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New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

theautopian.com

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Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#111

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #107
Alex3917 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think what's interesting here is it's likely the first instance where Tesla FSD has been involved in an accident which affected other drivers. In a pileup like this it's basically never the fault of the front car, unless maybe if they are purposely causing the accident for insurance fraud or something. Maybe the driver will get cited for failing to maintain the minimum speed, but legally this isn't much different…

If I brake check someone on the highway, causing an accident, and it’s discovered that that’s what happened, I’d be pretty shocked* if the trailing driver was found responsible. That video looks like a combined lane change and brake check on the part of the Tesla. * and disappointed

[deleted]

Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#112

Post by MDWolinski »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #69
threeseed wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pulled over best it could If that is its best then FSD has no business being on the road. It was erratic and didn't give clear intent to other cars what it was trying to do.

IMO the car signaled, changed lane and stopped without slamming the brakes. It didn't collide with anything, the pileup was formed by human drivers driving too close and too fast for their reaction time. If it had been a human driver that saw a kitten or a rock in the road, it would probably slam the brakes. I'm not defending Tesla's FSD, which I think is inferior for Tesla's reluctance to use LIDAR in addition to ca…

A week ago, I Turo’d a Model Y for a week. We were driving around, 35 mph on a two way road with a bike lane.

We were going past a bicyclist in their lane appropriately. I had auto pilot engaged. As we passed the cyclist, they moved over towards us slightly, but never left the bike lane.

The car suddenly went into a full stop, which was a pretty quick stop.

I can understand the car may have thought the cyclist was going to go in front of the car, but the scenario wasn’t one in which a human wouldn’t have slammed the brakes. My wife commented that we’re lucky there weren’t cars. Whine is because they might not have reacted as quickly.

To me, this shows the potential danger of these safety systems false positives. Not that I wouldn’t continue to use the systems because I believe overall these systems make me safer than without them.

But as always, the danger isn’t the car I’m in, it’s the one driven by another driver who’s not paying attention.

Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#113

Post by MBCook »

giantg2 wrote: post #51

I'm kind of surprised that the feds allow it since the vigilance issue is pretty much a given.

I think, like much of technology’s history, this is one of those things where something got rolled out before anyone thought it was necessary to write legislation about it.

Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#114

Post by macintux »

Winsaucerer wrote: post #108
MBCook wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you watched the video? Its freeway speeds, a decently busy freeway, at a tunnel entrance that’s curving. Plus the car switched to the passing lane and abruptly stopped. This wasn’t going straight on a highway stopping in the same lane the driver was already in. I can understand how the conditions probably made it worse.

> Have you watched the video? Its freeway speeds, a decently busy freeway, at a tunnel entrench that’s curving. Plus the car switched to the passing lane and abruptly stopped. The Tesla car switching and abruptly stopping was a big problem, and I can understand that first car having trouble, but for cars behind the first one they should ideally all be keeping a distance ready for suddenly hitting the brakes in an eme…

Even the recommended 2 second following distance is insufficient when the vehicle in front of you comes to an immediate halt and there’s no room to switch lanes.

Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#115

Post by epivosism »

lofatdairy wrote: post #90
epivosism wrote: post #35

The question that is never answered in this kind of story is: 1. How many fatalities per mile does tesla FSD have, compared to its best alternative if we ban it? 2. Focusing on specific failure cases is not relevant since the political decision to allow it is all or nothing. 3. It'd be perfectly logical to accept road testing FSD, even if it's significantly worse in some areas, as long as this is not exploitable, AND…

The problem with point 1 is that it's just not good at convincing people. If you have a situation where automation fails but a human would have done better, then it doesn't matter unless the statistics are overwhelmingly in your favor, which I doubt they are in this case. This is a discussion that comes up a lot in medical technology, and if I had to guess why this form of rhetoric fails is not just because it's easi…

I agree. People take obvious failures as a meta-sign of "badness" and throw out the system and statistical information which we have which completely proves what we should do.

That said, at some point FSD could have been banned, it wasn't, and we are living in a world where it's likely saving lives on net. The only problem is if naive arguments to ban it are accepted despite them not actually challenging its net safety gains.

Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#116

Post by happytoexplain »

leaving wrote: post #105

This mirrors my experience of driving in America. People do not adjust their speed or following distance to the conditions. They drive like they have some sort of right to a road free of obstructions and to drive at the speed limit or above, no matter the circumstances. It's as if they expect the speed limit sign to adapt to the circumstances. They have the attitude, "Well if I need to slow down, why does the sign sa…

>You can't blame the Tesla for this.

It's so frustrating how mind-bogglingly polar everything has to be. Nothing in your entire post precludes the Tesla from being partially at fault. No matter how long you go on about how reckless American drivers are (and they are), none of it serves as one iota of evidence as to whether or not the Tesla behaved reasonably or whether its features were advertised properly. Why is absolutely everything either an admit-nothing attack on our "enemies" or an allow-nothing defense of our "allies"?

Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#117

Post by MBCook »

epivosism wrote: post #35

The question that is never answered in this kind of story is: 1. How many fatalities per mile does tesla FSD have, compared to its best alternative if we ban it? 2. Focusing on specific failure cases is not relevant since the political decision to allow it is all or nothing. 3. It'd be perfectly logical to accept road testing FSD, even if it's significantly worse in some areas, as long as this is not exploitable, AND…

So if an automaker can make a system that is capable of handling any driving task safely but occasionally ran itself off the road on purpose for no reason, as long as it’s a net positive in lives saved it should be allowed?

I don’t agree with that assessment.

It needs to make fewer mistakes than humans at all times, not just most of the time. Great with a disaster here and there is terrible.

Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#118

Post by amf12 »

Winsaucerer wrote: post #108
MBCook wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you watched the video? Its freeway speeds, a decently busy freeway, at a tunnel entrance that’s curving. Plus the car switched to the passing lane and abruptly stopped. This wasn’t going straight on a highway stopping in the same lane the driver was already in. I can understand how the conditions probably made it worse.

> Have you watched the video? Its freeway speeds, a decently busy freeway, at a tunnel entrench that’s curving. Plus the car switched to the passing lane and abruptly stopped. The Tesla car switching and abruptly stopping was a big problem, and I can understand that first car having trouble, but for cars behind the first one they should ideally all be keeping a distance ready for suddenly hitting the brakes in an eme…

In the police report, out of the 8 cars, only 3 cars were noted to have been driving unsafe for the stopped traffic ahead. The rest of the cars were propelled into the car in front by the car behind them hitting them.

Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#119

Post by moduspol »

epivosism wrote: post #35

The question that is never answered in this kind of story is: 1. How many fatalities per mile does tesla FSD have, compared to its best alternative if we ban it? 2. Focusing on specific failure cases is not relevant since the political decision to allow it is all or nothing. 3. It'd be perfectly logical to accept road testing FSD, even if it's significantly worse in some areas, as long as this is not exploitable, AND…

I think every discussion like this should start with each commenter counting verbally to 3,700. That's the number of people killed on roadways worldwide every single day. [1]

And that's daily. It's only every few months that we see a story like this, and this one had no fatalities.

It's totally fair to criticize Tesla, Autopilot, and/or FSD, but these discussions always implicitly accept that the status quo is acceptable, and whether or not this technology should be allowed is debatable. The status quo is an unimaginable amount of human death and injury that we accept only because it's been normalized.

Delaying self-driving cars by one year comes at a cost of up to 1.35 million human lives [1]. That doesn't excuse failures like these, but the context should be understood.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index...

Re: New video of Tesla crash demonstrates the problem of semi-automated driving

#120

Post by ClumsyPilot »

birken wrote: post #87
marktolson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend was using adaptive cruise control while towing a caravan. A car merged in front of him, his car applied heavy braking to maintain the desired distance (not necessarily to avoid a crash) but didn't compensate for the weight of the caravan. Almost lost traction, lead to heavy swerving. He's vowed to never use it again.

To be fair most people who are driving cars aren't towing caravans, so this seems like an extreme edge case. I heavily use adaptive cruise control and I've never had any issues with it, though I'm always ready to take over in case anything complicated starts happening. It's a nice feature because it saves a lot of energy when the driving is very easy, and then you just drive normally otherwise.

> this seems like an extreme edge case

Most ships don't sink, but we still have lifeboats. Most jet engines don't fail, but we still train pilots to land without them.

Its edgecases that kill.

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