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Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

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Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#361
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no? If the car's brakes don't work due to a defect, you are not liable at all. And if you show reasonable due diligence, that is regular maintenance, the same applies doubly so. Beyond that, I've seen a lot of accidents, and none of them were the car's fault. All were literally human error, or external factors. EG, deer leaping on to road, too many frogs on the road, etc

"If the car's brakes don't work due to a defect, you are not liable at all." Morally perhaps but if you drive into the back of me because your brakes have a manufacturing fault I would still expect you to pay for the damage. The manufacturer may then be liable to you but that that is your business.

No post body was provided.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#362
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no? If the car's brakes don't work due to a defect, you are not liable at all. And if you show reasonable due diligence, that is regular maintenance, the same applies doubly so. Beyond that, I've seen a lot of accidents, and none of them were the car's fault. All were literally human error, or external factors. EG, deer leaping on to road, too many frogs on the road, etc

"If the car's brakes don't work due to a defect, you are not liable at all." Morally perhaps but if you drive into the back of me because your brakes have a manufacturing fault I would still expect you to pay for the damage. The manufacturer may then be liable to you but that that is your business.

You'd don't expect the driver to pay, you just expect to be paid. Doesn't matter to you if it is OP, his insurance company or his car manufacturer. It does matter to the driver though, which is the reason of this discussion on liability.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#363
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bigger cars? Have you seen the new pickups, what do you want to drive, a tank? Also bigger cars kill more pedestrians

People who say "bigger cars are safer" mean "the person driving the bigger car is safer". It's an arms race to them and they want the bigger car.

Not all crashes involve multiple cars. Bigger cars reduce the amount of deaths because there is more metal mass between you and the tree/barrier that you hit.

I also said that bigger cars is just one element in the equation, with seatbelt compliance, zero alcohol tolerance, airbags etc.

All those things are much more feasible and practical solutions compared to pie-in-the-sky FSD

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#364
post #356
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is predicated on the assumption that FSD (the actual system installed in the car, not a future theoretical perfect system) is safer than the average driver in the situations where Mercedes currently disables it. I'm not sure we have data to support that? We know Tesla's autopilot is safer on average, but most of those miles will have been driven in the situations where Mercedes allows it to be used.

"We know Tesla's autopilot is safer on average" Am I allowed to just use "LOL" on hackernews?

Well, unless you are going to rebut the statement, I don't see the point.

If you are just basing your point of view on the widely reported Tesla crashes, you might want to look up some actual safety stats. Crashes of human-driven cars happen every day, and they're often fatal.

But as I pointed out, most Tesla autopilot use is presumably in "easy" conditions, which complicates comparisons.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#365
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who say "bigger cars are safer" mean "the person driving the bigger car is safer". It's an arms race to them and they want the bigger car.

Not all crashes involve multiple cars. Bigger cars reduce the amount of deaths because there is more metal mass between you and the tree/barrier that you hit. I also said that bigger cars is just one element in the equation, with seatbelt compliance, zero alcohol tolerance, airbags etc. All those things are much more feasible and practical solutions compared to pie-in-the-sky FSD

US and Germany might be at different stages of this process, though. For example Germany has almost 2x less deaths per km driven and the situation is even better in countries like Switzerland or Norway.

Also we’re talking about the perspective of the car manufacturer. New cars are already significantly safer than an average car on the road so it’s relatively little they can do to address many of the points since there seems to bet not so much room left for non marginal improvements in safety and FSD is a much more attractive proposition to most car buyers than “3.5% safer than the competing brand”.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think other manufacturers will also be taking responsibility for liability when they come to market. It is just insurance. You can already pay an insurance company to accept liability. The difference with lv3 self drive and beyond is that insurance companies no longer have the data to correctly price their policies, because this is all new and they rely on historical data. The car manufacturers believe they have th…

> You can already pay an insurance company to accept liability If the car drives over a child in self-driving mode, will insurance company go to jail instead of you?

Nobody goes to jail, same as now unless you can prove negligence or intent, there might be significant fines and/or settlement money depending on the jurisdiction. But I’m not sure how is this difference than deaths caused by some design flaw in normal cars.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all crashes involve multiple cars. Bigger cars reduce the amount of deaths because there is more metal mass between you and the tree/barrier that you hit. I also said that bigger cars is just one element in the equation, with seatbelt compliance, zero alcohol tolerance, airbags etc. All those things are much more feasible and practical solutions compared to pie-in-the-sky FSD

US and Germany might be at different stages of this process, though. For example Germany has almost 2x less deaths per km driven and the situation is even better in countries like Switzerland or Norway. Also we’re talking about the perspective of the car manufacturer. New cars are already significantly safer than an average car on the road so it’s relatively little they can do to address many of the points since ther…

> FSD is a much more attractive proposition to most car buyers

So is donating to the church hoping to secure a place in Heaven. We all fool ourselves for the sake of peace of mind or immediate gratification, the important thing is to be aware of it.

It's important to be honest with yourself and decide who are the people who can take you for a ride.

For me it's my younger siblings, the sport franchises I support, and attractive women. Because at least in such circumstances it would be a fun and worthy ride.

Being taken for a ride by Musk, Mary Barra, Herbert Diess, (insert automotive CEO), or even Elizabeth Holmes, Bernie Madoff...that's pathetic, not fun and will leave you with regrets...but maybe techno-utopianists have a different mindset and their calculus is the opposite of mine, meaning they have a contempt for the small things in life and only get excited about moonshots and pie-in-the-sky ideas even if it means getting scammed.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#368

While the specs sound very underwhelming at first (geo-fenced on some roads, very low speeds, no bad weather), they seem to be so confident in their system, that they will take responsibility for the car when in autopilot. AFAIK, no other manufacturer does this for their systems (which capabilities they often make rather wild claims about).

No other manufacturer explicitly says they do it, but guess who is legally responsible for manufacture defects whether or not they explicitly say they are?

There's an extent to which what MB is doing here is turning a fact they have very little ability to evade into a marketing point.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#369
I'll consider using a self-driving system when it can safely drive the length of the Tail of the Dragon without using preloaded data for it (that would be cheating).

The dragon has good pavement, clear markings, the occasional driveway, and 318 curves in 11 miles (18km). In this video from December 2021, the Model 3 crosses the yellow line repeatedly into the oncoming lane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4yMGbRa4Q (long video)

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#370
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not paying attention, you can easily end up dozing off. You're either more or less paying attention--and yes drivers' attentions can drift a bit--or you're going to take some time to reacquire some awareness of what exactly is going on.

If you can't stay awake then you need to not use this feature. If you're not exhausted it should be an easy task. If you are exhausted, arrange something else. Attention drifting is supposed to be fine. That's the entire point of level 3. How long do you think you need to regain focus? Maybe a different brand will cater to that amount of time, or you can lobby regulators.

My point was simply that, if you're not driving and are absorbed in something else whether a book, a movie, a game, or just zoned out, 10 seconds is not a lot of time to figure out what's going on because the car's computer has encountered something that is sufficiently non-standard that it doesn't know what to do.

I do there there is some period of time that is reasonable for a handoff. Maybe a minute? I actually believe that full autonomous driving with geo-gating and condition-restricted limits is probably how things will play out.

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