Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405 • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#141

Post by hvidgaard » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 7:48 AM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #55

matt-attack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only highlights how incredibly dumb these autopilots are. They’re incredibly diligent but completely fail at the necessary skill of understanding . What is the point of any of this if the car with all of its sensors knowingly plows into a stationary red 30-ton obstacle. It’s something that a 4 year old human would understand instantly as an object to be avoided at all cost. I really think folks don’t realize how c…

Except humans crash into stationary vehicles in lane all the damn time. Most highway pile ups are a simple crash lots of folks drive into the back of. Why's it hard? A vehicle coming from a side road has a lot of movement within your field of vision. When driving on a highway we're well used to the fact and expectation that stuff isn't stopped. When the vehicle ahead emergency brakes or stops you have the growth of s…

> When the vehicle ahead emergency brakes or stops you have the growth of size of the target to gauge by. That's not much movement, until the last moment when it's far too late to evade.

You see the brake lights up, and as long as you're alert and keep some distance you're going to be alright. If you're not alert and/or driving too close you hit it.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#142

Post by lysp » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 7:50 AM UTC

newnewpdro wrote: post #78

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one time I go stopped at a fruit fly control point on the border between South Australia and Victoria, near Bordertown. The person staffing the control point indicated with hand signals for me to stop on the highway in the lane I was in. So I slowed down to walking speed and pulled off the highway into the car park next to the office. The agent then lectured me about not following instructions and that she could…

It always blows my mind when a highway patrol scolds me for not stopping immediately on the side of the road, instead pulling off at the first exit/intersection to make it safer for us. I'd estimate it's about 10% of the time. But on the contrary, I've also had them express appreciation for doing the same thing.

What I notice in Australia is when police want to pull someone over will often follow behind a car with their lights turned off until there is a safe area to pull over - then will turn on their lights. This might be a few minutes down the road.

Some people will immediately see lights flashing and pull over straight away without checking for a safe location, so by delaying their lights - it removes that out of the equation.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#143

Post by usrusr » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #61

matt-attack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only highlights how incredibly dumb these autopilots are. They’re incredibly diligent but completely fail at the necessary skill of understanding . What is the point of any of this if the car with all of its sensors knowingly plows into a stationary red 30-ton obstacle. It’s something that a 4 year old human would understand instantly as an object to be avoided at all cost. I really think folks don’t realize how c…

Sounds like dumb policy to me. Why wouldn’t it stop for a boulder or fallen tree?

Because false positives would cause dangerous accidents as well.

And worse (heavy cynism ahead): they would make the car look stupid even when not causing an accident, whereas boldly plowing into whatever might or might not be an obstacle makes the car look strong and confident, right until it looks all bent and crumbled. Car sales are incredibly marketing driven and a self-driving implementation that routinely chickens out of ambiguities that look easily solvable to humans would be a worse marketing problem than twice the number of accident investigations Tesla is facing.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#144

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 7:56 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #140

Dylan16807 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, though? I could buy a car with 3 star crash ratings, and people would be fine with that. I could get in a taxi with a mediocre driver, and people would be fine with that. Why does the comparison have to be to me driving, in a car like this ? When I'm shopping for a car, it makes sense. But for public policy discussions, what matters is how the safety ranks against the general population.

I get where you’re coming from, and I agree there the needs of public safety policy and self interest don’t always align. What I mean to say is, when car considering the safety data of any vehicle, it is insufficient to know that the vehicle performs better than whole-fleet. It’s also necessary to know whether any particular vehicle outperforms others in its class. One of those without the other is necessary but not…

More data is almost always better, but I disagree on what's sufficient. If a specific use case ranks moderately high vs. the entire US fleet, then that single piece of data is sufficient.

The driver that's above average but could be more above average isn't where we need to be fixing things. Not when there are millions of drivers that are either hyper-aggressive or senile still on the roads.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#145

Post by tom_ » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 8:13 AM UTC

smogcutter wrote: post #98

bg24 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going at 30-40mph in the right lane on a 4-lane all empty highway, when a gentleman flies at 60-70mph and hits us right behind, goes 360 turn with us and we hit the wall. Everyone survived without any medical incident (other than that I do panic and respectfully avoid those fliers now-a-days). Relevant because: - I hope my sprinter (size of mini truck, with upfittings) had an autopilot in the front/rear to spee…

