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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”

#41
But should the P100D or any other car noted for its sudden acceleration even be allowed to exist? We're putting GPS radios on electric scooters so they can't exceed 10MPH in school zones, meanwhile drunk bozos can tap 1000HP if they want.

Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

#42
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> greatly reduce total sales of vehicles. This is one of those things that always struck me as a weird, poor argument... how is autonomous driving supposed to suddenly make everyone want to stop owning their cars and use taxis instead?

When you own a car, you typically only use it a small percentage of the day (it certainly is true of the average owner). When you're offering a ride service, that one car is being utilized a much higher proportion of the day. Ignoring the driver, taxi/ride-hail/autonomous-ride services are much more efficient uses of a vehicle over time. (And this is just a side note, but obviously if you don't have to pay for a huma…

When you own a car, you don't want to wait 20min before it's ready for you. You want to bring it in remote places where it will stay so that you won't have to wait 2h for it to come back. And you want to leave your stuff in it.

If you are ready to wait for a car to come pick you up, or to plan your trip based on the schedule of the car, and to pack your stuff in one bag that you can carry along...

... then, my friend, you are ready for public transportations :)

Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

#43
post #15

I'm not sure why they don't explicitly write in the report that the driver may have been trapped in the back seat, and was unable to locate or use the mechanical release to escape. While that wouldn't be a contributing factor to the wreck, it would be a contributing factor the the driver's death, and important for Tesla and their passengers to know about. The report states: The frontal impact with the tree resulted i…

That sounds pretty terrifying in an emergency situation. What is the reason for the rear doors working differently? I can't picture someone referring to their user manual or looking under the seat to open the door when the car is on fire.

This reads like a terrible design.

Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

#44
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NHTSA is on record as saying FSD was "definitely" engaged during the recent Bay Bridge accident in the tunnel. And notably, Musk did not chime in to blame the driver like he always does when the driver is at fault, which is very strong circumstantial evidence that FSD was engaged.

No, they aren't "on record". Go find the cite. One paper had a source saying that it was active within 30 seconds of the collision (which is like 3x longer than the time shown on the video we have). Look, the clearly most likely scenario here is that the driver got confused, overrode the AP, and then failed to maintain awareness as they commanded the sudden lane change. Obviously that's not what people want to hear,…

Tesla has already admitted to deactivating driver assist systems when they detect unavoidable accidents.

As for not seeing FSD behavior in that video...I do. It looks like the idiot Teslas I see every morning on my commute, randomly braking and swerving like drunk frat boys.

Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

#45
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mid 2000s LKA was passive systems in the US market: they were backups that vibrated the seat or steering wheel, or provided mild outputs. That meant they couldn't actively put the driver into danger, making them inherently safer than a system that will gladly drive onto a sidewalk Now what about active systems from back then? Almost 20 years ago Lexus had learned the lessons that Tesla kicked and resisted until about…

Are you saying a Lexus has never had a driver fatality from inattention? That seems ridiculous. What are you actually claiming here? If Lexus is safer than Tesla that seems like something someone can measure. Have they?

> Are you saying a Lexus has never had a driver fatality from inattention?

That appears to be a deliberate misreading.

The GP was pointing out Tesla refused to follow well known best practices from around the beginning of Model S creation. Despite it being pointed out to them as a reckless choice numerous times.

They never said Lexus was perfect, they showed evidence Lexus appears to have taken the risks involved seriously in a way Tesla hasn’t, as evidenced by numerous recommendations from NHTSA that they did not follow or followed belatedly.

Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

#46
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they aren't "on record". Go find the cite. One paper had a source saying that it was active within 30 seconds of the collision (which is like 3x longer than the time shown on the video we have). Look, the clearly most likely scenario here is that the driver got confused, overrode the AP, and then failed to maintain awareness as they commanded the sudden lane change. Obviously that's not what people want to hear,…

> it was active within 30 seconds of the collision (which is like 3x longer than the time shown on the video Merely stating it was active _within_ 30 seconds, that doesn’t mean it was deactivated at the 30 second mark. Or am I missing something?

I'm saying that it was probably active until the driver disengaged it to make that lane change. Everything about that video says "confused driver" and not autopilot misbehavior. The car will let the blinkers run for 3-4 seconds before a lane change, and it's very cautious about when to do it (much more so than a human driver would be).

Do I have proof? Of course not, it's not my car. But that's what it looks like. And I'm pointing out that this is exactly what happened in the accident in the linked article, where Tesla drivers were all pointing out how this just didn't match AP behavior[1]. And they were ignored. And they were right. Just wait.

[1] In that case: the version of autopilot at the time would only engage on roads with lane markings, and this road didn't have them. Also the speed of the collision could only be reached on that tiny road with manually-commanded acceleration, AP is quite timid.

Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

#47
post #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 reckle…

> “Excessive speed" and "alcohol intoxication" -- two common causes of human driver failure.

Amazingly it’s worse than that. He was also on pills that would react with the alcohol to make things worse.

I’ll say I’m very surprised by the areal photo in the report. I was under the impression the driver (man or machine) had gone a real distance at speed before the accident. Which did lead some credence in my mind a driver assist system had been helping it along if the driver was slow to react/inattentive.

He could have pulled out of that driveway, hit the gas, and it happened. The trip had barely begun. You could do this crash easy in a 1960s sedan, no ADAS needed.

Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

#48
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mid 2000s LKA was passive systems in the US market: they were backups that vibrated the seat or steering wheel, or provided mild outputs. That meant they couldn't actively put the driver into danger, making them inherently safer than a system that will gladly drive onto a sidewalk Now what about active systems from back then? Almost 20 years ago Lexus had learned the lessons that Tesla kicked and resisted until about…

Are you saying a Lexus has never had a driver fatality from inattention? That seems ridiculous. What are you actually claiming here? If Lexus is safer than Tesla that seems like something someone can measure. Have they?

I gave a concrete example of a systematic decision that Tesla is making that has resulted in avoidable deaths. I showed how a comparable system was trivially capable of avoiding the same cause of death due to its manufacturer making a decision in the opposite direction of Tesla: Putting human life above the marketability of a piece of tech.

If you want to somehow "interpret" into saying no one has ever died driven distracted in a Lexus, you're free to, but that's a leap I won't bother engaging with.

There's always some room for (mis)interpretation, but I think you're taking a football field on this one.

Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

#49
post #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 reckle…

We already have self driving that works and it's called a train. Instead of dumping money into self driving we should improve infrastructure and motivate more people to take trains.

Re: Cause of Fatal 2021 Tesla Wreck Was “Excessive Speed” and “Alcohol Intoxication”

#50
post #42
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you own a car, you typically only use it a small percentage of the day (it certainly is true of the average owner). When you're offering a ride service, that one car is being utilized a much higher proportion of the day. Ignoring the driver, taxi/ride-hail/autonomous-ride services are much more efficient uses of a vehicle over time. (And this is just a side note, but obviously if you don't have to pay for a huma…

When you own a car, you don't want to wait 20min before it's ready for you. You want to bring it in remote places where it will stay so that you won't have to wait 2h for it to come back. And you want to leave your stuff in it. If you are ready to wait for a car to come pick you up, or to plan your trip based on the schedule of the car, and to pack your stuff in one bag that you can carry along... ... then, my friend…

Those might be considerations for you. For many others, they'll love their car out earning revenue when they don't need it, and plenty of people who want door-to-door clean transportation without having to wait at a bus stop and without having to own a car.
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