Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#181

Post by therein » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 5:32 AM UTC

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #175

greglindahl wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. I never see Teslas going the speed limit in the HOV lane on 101.

Just driving on Autopilot at the speed of traffic but at a safe stopping distance is enough to prompt a minority of assholes to aggressively tailgate and then pass and insert themselves into that empty space in front. Happens most days.

The reason is often because what you think is the speed of the traffic is actually the speed of the asshole in front of you that's going much slower than he could on a congested route.

It doesn't take a single car to reduce the speed of a lane. It takes exactly two. One to slow it down, and the other one to stop the others from letting the guy in the front know that he is going too slow.

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#182

Post by _ea1k » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

hexane360 wrote: post #61

_ea1k wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I've only really heard this misunderstanding from non-owners. The really scary ones are the ones that own it, know about the limitations, and intentionally bypass the safeguards.

I don't disagree, but I honestly have not really heard much from owners. Definitely not nearly enough to call it a representative sample.

I do not own one, but I am on the Tesla Reddit pretty regularly. It gets a regular stream of posts from people about how often it tries to deviate them into turn lanes or other unexpected behavior.

To be clear, these are from people who really like the feature and find it useful, but they are really aware that it has to be watched just like if they were 100% manipulating the controls.

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#183

Post by SheinhardtWigCo » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC

therein wrote: post #181

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just driving on Autopilot at the speed of traffic but at a safe stopping distance is enough to prompt a minority of assholes to aggressively tailgate and then pass and insert themselves into that empty space in front. Happens most days.

The reason is often because what you think is the speed of the traffic is actually the speed of the asshole in front of you that's going much slower than he could on a congested route. It doesn't take a single car to reduce the speed of a lane. It takes exactly two. One to slow it down, and the other one to stop the others from letting the guy in the front know that he is going too slow.

I’m aware what speed of traffic means. The actual reason for the phenomenon I described is that there are a lot of hyper-aggressive low-skilled drivers out there. Note that “skill” in this context means driving in a way that optimizes for keeping yourself and your fellow commuters alive so we can all go home to our families; not an ability to weave through traffic and teach slow drivers a thing or two about blocking lanes.

Please drive safely.

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#184

Post by jsjohnst » Sat, Jan 27, 2018, 12:01 AM UTC

Bromskloss wrote: post #174

jsjohnst wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most commercial airline autopilots in use today could land the plane on auto if desired by the flight crew, so no, they don’t “just maintains a heading and an altitude”.

I think we all know that such technology exists. That is why I specifically said "in the traditional sense", to point out that I'm talking about what the word was invented for.

But you missed speed. “In the traditional sense”, that’s also handled.