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Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

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Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#171

Post by Calavar »

sandworm101 wrote: post #55
NikolaNovak wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... I am "Tesla Hater" in that I don't like the direction they're proceeding in; but every human being I ever met in real actual life does rolling stops under some conditions. Last time I can confidently state that "I never rolled through a stop at very slow speed" is when I was 17, and only NOW do I realize how much of an annoying bum I was :P. So if a car does a rolling stop through a stop sign when there are…

It is one thing to note that humans regularly break the law. It is another thing to task people with programing a robot to break that law. I'm very sure that many people break the speed limit regularly. But I would never expect to get away with programing a car to break that limit. No sane person would ever tell an employee or customer that rolling stops are OK, not in writing. And 5.6mph isn't rolling. That's beyond…

> And 5.6mph isn't rolling

Most cars idle at 5 to 6 mph, so any roll through a stop sign is likely to break the 5 mph mark.

> Any cop watching an intersection would ticket this.

Not sure where you live, but this is absolutely not the case where I am. I have only ever once heard of a traffic officer ticketing for this. On the other hand, I see cops watch on as people ignore "no turn on red" signs and let them get away with it pretty much every day. Let alone rolling through an intersection at 5 mph.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#172

Post by ceejayoz »

ipaddr wrote: post #164
enlyth wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid and we were living in Vancouver, my mum told me how she did a 'rolling stop' through a stop sign at 4am in the morning with empty streets, and a cop car noticed it and gave her a massive fine. She was in tears because my family wasn't earning much money at the time. For some reason I still remember this story decades later and always come to a full stop at stop signs, that's how I was taught in drivi…

Sounds like a ticket to fight as the cop working at 4am would have a hard time showing up to court.

In my area, cops have specific court dates; all their tickets are set to be handled on the same day that's already part of the cop's schedule.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#173

Post by sebzim4500 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #83
NikolaNovak wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully support the noble notions and idealistic ideas. But let's make it real, and let's ask a question about the real world: Does that mean that expectation is all automated cars will go exactly the speed limit on the left lane of North American superhighways? If so, those cars will inherently be a danger to life and limb. I don't care about any self-righteous driver who indicates houghtily " I drive speed limit on…

Yes. For a company to program illegality into a product opens them up to untold liability. Normal car companies program their speedometers to read slightly high (5% ish). This keeps them from being into lawsuits by people who claim that an inaccurate speedometer contributed to the severity of a crash. Any car company who programs a car to drive faster than the limit will be either liable or have to pay lawyers in eve…

>Yes. For a company to program illegality into a product opens them up to untold liability.

People have been saying this for years yet Tesla is not being sued into nonexistence. Presumably their contracts are written well enough that if the user tells the car to go above the speed limit that's on them.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#174

Post by sandworm101 »

ipaddr wrote: post #164
enlyth wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid and we were living in Vancouver, my mum told me how she did a 'rolling stop' through a stop sign at 4am in the morning with empty streets, and a cop car noticed it and gave her a massive fine. She was in tears because my family wasn't earning much money at the time. For some reason I still remember this story decades later and always come to a full stop at stop signs, that's how I was taught in drivi…

Sounds like a ticket to fight as the cop working at 4am would have a hard time showing up to court.

A) Cops don't work such shifts for the weeks/months it takes to get a court date. B) Cops don't normally "show up" in traffic courts. They can often appear via electronic means. C) Cops have great respect for courts. If called, they show up.

D) If your only defense is the faint hope that the cop doesn't show, the judge is going to rain hellfire on you for wasting everyone's time. Court costs. Amended tickets. Contempt. Unless you are about to lose your license, you don't want to roll that dice. If you go to court to fight a traffic ticket you better have an actual defense.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#175

Post by beambot »

paxys wrote: post #22

I have felt since day 1 that "autopilot is better than the average driver!" is the most misleading fact/statistic in the industry. The "average driver" involved in an accident includes drunk drivers, road ragers, habitual speeders, teenagers, people driving in bad conditions (rain, snow), people driving without sleep and several other risky groups that most people buying Teslas aren't part of. To be worth it, the car…

Confounding factors matter.

