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Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

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Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#291

Post by emiliobumachar »

antirez wrote: post #200

What is happening was clear to many since the start: Tesla incarnates the behavior of his founder, exaggerating the technology that is really available right now, and selling it as a product without the premise for it to be safe. A product that kinda drives your car but sometimes fails, and requires you to pay attention, is simply a crash that we are waiting to happen. And don't get trapped by the "data driven" analy…

A lot of human-driven car accident victims have done nothing wrong at all.

Almost every driver thinks they're better than average.

Even when it's a stupid person dying from their stupidity, it's still a tragedy.

I really think data driven analysys is the way to go. If we can get US car fatalities from 30000 a year to 29000 a year by adopting self-driving cars, that's 1000 lives saved a year.

Agree with your point #3. If Tesla autopilot only works in some conditions, its numbers are only comparable to human drivers in these same conditions.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#292

Post by cm2187 »

majewsky wrote: post #262
cm2187 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the traffic increasing, though as we are moving toward electric cars, not sure this is an environment problem. At least not an environment problem in big cities.

Electric cars still impose a huge environmental cost since they need to be manufactured in the first place. And the batteries need rare earths which are, well, rare. While there is ongoing research into novel types of batteries made from more common materials, I wouldn't be surprised if the next war is about lithium instead of oil.

Agree, I am not convinced it is a net benefit for the overall environment. Plus they will consume more energy because of inefficiencies in transport and storage.

But there is still an immense environmental benefit: they will pollute in places (industrial areas, mines) that are not places where people live (big cities). So the population will benefit a lot from moving where the pollution takes place. And it's not just air. Noise pollution, dirty buildings, etc.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#293

Post by userbinator »

Confusion wrote: post #209
icc97 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airline pilot training is designed to handle this, as well as they have a co-pilot who prevents them from being distracted and is able to take over if they are distracted. Tesla is just handing it out to anyone who can afford to buy a Model S/X (and now Model 3) with the absolute minimum of warnings that they can get away with.

> Airline pilot training is designed to handle this It is certainly designed to do that, but even for airline pilots there are limits to what is possible. You cannot train a human to react within 1ms; that's just physiologically impossible. Nor can you train a human to fully comprehend a situation within x ms, where x depends on the situation. So the autopilot would have to warn a human say 2x ms before an event that…

The other big difference is that in a plane high up in the sky and relatively far away from any others, even if the autopilot demands the human take over, there is still a lot of time to react. Many seconds to even minutes, depending on the situation.

In a car, the requirement is fractions of a second.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#294

Post by cmdkeen »

EnderMB wrote: post #210
namelost wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A high rate of road deaths isn't a fait accompli. Musk would have us believe that technology is the only answer. The UK has the 2nd-lowest rate of road deaths in the world (after Sweden). The roads in the UK are not intrinsically safe, they are very narrow both in urban and rural areas which means there are more hazards and less time to avoid them. However, the UK has strict driver education programme. It is not easy…

As someone that has been caught speeding, it's also worth mentioning that one of the big reasons why the UK has improved its road safety statistics is a reasonably new initiative where you get an option on your first offence to either take the points on your license or to attend a safety workshop. IIRC, the workshop was about three hours, but it was surprisingly useful. The instructors treated you like adults and not…

Drink driving rarely attracts a prison sentence. In the vast majority of cases it attracts a driving ban along with a significant fine. The sentencing guidelines have imprisonment as an option for blowing over 120 where the limit is 35 (in England and Wales, it is lower in Scotland now).

The UK went through a major cultural change relating to drink driving several decades ago, it isn't viewed as acceptable, the police get tip offs on a regular basis.

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/item/excess-al...

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#295

Post by emiliobumachar »

EnderMB wrote: post #210
namelost wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A high rate of road deaths isn't a fait accompli. Musk would have us believe that technology is the only answer. The UK has the 2nd-lowest rate of road deaths in the world (after Sweden). The roads in the UK are not intrinsically safe, they are very narrow both in urban and rural areas which means there are more hazards and less time to avoid them. However, the UK has strict driver education programme. It is not easy…

As someone that has been caught speeding, it's also worth mentioning that one of the big reasons why the UK has improved its road safety statistics is a reasonably new initiative where you get an option on your first offence to either take the points on your license or to attend a safety workshop. IIRC, the workshop was about three hours, but it was surprisingly useful. The instructors treated you like adults and not…

Out of curiosity, how are you supposed to react if an emergency vehicle wants you to go forward when you're by a set of traffic lights with a camera?

I would think to look carefully at all directions and, if visibility allows, pass the red light, then contest the fine with an "emergrncy vehicle passing through" defence. But what is the official position?

