »

mindslight wrote: post #40
andrewia wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the flashing lights and appearance might degrade autopilot. Other cars also have issues because they use radar (except for some new models with camera-based systems like the 2022 Honda Civic) and ignore stationary targets when they see a moving vehicle as a more likely "target". Some systems use a combination of radar and camera (with camera providing low-speed, parked car, bike, and pedestrian detection). Th…

The human visual system is amazing at normalizing across many orders of magnitudes (cf HDR imaging), but yet with the evolution of LED lights and a lack of accountability, the lights on police cars have gotten way too bright for even human drivers at night. I wouldn't be surprised if the ultimate cause is a complete swamping of the cameras for everything that isn't immediately in front of the car, and even the lane l…

Well, if the computer can recognize the situation it can always slow down, alert the driver, and eventually stop. That's the nice thing about cars: There's always a safe default mode. I suspect that the computer cannot recognize this problem reliably, though.

Re: Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

#46

Post by peatmoss »

OT: I wonder why sites like the LA Times don’t offer a redirect to Apple News when the content is hosted there. I do subscribe to Apple News+ along with additional iCloud storage, Music, etc. I assume Apple gives LA Times something when I read the article vs. when I click away because I’m not willing to subscribe to more news sites than I already am.

Apple News link for those in a similar boat: https://apple.news/A9PXJ2JwHRouQSYO9lQh9tA

Re: Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

#47

Post by asdff »

pmcollins wrote: post #42
asdff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a journalist, they typically get assigned to cover certain topics. Not surprising that he focuses on the EV space, that's probably in his job description for LA times.

focusing on the ev space != relentlessly bashing one ev company

They are kind of the big cheese of the EV space and you could argue people relentlessly bash Tesla here too. Maybe there is something to these critiques of the company, rather than everyone and anyone just having an axe to grind.

Re: Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

#48

Post by mindslight »

choeger wrote: post #45
mindslight wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The human visual system is amazing at normalizing across many orders of magnitudes (cf HDR imaging), but yet with the evolution of LED lights and a lack of accountability, the lights on police cars have gotten way too bright for even human drivers at night. I wouldn't be surprised if the ultimate cause is a complete swamping of the cameras for everything that isn't immediately in front of the car, and even the lane l…

Well, if the computer can recognize the situation it can always slow down, alert the driver, and eventually stop. That's the nice thing about cars: There's always a safe default mode. I suspect that the computer cannot recognize this problem reliably, though.

Slowing down to under 40mph is not a safe thing to do on a highway and is illegal in many places. And suddenly slowing down is extra unsafe when there's a car right behind you that's also being blinded.

Re: Why didn’t auto-braking stop these crashes?

#49

Post by Someone1234 »

Because Tesla effectively doesn't have AEB while AutoPilot is enabled.

In a Tesla AEB should be an entirely self-contained ("dumber") system. Its only job should be to look for any ground-level object ahead and brake. It should do this using simpler but more reliable ("dumber") techniques like forward bumper-level radar or camera parallax, not NN/deep learning/object recognition/AI.

To use an analogy, AEB should be like two-factor authentication. If your "second" factor is the same as your first, then it isn't two-factor. In this case AutoPilot is the "first" and "second" factor i.e. it is AEB and in control of the vehicle.

So Tesla's vehicles absolutely have AEB, when AutoPilot is disabled, because it is offering a "second opinion" relative to the driver. So IIHS's ratings are correct in that instance. But as soon as AutoPilot is enabled it is no longer a "second" opinion and therefore may as well not exist.

Unfortunately Tesla aren't alone in making this mistake. We're seeing other vehicle manufacturers stepping into the vehicle automation space double-dipping their auto-drive systems into AEB. It is a bad practice regardless of who, AEB should be its own system with its own simpler/dumber logic that protects people from auto-drive mistakes, not compounds them.

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