E.g. I would not be at all surprised if drivers of high-end BMWs have lower deaths per mile due to older population, more affluent, etc.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#176

Post by rtikulit »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #49
sandworm101 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And because it's Tesla, not Honda. Every car company does marketing. Few make over-the-top safety claims about their products. This is the company that decided to have its cars not stop at stop signs. Normal rules don't apply to Tesla. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60230072 "In recall documents, the electric vehicle maker notes that if certain conditions are met, the "rolling stop" feature is designed to allow…

I mean... I am "Tesla Hater" in that I don't like the direction they're proceeding in; but every human being I ever met in real actual life does rolling stops under some conditions. Last time I can confidently state that "I never rolled through a stop at very slow speed" is when I was 17, and only NOW do I realize how much of an annoying bum I was :P. So if a car does a rolling stop through a stop sign when there are…

On a public road I almost always come to a full stop, and if I don't I recognize it as an error. That's the law and there are very good reasons for it. It's an unambiguous standard of performance, for example. Arguments for rolling stops based on personal utility are selfish, IMHO, and arguments pleading utility to others are disingenuous--the rolling stoppers say that it's safer to rolling stop because of the rolling stoppers? Please. Think it through. :-)

(Part of the reason I do it is because as I age I would like to ingrain habits that will make me a safer driver even as my cognitive ability declines.)

Near me there is an intersection where the same cars drive through on a daily basis and where the drivers have habituated themselves to rolling stops. Yes, it's almost always fine. But I have been almost T-boned twice, and was hit once, fortunately with minimal damage. And even though they do not have the right of way, their habit of rolling stops regularly pre-empts the actual rules of the road, and they cut off drivers who have the right of way.

That this is due to the normalization of deviance is abundantly obvious.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#177

Post by spywaregorilla »

mkipper wrote: post #163
spywaregorilla wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statistics are there to read however, and suggest your reasoning is not correct. Case A: Non Tesla Human drives 999 easy miles and 1 hard mile Case B: Autopilot drives 999 easy miles, and human drives 1 hard mile If the effect size of the hard mile is so large that its skewing the statistics, you would expect the Telsa human driver to have a horrendous per mile accident rate relative to the non tesla human driver…

Is this data available anywhere? How do I know that non-autopilot Tesla mile per accident rates aren't horrible? Tesla publishes their own data for the safety of autopilot, which I presume is based on their own analysis of accident records. Is this same detailed information available to other groups (insurers, NIST, etc)? Or do they just calculate an aggregate "Tesla mile per accident" rate that is a blend of the gre…

Tesla releases the miles per crash rates quarterly, for autopilot and non autopilot cases. Autopilot crashes include anything within 5 seconds of disengagement. The human rate tends to be more than 2x worse than the autopilot rate. This is not normalized for factors like road context.

The human rate for tesla driven miles tends to be ~4x better than the other brands' average. To precisely answer this question you would want to see both a comparable brand's humans' performance; and probably the split of humans who used autopilot and humans who don't ever use autopilot. We don't have that, but in my personal opinion there's enough evidence to suggest it's probably not a grand conspiracy. I'm of the opinion that autopilot being ballpark on par with other drivers is more than enough to reduce accidents substantially, at scale.

https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#178

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

But is it safer than human drivers?

This is the real question, because a "perfect" autopilot may be impossible because of cases where it must choose between sacrificing something outside the car vs its occupants and there will be disagreement.

Setting the bar at "perfect" is pretty unrealistic given that humans are already pretty bad.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#179

Post by maxdo »

andrepd wrote: post #51
gnicholas wrote: post #2

Underlying study is here. [1] Full disclosure, I co-wrote the piece for The Daily Beast [2] that originally suggested that Tesla's methodology was seriously flawed. I am not a Tesla-hater though — I just thought it was odd that the company was playing quite so fast and loose with their safety claims. 1: https://engrxiv.org/preprint/view/1973/3986 2: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-tesla-and-elon-musk-exagge...

>I am not a Tesla-hater though — I just thought it was odd that the company was playing quite so fast and loose with their safety claims. If you're still surprised by this you've not been paying attention to how Telsa operates.

No post body was provided.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#180

Post by ceejayoz »

dahfizz wrote: post #103
shihab wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An average person doesn't need to directly access the data. As long as journalists or researchers can, an avg person could rely on their analysis/opinion instead.

I would certainly not rely on journalists' to actually have a look at the data, let alone to have the technical skills to analyze and report on it. As it is, reporters don't bother mentioning / linking to the data, or mentioning the lack of publicly available data.

It's OK to expect better from both journalists and companies.
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