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#296

Post by brownbat »

antirez wrote: post #200

What is happening was clear to many since the start: Tesla incarnates the behavior of his founder, exaggerating the technology that is really available right now, and selling it as a product without the premise for it to be safe. A product that kinda drives your car but sometimes fails, and requires you to pay attention, is simply a crash that we are waiting to happen. And don't get trapped by the "data driven" analy…

> you should check the autopilot against a rested and concentrated driver that drives slowly and with a lot of care

You raise an interesting point, accidents are not normally distributed throughout the driver's day, or even the population. Your likelihood of having a crash with injuries is highly correlated with whether or not you've had one before. A substantial number involve alcohol, consumed by drivers previously cited for DUIs.

We keep using average crash statistics for humans as a baseline, but that may be misleading. Some drivers may actually be increasing their risk by moving to first gen self driving technology, even while others reduce their risk.

On the other hand, we do face a real Hindenburg threat here. Zeppelins flew thousands of miles safely, and even on that disaster, many survived. But all people could think of when boarding an airship after that was Herbert Morrison's voice and flames.

I have already heard people who don't work in technology mumbling about how they think computers are far more dangerous than humans (not because of your nuanced distinction, but simply ignoring or unaware of any statistics).

I worry we're only a few high profile accidents away from total bans on driverless cars, at least in some states. Especially if every one of these is going to make great press, while almost no pure human accidents will. The availability heuristic alone will confuse people.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#297

Post by Piskvorrr »

planb wrote: post #146
JKCalhoun wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your point is "Autopilot only works on perfect roads" then they might have well pull the plug right now. It's even worse: wait until someone does something malicious to an autopilot car to cause it to crash/kill. I hate to be so cynical, but if you're developing this stuff, you have to imagine worst case scenarios. And there are much much worse scenarios when malice is involved.

https://xkcd.com/1958/

Most people aren't murderers. On the other hand, con artists when the expected risk to marks is minimal...now we're talking!

I've been had by local traffic cops in $COUNTRY, just a few km after crossing the border: two lanes in one direction, separated by a solid line ("no changing lanes"), running parallel for about a km. Left lane suddenly ends - asphalt gradually narrows from the left until there's only the right lane left. Your options are a) crossing the solid line into the right lane, and...wait, that's all, there's no way to go off the road. And guess what, traffic cops conveniently positioned right there: "you have crossed the solid line, that's a ticket and XYZ in local currency" "but there's nothing else I could have done!" "we don't care, you crossed the solid line!" Repeat until ticket is paid - note that this is obviously targetted at people who are not likely to fight the ticket (and presumably a mistaken/illegal road marking) in local traffic court.

I could imagine a very similar scenario set up to trip up SDVs (and fleece their presumably affluent occupants). The problem comes when con men underestimate the risks, and accidentally kill people.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#298

Post by drexlspivey »

greendestiny wrote: post #275
sho_hn wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not be surprised if Musk coldly responded that this is a known problem with no solution, but autopilot still lowers the death rate on average. In other words, for the proponents it's a trade-off. And also the idea that an automatic driver is easier to improve over time (skewing the trade-off better and better) than human drivers. Which of course will snowball when reliance on automation keeps making drivers w…

Actually despite your skepticism Tesla's PR spin has already beaten you. "but autopilot still lowers the death rate on average" That's not what they said, they said the death rate was lower than the average. And yet you can't help hearing that it lowered the death rate. I think it's very likely turning on autopilot massively increases the rate of death for Tesla drivers, but they've managed to deflect from that so sk…

I don't get it. These two are the same thing.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#299

Post by Vik1ng »

teppix wrote: post #253
melling wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the autopilot was always supposed to be combined with the human. It’s not a self-driving car. It’s really an advanced cruise control.

The statistics also includes all the cases where drivers are not paying attention as they should, and it's still safer than the average car (at least according to Tesla).

I bet Tesla's are still safer without Autosteer, because the average car includes a lot of old cars and more young drivers.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#300

Post by Piskvorrr »

mirimir wrote: post #104
Dylan16807 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But once you do that, it gets tricky to determine when you should ignore the "stationary object" and when you shouldn't. That's not tricky. You never ignore it. A stationary object means that you will have to either stop or turn. You don't know which one yet, but you definitely know you'll have to take an action. If you haven't decided by some close point, you just pick one.

As I understand it, what's hard is determining whether that stationary object is directly in front, or off to the side. Cars are always passing stationary objects on the sides.

I would have thunk that to be a solved problem. Apparently not. https://jonathanwhiting.com/tutorial/collision/
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