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Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

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Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#151

I don't like Tesla and the premature "FSD" announcement was a huge set back AV research. An AV without lidar killing motorcyclists is not surprising, to say the least. And this is a damning report. That said -- and I might have missed this if it was in the linked sources, I'm on mobile -- what is the breakdown of other (supposed) AVs adoption currently? What other types of crashes are there? Are these 5+ fatalities s…

“This issue is unique to Tesla. Other self-driving manufacturers have logged zero motorcycle fatalities in the same time frame” Doesnt give number of driving hours for Tesla vs others though.

yes, it's missing the millions of FSD miles vs the minutes of drives of all of the rest combined.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#152
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lane filtering is apparently "lane splitting" at lower speeds.

They're different. Filtering is between stopped cars, splitting is in moving traffic.

This is completely arbitrary Internet lore. Unless you have local laws that define the terms, they don't actually mean anything. Also, if you're "filtering", then you will, inevitably, find yourself "lane splitting" when the light turns green before you reach the front.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#153

The other comment pointing this out has been (ridiculously) flagged, so I'll repeat the point that was made: The analysis is useless if it doesn't account for the base rate fallacy ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy ) The first thing I thought before even reading the analysis was "Does the author account for it?" And indeed he makes no mention that he did. So after reading the whole article I have no…

The base rate was discussed early in the article, but not by that name: > It’s not just that self-driving cars in general are dangerous for motorcycles, either: this problem is unique to Tesla. Not a single other automobile manufacturer or ADAS self-driving technology provider reported a single motorcycle fatality in the same time frame.

That gives you absolute rate, but not relative rate.

There are not many other cars out there (in comparison), with a self-driving mode. There are so many Teslas in the World out there driving around, that I think you'd have to considerably multiply all the others combined to get close to that number.

As such, while 5 > 0, and that's a problem, what we don't know (and perhaps can't know), is how that adjusts for population size. I'd want to see a motorcycle fatality rate per auto-driver-mile number, and even then, I'd want it adjusting for prevalence of motorcycles in the local population: the number in India, Rome, London and South California vary quite a bit.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#154

The point I soured on Musk was when he ditched radar/lidar and tried to go with camera's alone. This made me realize he is not the genius he is made out to be but instead he is a fraud/charlatan and over the years his statements on different topics have only hardened that belief. Why the fuck would you want ai cars to be the same as humans you should want them to be many times better and radarr/lidar sonarr type tech…

Multiple independent sensor streams is like having multiple pilots fly a plane instead of just one pilot. The chance of a fatal error (false negative identification of an object near the car) decreases from p to p^n. The size of that decrease is not intuitive: if p=0.0001 it now becomes a much smaller number with the introduction of a second pilot or second independent sensor stream (0.0001^2). Now the errors are not…

> Musk did not understand this.

more likely

he is a ruthless ** who doesn't care about people dying and slightly increasing the profit margin is for him worth more then a some people dying

regulators/law allowing self driving companies to wriggle out of responsibility didn't help either

lidar was interesting for him as long as it seemed light Tesla could maybe dominate the self driving marked through technological excellency the moment it was clear it won't work he abandoned technological excellence in favor of micro optimizing profit at the cost of read safety

which shouldn't be surprising for anyone I mean he also micro optimized workplace safety in SpaceX away not only until it killed someone but even after it did (stuff like this is why there where multiple investigations against his companies until Trump magiced them away)

the thing is he has intelligent people informing him about stuff, including how removing lidar will statistically seen kill people, so it's not that he doesn't know, it's that he doesn't care

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#155

The other comment pointing this out has been (ridiculously) flagged, so I'll repeat the point that was made: The analysis is useless if it doesn't account for the base rate fallacy ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy ) The first thing I thought before even reading the analysis was "Does the author account for it?" And indeed he makes no mention that he did. So after reading the whole article I have no…

The base rate was discussed early in the article, but not by that name: > It’s not just that self-driving cars in general are dangerous for motorcycles, either: this problem is unique to Tesla. Not a single other automobile manufacturer or ADAS self-driving technology provider reported a single motorcycle fatality in the same time frame.

