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

latimes.com

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

#211

Post by munmaek »

JeffL wrote: post #40
olliej wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you create a system that by design will cause the driver to lose focus, you are responsible for the driver losing focus. Saying “we told the users that they must pay attention while they are not driving”, or “we told them that the system called ‘auto-pilot’ is not actually able to autopilot the car”, and “we advertised the car’s self driving ability but had documentation saying it doesn’t actually have that abilit…

My experience with autopilot isn't that I lose focus as much as I focus on something else. Instead of focusing on keeping in my lane, not going too fast, and if the car ahead of me is braking, I'm focusing on the road ahead -- is there construction coming up? Is there debris in the road? Is there a wall ahead that gets too close to the road? Is there anything weird up ahead that needs attention? You learn what AP can…

> as much as I focus on something else.

Yes, so people ending up focusing on things like cellphones and email.

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

#212

Post by cardiffspaceman »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #110
newnewpdro wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a period of a few years where I drove a track-prepped race car on the street daily, with out of state plates for emissions reasons, and it resulted in a lot of police encounters.

Has there been any studies of this? I think it’s well known that if you drive a sports car you get pulled over more often, but I drive a beat up pickup in the south of USA and almost never get pulled over even though I’m frequently 5-10 MPH over the speed limit. Would be interesting to see pickup vs a normal mid range sedan vs sports cars in numbers. Maybe throw in out of state plates as an extra variable.

Sports cars are sometimes easier to track and that makes them easier to successfully pull over. I asked a cop about this after he pulled me and my red Stealth over for having a missing corner on a sticker on my license plate.

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

#213

Post by cardiffspaceman »

saalweachter wrote: post #185
dahfizz wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that seems dangerous. There is usually a hard 45mph minimum on the highways near me.

I'm never going to to discourage people from driving slow, because our monkey brains have shit reaction times and perception, and KE increases with the square of velocity, but if you're traveling well below the normal speed of travel, put your flashers on. In many places this is mandated for a certain amount under the limit.

In my view the wreck isn’t made worse so much by absolute magnitude of one momentum vector as by the magnitude of the difference in momentum vectors.

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

#214

Post by klwejchkwejrhc »

jmpman wrote: post #183

If Tesla is unable to brake for a stationary fire truck with 3+ seconds of visibility, why should I be confident to pay $6k for “Full Self Driving”? Recognizing a stopped fire truck (effectively a wall) in front of me is a prerequisite for me to invest further. A part of me believes that the public is being intentionally misled on the capabilities, and Tesla’s lack of transparency, coupled with their financial incent…

>why should I be confident to pay $6k for “Full Self Driving”

No one should be. Creating a fully self-driving car probably requires creating artificial general intelligence. It will almost certainly not exist for many more decades, if it ever exists. Elon Musk is a con artist.

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

#215

Post by klwejchkwejrhc »

grecy wrote: post #190
WhompingWindows wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should anyone buy a feature for $6k that basically gets them nothing until a future point when they could buy it anyways?

It will be more expensive later.

The thing is, it almost certainly still won't exist later.

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

#216

Post by tehwhale »

Shivetya wrote: post #161
Animats wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While "human understanding" would be nice, detecting big solid obstacles is a solved problem. It just costs money. Until somebody orders enough LIDAR units to get the cost down. Tesla's "autopilot" collisions are all very similar. They're all "hit big stationary obstacle that wasn't the rear end of a car". So far, a fire truck, a street sweeper, a stalled car at a freeway median, a crossing semitrailer, and two freew…

you do not need LIDAR to recognize a stopped vehicle, higher powered visual processing will suffice.

You sound like Elon. LIDAR is far superior to radar in a lot of cases. The best situation would be for Tesla's to use a mix of both radar and lidar.

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

#217

Post by dahfizz »

cardiffspaceman wrote: post #213
saalweachter wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm never going to to discourage people from driving slow, because our monkey brains have shit reaction times and perception, and KE increases with the square of velocity, but if you're traveling well below the normal speed of travel, put your flashers on. In many places this is mandated for a certain amount under the limit.

