Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot • Hacker News Board

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#11

Post by rcxdude » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 7:58 PM UTC

shortcake27 wrote: post #10

golol wrote: post #2

I despise whoever wrote this article. It is almost completely devoid of any real information. Trying to gain an understanding of the situation based on the on the information presented here (Total crash and fatality numbers all time and last year, motorcycle numbers too) is impossible. If you want to talk about this subject, find the following data: Crash RATES of humans autopilot as well as other driver assistance s…

I don’t understand why this has been downvoted. The article is clickbait fear-mongering. It claims 17 deaths in 3 years is a “shocking” toll yet and focuses on a couple of nasty accidents, yet has no opinion, comment, or issue with the 40,000 people that die _each year_ due to human error (a figure quoted nonchalantly in the article). Articles like this prove how irrational humans are. Wanting to ban a system of driv…

It isn't actually safer, though. That's a pretty key point. Tesla has used misleading statistics in the past to claim that its driver assist (misleadingly labelled "full self driving") is safer than humans, but this is false. In the situations where Tesla's driver assist can be used, human drivers are much safer than they are on average, so comparing the accident rate directly does not tell you which is safer.

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#12

Post by tleilaxu » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 9:34 PM UTC

LispSporks22 wrote: post #4

Motorcyclist here. Generally, no sees me, but I’m especially suspicious of a Tesla behind or to the side of me.

Teslas may not I see you, but we do LispSporks22. You matter! ;)

I wonder how many deaths and crashes it will take for regulators to decide to start creating test frameworks that car manufactures must implement and pass.

It seems rather than creating such frameworks from the start as soon as it looks like it could be a problem, regulators wait until some particularly bad highly publicised event happens to bring such things in.

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#13

Post by wilg » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:12 PM UTC

These numbers don’t really tell you anything useful about whether Tesla is an outlier unless they’re normalized in some way, such as crashes per vehicle equipped with a driver assistance system.

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#14

Post by wilg » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:17 PM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #3

> Former NHTSA senior safety adviser Missy Cummings, a professor at George Mason University’s College of Engineering and Computing, said the surge in Tesla crashes is troubling. > “Tesla is having more severe — and fatal — crashes than people in a normal data set,” she said in response to the figures analyzed by The Post. One likely cause, she said, is the expanded rollout over the past year and a half of Full Self-D…

Worrying about it being a “beta” is nonsensical. It’s a hands-on driver-assistance system available to the general public and its safety should be evaluated thusly. The word “beta” is meaningless from a safety perspective and is essentially just advertising that the system’s ultimate goal is to be driverless.

Also, we don’t use affirmative consent for vehicle regulations, because that’s silly. Instead, you are able to weigh in via the normal mechanism of a democracy.

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#15

Post by wilg » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:19 PM UTC

x86x87 wrote: post #7

Who could have predicted that a vaporware implementation that's not even beta would be the cause of all these fatalities? Autopilot my ass. Just call it what it is (assisted driving) and set realistic expectations with the drivers to what its capabilities are.

Everyone who uses it is clearly warned that it is an assistive system, and are constantly monitored for attentiveness.

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#16

Post by x86x87 » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 11:00 PM UTC

wilg wrote: post #15

x86x87 wrote: post #7

Who could have predicted that a vaporware implementation that's not even beta would be the cause of all these fatalities? Autopilot my ass. Just call it what it is (assisted driving) and set realistic expectations with the drivers to what its capabilities are.

Everyone who uses it is clearly warned that it is an assistive system, and are constantly monitored for attentiveness.

Yeah. We need to make advertising it as autopilot illegal. It's not autopilot. Far from it. Also claiming X and Y but thw driver ia responsible is case something happens is shady af

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#17

Post by wilg » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 11:22 PM UTC

x86x87 wrote: post #16

wilg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who uses it is clearly warned that it is an assistive system, and are constantly monitored for attentiveness.

Yeah. We need to make advertising it as autopilot illegal. It's not autopilot. Far from it. Also claiming X and Y but thw driver ia responsible is case something happens is shady af

I really don't think the name matters from a safety perspective. Also, if you want to base it on the definition, you'll find that its a pretty reasonable analogy to an airplane autopilot. The pilot of an airplane can't just walk away while on autopilot. But I don't think the definition matters much, because I don't believe the name can cause significant safety issues, and also there is no evidence to suggest it is causing issues in practice.

Also, your other argument really depends on what "X" and "Y" are, and I think you'll find that they are not really claiming what you think they are claiming.

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#18

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 1:40 AM UTC

wilg wrote: post #14

heavyset_go wrote: post #3

> Former NHTSA senior safety adviser Missy Cummings, a professor at George Mason University’s College of Engineering and Computing, said the surge in Tesla crashes is troubling. > “Tesla is having more severe — and fatal — crashes than people in a normal data set,” she said in response to the figures analyzed by The Post. One likely cause, she said, is the expanded rollout over the past year and a half of Full Self-D…

Worrying about it being a “beta” is nonsensical. It’s a hands-on driver-assistance system available to the general public and its safety should be evaluated thusly. The word “beta” is meaningless from a safety perspective and is essentially just advertising that the system’s ultimate goal is to be driverless. Also, we don’t use affirmative consent for vehicle regulations, because that’s silly. Instead, you are able t…

[deleted]

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#19

Post by aaomidi » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 3:14 AM UTC

wilg wrote: post #14

heavyset_go wrote: post #3

> Former NHTSA senior safety adviser Missy Cummings, a professor at George Mason University’s College of Engineering and Computing, said the surge in Tesla crashes is troubling. > “Tesla is having more severe — and fatal — crashes than people in a normal data set,” she said in response to the figures analyzed by The Post. One likely cause, she said, is the expanded rollout over the past year and a half of Full Self-D…

Worrying about it being a “beta” is nonsensical. It’s a hands-on driver-assistance system available to the general public and its safety should be evaluated thusly. The word “beta” is meaningless from a safety perspective and is essentially just advertising that the system’s ultimate goal is to be driverless. Also, we don’t use affirmative consent for vehicle regulations, because that’s silly. Instead, you are able t…

Something like this should be up for a referendum.

We have seriously a lot more major and pressing problems. No one is picking and choosing representatives based on how they feel about beta testing software with the general public.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if the NHTSA rightfully bans large scale operations of this software until overwhelming evidence of it being “safer than humans” have been given.

This also includes fully disclosing the source and training material used to the NHTSA.

Re: Fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot

#20

Post by fzeroracer » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 5:29 AM UTC

shortcake27 wrote: post #10

golol wrote: post #2

I despise whoever wrote this article. It is almost completely devoid of any real information. Trying to gain an understanding of the situation based on the on the information presented here (Total crash and fatality numbers all time and last year, motorcycle numbers too) is impossible. If you want to talk about this subject, find the following data: Crash RATES of humans autopilot as well as other driver assistance s…

I don’t understand why this has been downvoted. The article is clickbait fear-mongering. It claims 17 deaths in 3 years is a “shocking” toll yet and focuses on a couple of nasty accidents, yet has no opinion, comment, or issue with the 40,000 people that die _each year_ due to human error (a figure quoted nonchalantly in the article). Articles like this prove how irrational humans are. Wanting to ban a system of driv…

Order of magnitudes safer according to whomst, exactly? Whomst is supplying that data? And what exactly is their vested interest in claiming that it's safer?