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Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

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Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#321

Underlying study is here. [1] Full disclosure, I co-wrote the piece for The Daily Beast [2] that originally suggested that Tesla's methodology was seriously flawed. I am not a Tesla-hater though — I just thought it was odd that the company was playing quite so fast and loose with their safety claims. 1: https://engrxiv.org/preprint/view/1973/3986 2: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-tesla-and-elon-musk-exagge...

So to summarize: - Freeways account for 93% of distance travelled with Autopilot - Freeways account for 28% of the distance travelled by regular drivers. - "vehicles on non-freeways crashed 2.01 times more often per mile" a quick back of the envelop calculation suggests merely driving on the freeway lowers accidents per mile by ~40%, which accounts for most of the difference between Autopilot and regular drivers.

From what I heard the autopilot code is pretty old by now, with the new developpement on FSD I think we will see a lot of improvement, in human driving... not so much.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in the context of regulations, they don't claim it to be self-driving.

Exactly. Marketing: "Self driving!" "The driver is only in the seat for legal purposes. The car is driving itself." Legal: "Maintain control of the vehicle at all times." Same with Summon. Marketing: "Bring your vehicle to you while dealing with a fussy child!" Legal: "Maintain attention and focus on vehicle at all times. Do not use while distracted."

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Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#323
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My friend bought a BMW in 2019 for similar money, it doesn't have half of that. Maybe you can have them but you have to buy extra packages for extra money. #1 lesson of buying cars is: 1. Don't buy German cars if you don't have to (or if you buy them, never complain about the price of their optional equipment). The corollary is: 1". Buy Korean or Japanese cars.

Or buy Škoda which is usually "last year's VW with everything included, for a lower price" :)

Except for the Superb, which was their own design and actually a notch above anything else made at that time by VAG.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#324
post #250
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, you don't even need Tesla "self driving" for that. Adaptive cruise control, tech we've had for what, 20+ years? is more than enough for most highways, it takes out ~80% of the stress/boredom of driving, especially since lane changes are minimal and curves are gentle. The hard parts of driving (aka not highways) are the real problem, as expected. We solved the easy parts in 2000 and who knows if we'll so…

I have a car with adaptive cruise control and lane assist, and most of my morning commute (on days when I go into the office) is driven on the highway. Most of the time I don't turn it on because I'm in a self-perceived hurry to get to work, so I forget. You know what would be really nice? Something that detects when it's safe and reasonable to suggest turning on adaptive cruise control so I use it more. Maybe someth…

i am thankful to turn autopilot on as soon as i reach a highway entry ramp. Even if i'm in no rush and fully capable, i want the assistance merging onto the highway. I don't want to constantly look over my shoulder for a window to get into the fast lane, I want one selected when it becomes available.

The hard parts are the whole point of autonomy.. the parts so hard that humans still fuck up and kill people. that's the ideal of autonomy imo and short of that its missing the point.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#325
post #44

I was just watching this video of a Tesla trying and miserably failing to drive itself through the streets of Boston: https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1488555256162172928 A number of these near-crashes seem to be pretty odd errors (a couple of times it just decided to drive on the wrong side of the street?) -- albeit ones that one _could_ see drivers unfamiliar with the area making. If a human driver started dri…

This is interesting. I have seen similar videos of Tesla self-driving successfully on similar type of streets in Seattle. I wonder if the quality of FSD changes from city to city based on how much data Tesla receives from other drives in that city. I guess I'm suggesting that Seattle could have more Tesla drivers than Boston. I have no idea if any of this is true. Just a thought.

It for sure does. Where I live, Oxnard it fails so badly I don't know how I was allowed into the beta. But if I drive down a few cities over it works well enough that if I didn't know better I'd say it's ready for public. It's just wild.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes. For a company to program illegality into a product opens them up to untold liability. People have been saying this for years yet Tesla is not being sued into nonexistence. Presumably their contracts are written well enough that if the user tells the car to go above the speed limit that's on them.

Because incidents involving these programs are very small. At the moment there are very few Teslas on the road in comparison to other car companies. There would statistically only be a handful at most of such accidents. But give it a few years until there are 10x or 20x as many teslas on the road. Then the class actions will start. That is if, like here, Tesla hasn't already recalled all such vehicles.

What are your odds and the amount you'd be willing to bet that this is true? There are sums of money and odds that I would be willing to play this at.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is one thing to note that humans regularly break the law. It is another thing to task people with programing a robot to break that law. I'm very sure that many people break the speed limit regularly. But I would never expect to get away with programing a car to break that limit. No sane person would ever tell an employee or customer that rolling stops are OK, not in writing. And 5.6mph isn't rolling. That's beyond…

> And 5.6mph isn't rolling Most cars idle at 5 to 6 mph, so any roll through a stop sign is likely to break the 5 mph mark. > Any cop watching an intersection would ticket this. Not sure where you live, but this is absolutely not the case where I am. I have only ever once heard of a traffic officer ticketing for this. On the other hand, I see cops watch on as people ignore "no turn on red" signs and let them get away…

Lol, I live in SF. I've seen two cruisers waiting at a red light watch a car go right through it and do nothing. I'm not complaining or anything, but that guy is defo wrong that cops will ticket anyone.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulators are asleep at the wheel.

Its kinda amazing to see the cognitive dissonance that people have when it comes to "regulators". When these regulators get swayed by the car industry into stupid stuff like 25 year import rule, or how they still keep speed limits around which have nothing to do with safety as they are based on outdated MPG savings initiative and end up disproportionally affecting lower income people, they rightfully are criticized.…

> When these regulators get swayed by the car industry into stupid stuff like 25 year import rule, or how they still keep speed limits around which have nothing to do with safety as they are based on outdated MPG savings initiative and end up disproportionally affecting lower income people, they rightfully are criticized.

> However, as soon as some manufacturer pops up and does something that the public doesn't like, even for silly reasons like not protecting people from themselves, people immediately jump to wanting the "regulators" to do something about it.

Weird how people want regulations that benefit the community and not regulations that are detrimental. Absolutely impossible to understand this.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#329
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kalra and Paddock's analysis is correct as far as it goes, but it's easy to misuse to claim that we couldn't feasibly demonstrate an autonomous vehicle is acceptably safe. It never got accepted for publication because the reviewers didn't think it was significant enough, but I wrote a paper presenting an alternative way to analyse autonomous vehicle reliability data (you'll have to take my word for it, but the review…

I am surprised a scholar would take these reports without a massive grain of salt. > In this study, all disengagement events listed in the company reports were included in the analysis. It is likely that in some cases, disengagements occurred as a precaution by the safety driver, and no adverse event would have resulted if the AV continued in autonomous mode. Take a look at [1]. It says that: > Waymo has developed a…

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Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#330
One thing I wonder about the safety of Autopilot (because I have never used a Tesla).

Doesn't the Autopilot sometimes just give up in difficult situations? Either explicitly, by stopping behind parked cars or things like that, or worse, by behaving so badly that the driver has to take back control for his own safety.

The worst case would be: autopilot doesn't see an obstacle, driver sees it at the last moment, takes back control, but it is too late, and crash. Is it an autopilot crash or a human crash?

Or: there is some road work, the autopilot cannot maneuver around it and gives up, the driver takes back control and crashes. It is clearly a human error, but still, the autopilot leave the short part where accidents are the most likely to happen the driver.

It things like that happen, it is almost as if the autopilot is to be used only where accidents are the least likely to happen, which can obviously explain why people on autopilot have less accidents.

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