An Update on Last Week’s Accident • Hacker News Board

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#181

Post by fcantournet » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:33 AM UTC

kristianc wrote: post #180

pja wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority. Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles wit…

> Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles with (relatively) wealthy drivers who can afford to keep them maintained & will…

Statistically if you're wealthy enough to own a Tesla, you're also way less likely to have to drive when tired/under the influence for example.

All sorts of constraints are correlated with wealth that put you in way more risky situations if you're poorer.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#182

Post by bufferoverflow » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:35 AM UTC

sweden wrote: post #170

jVinc wrote: post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones. Actually, they are are to detect them but just not where they come from, so a barrier in the middle of the road and a traffic sign on the side of the street, they would look like the same to the RADAR system. But to be honest, I am more worried with the markings of the road rather than the inability of the autopilot of n…

> It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones. Actually, they are are to detect them but just not where they come from

That doesn't make any sense. Radar systems do detect stationary objects just fine. In fact, from the point of view of the moving car, almost nothing is stationary.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're correct about the markings on the road, I almost crashed into a temporary barrier driving at night, because there were two sets of lane markings - the old ones, and the ones going around the barrier. Construction workers simply didn't bother to erase the old ones.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#183

Post by fake-name » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:36 AM UTC

sweden wrote: post #170

jVinc wrote: post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones. Actually, they are are to detect them but just not where they come from, so a barrier in the middle of the road and a traffic sign on the side of the street, they would look like the same to the RADAR system. But to be honest, I am more worried with the markings of the road rather than the inability of the autopilot of n…

> It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones.

Uh, what?

I think you're thinking of Doppler radar systems. You can do static scene imaging with radar, no problems (I've written the code to do it, even!).

There's no way in hell a car is going to be using a Doppler radar. In all likelyhood, they're using a plain-old FMCW system, and it can absolutely detect stationary stuff.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#184

Post by pja » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:38 AM UTC

kristianc wrote: post #180

pja wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no, you can't get out of culpability by claiming statistical superiority. Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles wit…

> Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles with (relatively) wealthy drivers who can afford to keep them maintained & will…

Firstly, wealthy drivers can afford to keep their cars in better shape and can afford better cars in the first place. Neither of these factors depend on self-driving technology.

Secondly, Tesla themselves makes it clear that their self-driving can't be relied upon to driver the car unsupervised - the driver has to be paying attention at all times in case the Tesla self-driving code decides to do something catastrophically stupid. Hence the same factors that correlate with driver attentiveness in the ordinary population will also affect the Tesla population. Wealth correlates with health correlates with better reaction times & general fitness.

The Tesla autopilot tends to turn itself off precisely in situations where driving is difficult and complex - which in turn implies that these human factors will remain just as important as they are in the general driving population.

(Of course it may simply be that the reason wealthy people have a lower death rate on the roads per mile is that they can afford cars that are safer in crashes; the above is my supposition, not evidentially backed.)

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#185

Post by MaikuMori » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:40 AM UTC

Now that we're set on introducing more and more autopilot and autonomous vehicles why dont we add sensors and beacons to our infrastructure to make all these things easier. Nothing really has changed since traffic lights.

It would help if barriers and construction obstacles would have beacons in them. This is not to replace cameras and radars but to help augment data whenever possible.

I think there is an opportunity for governments to help solve autopilot and autonomous vehicle challanges.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#186

Post by roesel » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:40 AM UTC

fcantournet wrote: post #181

kristianc wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quite. Tesla is deliberately comparing their modern vehicle design & wealthy driver base (statistically one of the safest cohorts) with the entirety of the U.S. driving population. This is bad statistics: We expect Tesla vehicles to have far fewer accidents than the mean US vehicle per mile, because Tesla's are expensive modern vehicles with (relatively) wealthy drivers who can afford to keep them maintained & will…

Statistically if you're wealthy enough to own a Tesla, you're also way less likely to have to drive when tired/under the influence for example. All sorts of constraints are correlated with wealth that put you in way more risky situations if you're poorer.

Do you have anything to back this claim? It seems to not make sense.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#187

Post by pja » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:44 AM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #178

pja wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

somebody literally walked in front of their car.. The analysis I've seen suggested that the self-driving system in the Uber vehicle had 4 or 5 seconds to detect the pedestrian crossing the road in front of them. Driving into a pedestrian on the road in that circumstance is /not/ acceptable for any driver, be they human or automated. Don't be fooled by the video footage Uber released from the in-car camera - the quali…

It is acceptable though, most people wouldn't even get involuntary manslaughter which still requires criminal negligence. People are really spouting off here and project in their own superiority onto the situation. It's a situation similar to when a child gets left in a car or jumps a zoo fence, "I never take my eye off my kids even for one second even when I'm sleeping. I would never allow that to happen to my kids.…

I disagree with your implied belief that cars should have priority on the roads & that in every collision with a pedestrian it's implicitly the pedestrian who is at fault unless it can be proven otherwise.

We all owe each other a duty of care. Excuses about 'she just walked out in front of me' are just that: excuses. The driver in this case had plenty of time to slow down and avoid a collision & simply chose not to do so. That's inexcusable.

The fact that the driver was a pile of self-driving code doesn't change that one iota.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#188

Post by cotillion » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:46 AM UTC

sweden wrote: post #170

jVinc wrote: post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones. Actually, they are are to detect them but just not where they come from, so a barrier in the middle of the road and a traffic sign on the side of the street, they would look like the same to the RADAR system. But to be honest, I am more worried with the markings of the road rather than the inability of the autopilot of n…

Yeah, there is so much wrong going on with that road. The divider warning sign is also lower than a standard car.

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#189

Post by thinkloop » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:48 AM UTC

jVinc wrote: post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

And look who fell for it (techcrunch):

"However, it seems the driver ignored the vehicle’s warnings to take back control" [1]

Followed by the quote from Tesla that at some point in the history of the ride a warning of some sort was given.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/30/tesla-says-fatal-crash-inv...

Re: An Update on Last Week’s Accident

#190

Post by mickronome » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 9:50 AM UTC

sweden wrote: post #170

jVinc wrote: post #159

I really hate the whole Tesla angle of "technically we are not lying but we know people are going to mis-remember and misrepresent what we are writing". Take for instance: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive... What this means is that during this incident there were No visual or audible clues that a crash was about to happen What they are saying is that while…

It's widely known that RADAR systems are not able to detect stationary objects, only moving ones. Actually, they are are to detect them but just not where they come from, so a barrier in the middle of the road and a traffic sign on the side of the street, they would look like the same to the RADAR system. But to be honest, I am more worried with the markings of the road rather than the inability of the autopilot of n…

While I find it deplorable that several companies are essentially using people, although in this case apparently willing, participants in testing auto pilot or autonomous driving software. I also find the lack of prominent road markings, signage, or any significant shock absorbing zone simply astonishing!

It makes me wonder, is that layout actually on purpose? I truly find it hard to believe that a road or traffic authority in this day and age could design that on purpose! It's quite well known that human attention is a tenous thing, and that the attention given to an object is primarily proportional to its size. But here we have a barrier end that is signed as being about as dangerous as a a bit of debris.