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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?

#81

Post by syrrim »

ajross wrote: post #53
syrrim wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

That's nitpicking. There's an initial contention: "Teslas hit emergency vehicles frequently", and a simple refutation: "No, they don't, here are some numbers[1]". Your response only makes it "not impossible" that the initial contention is correct, but you have to show numbers to prove that. All we have is a cluster of 13 accidents over 3-4 years, and there are something like thousands of such accidents in the US ever…

The initial contention was that tesla's autopilot was superior to humans, at a specific task. If this were true, it would be very interesting, and represent real progress in the self driving space. Thus I'm interested in whether it's true, and proposed a method by which that might actually be determined.

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

#82

Post by kbos87 »

brokenmachine wrote: post #67
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…

What happens when the auto braking engages? Does it just slam the brakes on and stop dead? Wouldn't that be a big risk of you getting rear ended by someone behind you (especially if it's a false alarm)?

Yes, it goes into full anti-lock braking, but it only does this at the very last possible second it can be done without a collision - the driver usually gets enough time hearing an audible alarm to stop, provided there is enough time.

I haven’t heard of any rear end accidents due to false alarms with AEB, though that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I’d guess the system is tuned to need enough confidence that a forward collision is likely to engage braking, knowing of the potential consequences of suddenly and dramatically stopping.

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

#83

Post by ajross »

emn13 wrote: post #68
ajross wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What's the source for this claim? Are you accounting for the fact different classes of vehicle have differing accident statistics (e.g. comparing teslas to similarly old and expensive alternatives), and that autopilot's miles are not a random sample of all driven miles?

No, because it's enough that it exists as an existence proof refuting the hypothesis. The burden is on people contending that e.g. AP can't stop for emergency vehicles (or the related point in the linked article that emergency braking doesn't work) to show that it is unsafe. That analysis doesn't hold for obvious interpretations of the data we have. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it means you need to come to the table with more work. It's not enough to argue with me on HN.

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #35
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…

The one on my 2016 C-class Mercedes was so bad that it almost caused two accidents. If not for years of pingpong... I got rid of it after having it checked out and declared healthy, if that system wasn't broken it might as well be. Worse than useless. Don't get a MB with automatic emergency braking unless you want to covertly commit suicide.

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by willcipriano »

brokenmachine wrote: post #67
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…

What happens when the auto braking engages? Does it just slam the brakes on and stop dead? Wouldn't that be a big risk of you getting rear ended by someone behind you (especially if it's a false alarm)?

In my Passat it just barely taps the brakes rapidly to get your attention, I've never had it go further then that but in theory it will lock them up if you don't respond. If it detects someone in the lane you are about to merge into, it cuts off the power steering for a millisecond, just long enough for you to notice the car in your blind spot but not long enough to prevent you from going into the lane if you really want to. It's pretty close to perfect in my opinion.

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

#86

Post by vkou »

ape4 wrote: post #29
comeonseriously wrote: post #24

After several officers where nearly injured/injured/killed because drivers ran into them as they were stopped on the side of the road, some states instituted laws that say you either slow down to 45 or you move over a lane. Is that built into AutoPilot and whatever it's called on other brands? Humans have to do it, so cars should have to as well.

Every lane change is a possible collision. I wonder if that was taken into account.

> I wonder if that was taken into account.

It was, but as the moral accounting stands, it is better for ten 'civilians' to be hurt, than for one police officer.

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

#87

Post by spurgu »

namrog84 wrote: post #60
baybal2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Tesla even have a radar?

I dont think so. I thought their whole gimmick or goal was to drive entirely by cameras and nothing else. Because humans only have eyes. Though just speculation and no source.

I'm quite sure I've heard something pretty close to those words from Musk himself in some video.

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

#88

Post by peatmoss »

tzs wrote: post #51
peatmoss wrote: post #46

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/A9P…

It is not as convenient as a redirect, but on iPhone and iPad you can use the "Share" function when on the page in Safari and select "News" as what to share with and that usually works. I don't know how to do that on a Mac.

Thank you for the tip!

Maybe I’m making too many assumptions about how much Apple pays news sources when someone reads a news article. I’d have thought there’d be an alignment of financial interest in sources like LA Times to facilitating some sort of “read this article on X”, and for Apple in boosting value of News+. I wish there were more of a happy path to supporting journalism without needing to have 50 individual subscriptions.

I guess the moral hazard in a “pay per article” model would be a system that rewards clickbait (though I guess that’s the same as status quo with advertising)

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

#89

Post by ReGenGen »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #25

It always bugs me they trot out the Mountain View crash as an example where a Model X struck an unmarked and unprotected jersey barrier end in what visually looks like a traffic lane. Further that multiple human drivers had hit the divider in the same spot and a near fatal accident occurred literally the next day into the same barrier. If I put a brick wall on the freeway and paint it to look like a tunnel ala wil-e-…

If it fools .1% of human drivers and 50% of automated Tesla's I'd say is Tesla's fault.

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

#90

Post by flowerlad »

fwip wrote: post #73
Someone1234 wrote: post #49

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 l…

Notably, Tesla cars have never used Lidar, which is a lot more precise than radar, but it costs more.

Lidar costs have come down. Now it is around $1,000 soon it will be under $500

https://www.barrons.com/articles/lidar-is-the-future-of-auto...

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