In my view the wreck isn’t made worse so much by absolute magnitude of one momentum vector as by the magnitude of the difference in momentum vectors.

You have to consider that after a wreck, both cars have to come to a stop one way or the other.

Imagine being rear ended while you are stopped at a stop sign. The difference in momentum is small and there is no significant damage.

Now imagine going 80mph down the highway and someone going 81mph hits the back of your car. Still a very small difference in momentum, but your car is very likely to lose control and roll or hit other cars. It's not always the initial impact that does all the damage.

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

#218

Post by zaroth »

birdyrooster wrote: post #3
Confusedcius wrote: post #2

The driver was found using his phone, over-relied on the autopilot system, and lied about what he was doing when being questioned. Sadly, we can't 100% trust these automated driving systems yet so folks need to stay attentive behind the wheel. The more accidents like this will cause lawmakers to create laws that can potentially slow down automated driving development.

If we want to be fair to consumers and bystanders, Tesla needs their product to safely stop the reckless behavior (not simply warn the user). If it can't do that, it needs to disable AutoPilot. AutoPilot was marketed in a way which led to Tesla selling their product to people with unwittingly dangerous uses in mind. It is unacceptable for Tesla to enable this reckless driving. Tesla has the ability to affect the scal…

This might sound like a good idea in principle — in effect, don’t allow people to use the system unless they are more attentive then even most drivers are normally.

The problem is the natural outcome is that people will then simply just stop using the system, and end up less safe because of it, causing more accidents and possibly costing lives.

In the interest of public health, the system has to be better than the average driver, and also not annoyingly unusable.

So there is a balancing act. Tesla will already disable AP if you keep your hands off the wheel for too long. It even locks you out for the rest of the drive as a “penalty box” so you can’t just turn it back on.

As I drive down the highway on AP, the number of cars drifting in their lanes, crossing the lines, changing lanes without signaling, not maintaining proper speed, driving aggressively, driving for an exit at the last minute, panic breaking, etc. is actually somewhat mind blowing. It’s amazing there aren’t more accidents.

Versus the Model 3 which maintains speed and centers in its lane more precisely than I even do manually, for mile after mile.

What’s also remarkable is the constant progression of new features, better feature detection, more complex navigation and route planning which has happened over just the last 12 months. Tesla AP now in 2019 is significantly improved from what it looked like even July 2018, and v10 will just continue the progression.

Tesla safety stats are hard to compare to the general public, but what I can say definitely is a Tesla on AP on the highway is way more consistent and predictable of a driver than any human. It’s better to be in the Tesla in AP on the highway, but I imagine it’s also better to be driving behind or beside the Tesla in that same situation because it’s not driving distracted like almost everyone else on the road.

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

#219

Post by smogcutter »

jakobegger wrote: post #195
smogcutter wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But... regardless how fast the speed limit is, you should never expect the road ahead to be clear! A Sprinter is a huge vehicle, if you don't see that ahead of you, you must be severly distracted...

Less so than you might think. We’re just plain slower to detect things that are growing larger than objects traversing our vision. Especially without context clues like brake lights or other slow traffic, approaching at 40mph doesn’t give you a lot of time to correct.

Ultimately yes, it’s the other driver’s fault because it’s always your job to not hit things in front of you. But OP made his vehicle into a hazard.

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

#220

Post by JeffL »

munmaek wrote: post #211
JeffL wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with autopilot isn't that I lose focus as much as I focus on something else. Instead of focusing on keeping in my lane, not going too fast, and if the car ahead of me is braking, I'm focusing on the road ahead -- is there construction coming up? Is there debris in the road? Is there a wall ahead that gets too close to the road? Is there anything weird up ahead that needs attention? You learn what AP can…

> as much as I focus on something else. Yes, so people ending up focusing on things like cellphones and email.

There's obviously going to be some of that from people in every sort of car. The hope is that over all, people with AP are safer. I personally feel like I am.
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