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Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

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Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#411

Post by Bizarro »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #305
txcwpalpha wrote: post #59

I used to be in awe of Teslas and I have always been a big fan of Musk, and even after the crash I still imagined myself one day buying a Tesla. But after this response, I've completely lost respect for the company, for Musk, and I don't think I'll ever buy one or advocate for someone buying one. The driver had previously reported to Tesla 7 to 10 times that there was an issue with autopilot, but Tesla told him "no t…

I think the core of the issue lies in what “using autopilot” means. If the driver had used it according to the instructions (with hands on the wheel, while driving the car, watching the road as a driver always should), the crash would not have occurred. Tesla is between a rock and a hard place, they need to make it crystal clear that the car performed as expected. The message is not intended for the deceased driver’s…

I've never driven a Tesla or any other kind of "autopilot" car.

But for the current kind of systems, what I would really like is something to take evasive action, not drive for me. I know some non autopilot cars have those systems in place, but not sure what more a Tesla car would give me in protection.

I guess I need to take one for a spin one of these days.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#412

Post by dragonwriter »

theclaw wrote: post #375
gamblor956 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proximate cause is irrelevant. This is a product liability issue because the product failed, which means strict liability applies.

Failed under what conditions, though? The manufacturer gets to specify the conditions under which they consider their product to be safe and suitable for a particular purpose. The car was not used under those conditions and the result was injury through misuse of the product. If my toaster causes me serious injury because I used it in the bath, that is my problem.

> The manufacturer gets to specify the conditions under which they consider their product to be safe and suitable for a particular purpose.

No, they don't, otherwise they could disclaim everything.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#413

Post by ummonk »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #142
Retric wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aircraft autopilot still require actual pilots to pay attention when flying. So really autopilot is the correct term, people are simply assuming it means a level 5 self driving car when it does not. “And really there’s a sweet spot you have to find where you use automation to relieve the pilot of some amount of workload.” http://nationalpost.com/news/world/disaster-on-autopilot-how... 10 years ago airlines could have…

> "And really there’s a sweet spot you have to find where you use automation to relieve the pilot of some amount of workload" ... and that sweetspot, for highway driving, looks to be around the 1998 level of having automatic transmission + cruise control. As we've seen examples in two recent fatal accidents, a driver with too little to do is dangerous.

I'd say adaptive cruise control is actually better in the sweet-spot. I have a Subaru with adaptive cruise control and find it rather beneficial in freeing up my attention from trying to carefully micromanage the throttle / brake to actually focus on more important things. It has lane-keeping assist, too, but that is more of a backup safety feature than an autonomous feature (and indeed I wouldn't want lane-centering functionality except in really slow traffic jams).

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#414

Post by pavanred »

patcheudor wrote: post #107
tc wrote: post #18

Tesla probably shouldn't be saying anything about this at all, even just to avoid giving it more news cycles. But if they were going to say something, here's what they should have said the first time. ---- We take great care in building our cars to save lives. Forty thousands Americans die on the roads each year. That's a statistic. But even a single death of a Tesla driver or passenger is a tragedy. This has affecte…

>t's a tool to help attentive drivers avoid accidents that might have otherwise occurred. This needs far more discussion. I just don't buy it. I don't believe that you can have a car engaged in auto-drive mode and remain attentive. I think our psychology won't allow it. When driving, I find that I must be engaged and on long trips I don't even enable cruise control because taking the accelerator input away from me is…

I suppose its perhaps how they marketed the feature. We have parking assist feature in many cars, there's a reason its not auto-park instead. If it really was a feature to help attentive drivers avoid accidents, it probably would have been called a driving-assist tech and not auto-pilot.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#415

Post by greglindahl »

moogly wrote: post #202
Johnny555 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like Tesla's auto pilot? Drivers are supposed to be "flying", scanning gauges and the road ahead to ensure the autopilot is doing what they expect... I think people that say that "autopilot" is a bad name for this feature don't really understand what an "autopilot" does.

And Tesla is relying on Joe Sixpack's Hollywood understanding of autopilot functionality. They're very well aware of that.

So you’re saying that Tesla drivers are only educated by marketing materials and ignore what the car says every time they engage the autopilot feature?

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#416

Post by LoSboccacc »

PunchTornado wrote: post #190
txcwpalpha wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is irrelevant. Before his death, Tesla told the driver that there was no issue with the autopilot feature. This likely contributed to his continued use of the feature. That feature, because of the same issue (which Tesla denied existed) killed him. And now Tesla is saying that there is an issue, and that it's his fault for using the system. Whether or not it's a full self-driving mode, or if it's an assisted aut…

It's a feature that is in development and you can not use it if you don't want to. Everybody knows ad is alerted by the fact that self driving technology is not there yet. The driver knew that.

> It's a feature that is in development

there's something fundamentally wrong in releasing that to the public then, your authority for vehicle safety should be VERY concerned about this, people getting killed aren't "bugs to iron out".

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#417

Post by greglindahl »

brewdad wrote: post #231
DavidAdams wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Volvo's messaging is less reckless than Tesla's. They call their similar feature "Pilot assist." It's also always been stricter about trying to make sure the driver is engaged when it's enabled. As a Volvo owner, I'll admit I find it annoying at times, but I think it's also helped drill into me that I shouldn't trust Pilot Asssist not to drive me into a barrier. It's amazing at keeping me in my lane when I'm fiddling…

I have a Volvo as well and it is annoying when the dashboard goes nuts warning of impending doom when experience tells me that the vehicle/obstacle ahead isn't actually an issue. That said, it has saved my bacon at least once at an unfamiliar highway exit in rush hour when traffic went from 40mph to a dead stop almost immediately. Lane assist has also led me to be much better about always signaling lane changes lest…

How is this different from other cars?

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#418

Post by dragonwriter »

fmihaila wrote: post #326
gamblor956 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proximate cause is irrelevant. This is a product liability issue because the product failed, which means strict liability applies.

> Proximate cause is irrelevant. This is a product liability issue because the product failed, which means strict liability applies. I am not a lawyer, but it is not clear to me just yet that the product failed. We don't know what the investigation will show.

> I am not a lawyer, but it is not clear to me just yet that the product failed.

It's not clear to me whether it was a design defect or a manufacturing defect, but it's pretty clear that the lane keeping system drove the vehicle into a barrier which was not, in fact, located in a traffic lane, killing the occupant, which is pretty obviously a failure.

Re: Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

#419

Post by mozumder »

lopmotr wrote: post #308
mozumder wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't help that fucking Elon Musk and half of Silicon Valley keeps saying AI technology will solve all driving problems, when they should know fully well that autonomous cars are never going to happen without structural changes to roads themselves. Silicon Valley needs to stop trying to make autonomous cars happen.

What structural changes? Considering that self-driving cars are already running daily in many cities, those changes must be fairly minor since they've already been implemented in those cities.

You need those structural changes to make their fatality rates as small as regular cars.

Right now self-driving cars aren't viable in the real-world due to their extremely high fatality rate, which are comparable to motorcycles.

Meanwhile, there are several car models with ZERO fatalities.

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