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Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

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211–220 of 315 posts

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#211
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't turn on your turn signal and you weave to the left to pass them ...oh nice, the car scares you into remembering that you should always signal passing maneuver with your blinker! Another case where this system goes awry: in light drizzle, cars leave wet trails behind that shine and this system will mistake them for lane markings. I have to turn LTA off in such condition or it would steer me right off th…

There are a lot of cases where you pass a line without indicating though. There are also a lot of cases where a line ease off to the side in a turn-off that would guide the lane assisted vehicle off the road. Just do a google search for these kinds of cases. This technology is immature and dangerously fails in a lot of cases already.

> There are a lot of cases where you pass a line without indicating though.

I'm curious to know what those circumstances are. I'm just a dumb American driver but even I was taught you always use your indicator when changing lanes: turning, passing, merging, parallel parking. I don't know where at any point you are not required to use the indicator.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#212

While I don't know how good Tesla's self-driving is, I do have experience with a limited keep-your-lane system in a BMW. The one that actually steers. It requires a lot of force to override it. And remember, it requires you to keep the hands on the wheel. But you are not expecting to have to fight it, so there are some delays there. Then you're fighting a system that you don't know how much force it takes to override…

Teslas don’t require much force at all to disengage.

The Kia lane following, if anything, is a bit too weak (it follows more lazily than I would) but it certainly doesn't require any major force to overcome it - and most important - it does NOT disengage if you nudge it back to the right place, it just accepts the new normal and keeps going.

Similarly it's smart enough to NOT disengage cruise control if you hit the gas, but will if you tap the brakes (which you don't often need to do because the space management works decently well).

Ten years ago I would feel pretty comfortable driving any vehicle (up to and including double-shifted manual transmission military trucks).

Now I feel each new car needs a separate training regiment because all the automated systems operate so differently from each other.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they also changed "Full" to "Limited" (or "Not Full"), it would be cleared up. "Full Self Driving" and "vehicle is not autonomous" is still confusing to English speakers, IMO.

Sure, which is why they have dedicated entire sections to outlining it's exact capabilities, as well as software alerts and warnings you must accept before enabling the feature. > Before enabling Autopilot, the driver first needs to agree to “keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times” and to always “maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle.” Subsequently, every time the driver engages Autopilot,…

I'd say only in this industry but it's not true, it just means technical people are human.

How does that saying go? You'll never convince someone of a fact that their income depends on not knowing?

When someone writes code that is very difficult for anyone else to grok it's the code writers fault, but when someone has a misapprehension of a feature of a car, because it's on the tin SOMEWHERE, it's the fault of the customer who often times is unsophisticated in terms of vehicles and tech within vehicles.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#214
post #44
post #3

> Von Ohain and Rossiter had been drinking, and an autopsy found that von Ohain died with a blood alcohol level of 0.26 — more than three times the legal limit — a level of intoxication that would have hampered his ability to maintain control of the car, experts said. The details make this seem less of an autonomous driving issue and more of an incredibly irresponsible operation issue.

I’m not sure what “0.26” exactly means, but if it’s what I interpret to be that’s about one beer for a typical male adult. It’s not nothing but it’s not a lot either.

I have no idea what some of the other commenters are talking about, but

  - 0.26 is around "blackout drunk" (I am not sure I have ever drank this much)
  - 0.20 is when I know that I have made a terrible mistake, definitely "wasted" as we say (though I haven't drank like this for many *many* years).
  - I begin to feel dizzy and ill at around 0.15ish... 
  - 0.1 is a drunk feeling.
  - 0.8 is the legal driving limit in most US states.
Source: I carry various breathalyzers with me whenever I drink. I probably have a higher tolerance than most though.