To add, even if the fatality numbers are small, accelerating into a person is a pretty outrageous failure mode.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#156

I’m normally quite skeptical of these kinds of “Tesla More Dangerous Than Other Brands” headlines since they tend to be B.S. But this seems like a pretty legitimate accusation, and certainly a well researched write-up at the very least.

What gets me is that there are no other brands in Tesla's league. Tesla is the only consumer car that has "FSD" level ability.

The competitors have to use pre-mapped roads and availability is spotty at best. There is also risk as Chevy already deprecated their first gen "FSD", leaving early adopters with gimped ability and shutout from future expansions.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#157

The point I soured on Musk was when he ditched radar/lidar and tried to go with camera's alone. This made me realize he is not the genius he is made out to be but instead he is a fraud/charlatan and over the years his statements on different topics have only hardened that belief. Why the fuck would you want ai cars to be the same as humans you should want them to be many times better and radarr/lidar sonarr type tech…

> The point I soured on Musk was when he ditched radar/lidar and tried to go with camera's alone. This made me realize he is not the genius he is made out to be but instead he is a fraud/charlatan and over the years his statements on different topics have only hardened that belief. Yeah, he was arguably wrong about one thing so his building both the world's leading EV company and the world's leading private rocket co…

He was not wrong about one thing, he was frequently wrong. He is highly charizmatic bullshitter that gets away with fraud and lies, that can secure help from people when he needs.

But, he is frequently wrong, it just does not matter. He was occasionally right, like with Tesla back then.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#158

Prediction: over the next 4 years we're going to see lots of stories like this. Some of the stories will be fair, some won't. "Musk bad" stories get clicks. The next administration will be very anti-Tesla. Coincidentally, by that time self-driving will be considered mature enough to warrant proper regulation, rather than the experimental regulation status we have now. Combine the two, and the regulations will be writ…

> Not by name, just that the safety regulations will require a safety record better than Tesla's but worse than Waymo's.

That's not a bad thing if Tesla is significantly worse than Waymo. That's desirable.

The solution here seems like it would be for Tesla to become as safe as Waymo. If they can't achieve that, that's on them. Unfair press doesn't cause that.

I mean, I care about not dying in a car accident. If Tesla is less safe, and this leads to people taking safer Waymos instead, I can't see that as anything but a good thing. I don't want to sacrifice my life so another company can put out more dangerous vehicles.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#159
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of my point. We don't know from the data if the problem is that Tesla has worse FSD than the non-accident brands, or if all brands are equally good/bad and Tesla owners are more likely to use the feature. Tesla could very well have the best FSD software on the market and still lead the accident stats simply because how their users are (ab)using the feature (which I suspect is closest to the truth)

> Tesla could very well have the best FSD software on the market Tesla could very well have the best FSD marketing on the software. And that's dangerous. Data point: the "First To Gain U.S. Approval For Level 3 Automated Driving System" is ... Mercedes-Benz https://www.forbes.com/sites/kyleedward/2023/09/28/mercedes-... The second will be, IDK, maybe BMW? https://www.bmwblog.com/2024/06/25/bmw-approval-for-combinin..…

> First To Gain U.S. Approval For Level 3 Automated Driving System

It’s actually more a testament to Mercedes Benz’s ability to navigate regulatory slog.

VW would’ve passed emissions if the technicians didn’t take it out of the lab to test for on-road conditions.

Re: Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

#160
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other brands might have so bad FSD that people simply not trust it and basically never use it The issue is not quite how good the automation is in absolute terms, it's how good it is vs. how it is sold. Tesla is an outlier here, right down to the use of the term "FSD" i.e. "Full Self-Driving", when it's nothing of the sort.

That's kind of my point. We don't know from the data if the problem is that Tesla has worse FSD than the non-accident brands, or if all brands are equally good/bad and Tesla owners are more likely to use the feature. Tesla could very well have the best FSD software on the market and still lead the accident stats simply because how their users are (ab)using the feature (which I suspect is closest to the truth)

I would argue that if Tesla lies to buyers, then those act on the lie because they trust Tesla, then absolutely Tesla is responsible.
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