Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
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Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
#2This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. The NTSB found that none of the driver-assistance features were activated, and the driver was probably tossed into the backseat from the impact:
Although the driver’s seat was found vacant and the driver was found in the left rear seat, the available evidence suggests that the driver was seated in the driver’s seat at the time of the crash and moved into the rear seat postcrash. Specifically, residential security video showed both the driver and passenger getting into the front seats prior to driving away from the residence. In addition, the EDR data showed active accelerator pedal inputs consistent with driver activity in the 5 seconds prior to the impact with the tree, and that the driver’s seat belt was connected at the time of the crash. Finally, the steering wheel examination conducted by the NTSB Materials Laboratory indicated an impact to the upper left quadrant, consistent with the driver loading the steering wheel during a frontal crash.
The entire journey appears to have lasted less than a minute (9:07pm is mentioned both as the time the car left the driveway, and as the time of the crash), so it's unlikely the driver jumped into the back seat as a stunt while driving.
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...
Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
#3How can a Tesla can even be old enough to drink
Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
#4How can a Tesla can even be old enough to drink
Tesla is further ahead in AI than any of us thought!
Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
#5This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. The NTSB found that none of the driver-assistance features were activated, and the driver was probably tossed into the backseat from the impact: Although the driver’s seat was found vacant and the driver was found in the left rear seat, the available evidence suggests that…
> This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature.
And the fact that this was media disinformation won't matter much, because the damage to the Tesla brand and the idea of self driving cars in the public's collective consciousness has already been done, and won't easily be undone by these newly revealed facts.
"A lie makes it halfway around the world before the truth even gets its boots on."
Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
#6This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. The NTSB found that none of the driver-assistance features were activated, and the driver was probably tossed into the backseat from the impact: Although the driver’s seat was found vacant and the driver was found in the left rear seat, the available evidence suggests that…
> This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. And the fact that this was media disinformation won't matter much, because the damage to the Tesla brand and the idea of self driving cars in the public's collective consciousness has already been done, and won't easily be undone by these newly revealed facts. "A lie mak…
Tesla is damaging the idea of self-driving cars in spite of the media, not because of it.
Self driving cars were billed as the cool new thing. Then Tesla started charging people for "Full Self Driving" with a system that regresses from basic LKA that was shipping in the mid 2000s in terms of safety by using public roads for beta testing an intentionally hamstrung* L2-billed-as-L5 driving stack.
It's frustrating to watch as someone working in the AV space, and it's silly to act like this one case was isolated enough that the fact it was wrong changes any of that reality. We know Tesla's stack has killed people: it became normalized once the first few times it happened they were able to get away with victim blaming. By 2021 it was already accepted, this incident was already business as usual.
*humans just need eyes so self driving cars just need cameras
Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
#7Does NTSB investigate every car crash with a death? Or just Tesla?
Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
#8This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. The NTSB found that none of the driver-assistance features were activated, and the driver was probably tossed into the backseat from the impact: Although the driver’s seat was found vacant and the driver was found in the left rear seat, the available evidence suggests that…
> This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. And the fact that this was media disinformation won't matter much, because the damage to the Tesla brand and the idea of self driving cars in the public's collective consciousness has already been done, and won't easily be undone by these newly revealed facts. "A lie mak…
> And the fact that this was media disinformation won't matter much, because the damage to the Tesla brand and the idea of self driving cars in the public's collective consciousness has already been done, and won't easily be undone by these newly revealed facts.
The "damage to the Tesla brand and the idea of self driving cars" wasn't caused solely by this one incident.
> "A lie makes it halfway around the world before the truth even gets its boots on."
It's not a lie to say cigarettes kill people by lung cancer, even if it's later proven that one smoker who died in some study actually got lung cancer from a different cause.
Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
#9"Excessive speed" and "alcohol intoxication" -- two common causes of human driver failure.
Other causes of human driver failure include driving while tired or exhausted, falling asleep at the wheel, driving while angry or upset, getting bored while driving, using the car's infotainment system while driving, using a mobile phone while driving, getting distracted by passengers, smoking pot while driving, being a recklessly immature teenager (or a grown-up idiot), lacking the bare minimum of driving skills that every driver on the road is supposed to have, and so on. The list of causes of human driver failure is long. There are a lot of horrifically dangerous human drivers -- look around you next time you're on the road.
Notably, machines are immune to all these human failure modes.
I'm looking forward to the day in which cars drive themselves well enough to rid the roads of so much dangerous human driving.
Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This was the one where the media reported that because nobody was found in the front seat it must have been the fault of the self-driving feature. And the fact that this was media disinformation won't matter much, because the damage to the Tesla brand and the idea of self driving cars in the public's collective consciousness has already been done, and won't easily be undone by these newly revealed facts. "A lie mak…
Tesla is damaging the idea of self-driving cars in spite of the media, not because of it. Self driving cars were billed as the cool new thing. Then Tesla started charging people for "Full Self Driving" with a system that regresses from basic LKA that was shipping in the mid 2000s in terms of safety by using public roads for beta testing an intentionally hamstrung* L2-billed-as-L5 driving stack. It's frustrating to wa…
The thing is, I would have thought that Tesla's stance on repairability alone would have made their brand radioactive to the average Hacker News commenter, way before the Pedo Guy accusations or Elon Musk burning a bunch of money to make Twitter worse. Tesla is everything we claim to hate about Apple.