And here are some other sources for you:

https://www.utoledo.edu/studentaffairs/counseling/selfhelp/s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content

Also, one thing to note about these charts, they are pretty conservative. One drink is rarely 0.02 unless you rarely drink, and had this one drink on an empty stomach, or are a very small person. Or maybe if you take a shot and measure it 10 minutes later.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6. Refuse to turn over crash data you have to investigators 7. Somehow manage to set conditions that prohibit the government from disclosing the data you do eventually provide Edit: forgot one! 8. Decide that RADAR sensors are too expensive, and stop using them. But because you don't want owners, the public, press, or regulators to see how much worse the stereo camera systems perform compared to combined radar and an…

Well, I mean I think it’s expensive to try to maintain two systems - one with LIDAR and the other without.

one would expect that to be a part of the calculus for stopping to offer them, but apparently it wasn't.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#216

This is a sensationalized hit piece against Tesla Autopilot. It is definitely unfortunate the drunk employee operating the car was involved in a crash, that at least from the wp reporting sounds avoidable—Autopilot active or not. Any death is unfortunate, and an opportunity to improve vehicle safety. Tesla's Q4 2023 stats should speak for themselves: > In the 4th quarter, we recorded one crash for every 5.39 million…

And this is a misinformed comment from someone who blindly parrots Tesla's numbers even though we know, for a fact, that Tesla doesn't follow industry reporting practices by redacting, obscuring, hiding information. Their numbers don't even normalize or otherwise account for different roads, road conditions, environmental conditions, cars involved and their safety systems, or drivers behind the wheel. If they were in…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#217
post #3

> Von Ohain and Rossiter had been drinking, and an autopsy found that von Ohain died with a blood alcohol level of 0.26 — more than three times the legal limit — a level of intoxication that would have hampered his ability to maintain control of the car, experts said. The details make this seem less of an autonomous driving issue and more of an incredibly irresponsible operation issue.

> The details make this seem less of an autonomous driving issue and more of an incredibly irresponsible operation issue. In every single discussion with Tesla fans re: FSD, we hear that "FSD is safer NOW than human drivers", but every time there's an accident it's the driver's fault. At what point are Tesla accountable for the mixed messaging around this product?

That's not really relevant here though as there is no claim of 100% perfection with AP/FSD, nor did I advocate for support of Tesla here.

This feature requires acknowledging multiple documents staying that it may make errors and is not to be classified as an autonomous driving system. This is present when you purchase the feature, in the tutorial videos about what the car is capable of, in a screen you must read before enabling this feature, and repeated in every set of release notes that appear on each update.

I fail to see why all blame for impaired driving evaporates because the manufacturer of the car is Tesla.

Let's put on the Product Manager hat. How would you convey to a user that they should use a feature in a responsible manner?

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#218
post #48

As I said in another comment, these two were idiots driving drunk. Let's get that out of the way. The bigger issue here is how this deniability is all too convenient for Tesla. The process goes like this: 1. Ship a clearly half baked system called "Full Self Driving". 2. Require driver's hands on the wheel at all times. 3. Be extremely non-transparent about your system's safety. Tesla's crash reports in the public NH…

6. Refuse to turn over crash data you have to investigators 7. Somehow manage to set conditions that prohibit the government from disclosing the data you do eventually provide Edit: forgot one! 8. Decide that RADAR sensors are too expensive, and stop using them. But because you don't want owners, the public, press, or regulators to see how much worse the stereo camera systems perform compared to combined radar and an…

Anecdotal, but I have a car with radar installed, didn’t notice that it was disabled, fwiw. It’s better now than when the car was new.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be legal, but in court what you advertise the car can do generally has high weight than what you put in the warning documentation. Thus Tesla is stupid for making any such claims as now they have admitted in court they think their car is fully self driving which means the car should be liable. Even if Tesla can prove that the car was under manual control the courts are still justified for finding Tesla for a…

What absurd logical leaps. If this is so clearly the case, then I don't know why every single law firm in the country isn't scrambling to sue Tesla via a class-action right this minute.

Can you bring this up to class action? I'd expect this to more be relevant when the family of someone killed wants to sue. Or more likely the insurance company who just had to pay out some $$$ that they want to recover.

Re: Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Self-Driving' fatality

#220

While I don't know how good Tesla's self-driving is, I do have experience with a limited keep-your-lane system in a BMW. The one that actually steers. It requires a lot of force to override it. And remember, it requires you to keep the hands on the wheel. But you are not expecting to have to fight it, so there are some delays there. Then you're fighting a system that you don't know how much force it takes to override…

It takes very little force to disengage in the Tesla, at least when it works properly (I haven’t had it work improperly, but I could imagine a bug that prevented it from detecting that causing issues).
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