This... sounds like it’s on you. If this is in the US, the “flier” is going the normal speed of the road, and you’re driving dangerously slowly. It’s hard to tell that something directly in front of you is approaching. It’s just not something our brains are good at, compared to detecting lateral movement. Especially when it’s so unexpected. One of the first things they tell you in motorcycle safety class is that “con…

There is no such thing as dangerously slowly - the fault lies with people that aren’t leaving enough room to take evasive action given their speed.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#146

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 8:17 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #144

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you’re coming from, and I agree there the needs of public safety policy and self interest don’t always align. What I mean to say is, when car considering the safety data of any vehicle, it is insufficient to know that the vehicle performs better than whole-fleet. It’s also necessary to know whether any particular vehicle outperforms others in its class. One of those without the other is necessary but not…

More data is almost always better, but I disagree on what's sufficient. If a specific use case ranks moderately high vs. the entire US fleet, then that single piece of data is sufficient. The driver that's above average but could be more above average isn't where we need to be fixing things. Not when there are millions of drivers that are either hyper-aggressive or senile still on the roads.

Okay, yeah, that’s fair enough.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#147

Post by Isinlor » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 8:27 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #135

Isinlor wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/VehicleSafetyReport?redirect=no In the 2nd quarter, we registered one accident for every 3.27 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 2.19 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accide…

It's still misleading, because the miles driven with Autopilot are only a subset of total possible miles, and specifically are a _smaller_ subset of total possible miles than "normal driving". To wit, if Autopilot is unavailable or disengaged because of poor weather/road conditions, a human still has to drive those miles. Autopilot gets the _best_ conditions to show its abilities. Humans get all conditions to show th…

As I said, whatever the reason, there are less accidents with Autopilot, than without. Autopilot is a convenience feature.

The question is: Are you willing to accept only 33% less likely hood of an accident with autopilot engaged as compared to when you drive on your own in not Autopilot safe conditions?

Do you use Uber knowing that their average driver will be ... well ... average, or just somewhat better than average? Knowing that the average driver baseline is 500 000 miles per accident?

https://www.technologyreview.com/f/612346/uber-and-lyft-are-...

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#148

Post by michaelt » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 8:30 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #124

gbrown wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other driver was clearly 100% totally at fault, but I'm just curious: why were you going 30-40 on a four lane highway? Where I live that's at least 25 below the speed limit. Here it's mostly tractors and other farm equipment driving at those speeds.

In some parts of the US, the word "highway" is used to refer to roads (sometimes quite wide) that have stop lights and with speed limits around 40 MPH. I grew up in northern California, and we call roads without stop lights "freeways" and roads with stop lights "highways". There are various other terms, of course (e.g. "expressways"), but these are the most common generic descriptors. I wouldn't assume that the drive…

Which is understandable when you consider there were "highwaymen" in the 1600s when the highways had nothing faster than a horse.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#149

Post by de_watcher » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 8:34 AM UTC

atoav wrote: post #114

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one time I go stopped at a fruit fly control point on the border between South Australia and Victoria, near Bordertown. The person staffing the control point indicated with hand signals for me to stop on the highway in the lane I was in. So I slowed down to walking speed and pulled off the highway into the car park next to the office. The agent then lectured me about not following instructions and that she could…

Interesting, I am pretty sure in Germany they do just that: they drive with you to the next exit. They have a huge display that tells you to follow. At least according to my anecdotal evidence.

In EU you've usually got an entire always empty "emergency stop" lane on the right side.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#150

Post by ed_balls » Thu, Sep 05, 2019, 8:34 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #27

dreamcompiler wrote: post #9

Fire truck driver here: People crash into parked fire trucks and ambulances and cop cars all the damn time . That's why we park the Big Red Truck at an angle behind the accident -- so that when the 2-ton car crashes into the 30-ton truck, the car will bounce off and the people behind the truck (us) won't be injured. I don't disagree that Tesla's software is partly to blame here, but the null experiment also has a lou…

This one time I go stopped at a fruit fly control point on the border between South Australia and Victoria, near Bordertown. The person staffing the control point indicated with hand signals for me to stop on the highway in the lane I was in. So I slowed down to walking speed and pulled off the highway into the car park next to the office. The agent then lectured me about not following instructions and that she could…

In my country the police cannot stop you on the highway. They have a sign at the back of the car saying "Follow me" and stop at the nearest parking. The speed limit is 140km/h.

I guess it's a bit safer when the speed limit in Australia is 110km/h