Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla issues strongest statement yet blaming driver for deadly crash

abc7news.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 850 posts

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

#461

Post by EGreg »

hyperbole wrote: post #423
fapjacks wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to preface my post to say that I think developing self-driving automobiles is so important that it's worth the implied cost of potentially tens of thousands of lives in order to perfect the technology, because that's what people do; make sacrifices to improve the world we live in so that future generations don't have to know the same problem. But I think you're right. I think the "best" way to move forward unt…

No one dies so someone 10 years from now can watch a full episode of the family guy unimpeded for the duration of their commute. The human toll is irrelevant to the conversation, what's relevant is whether risks taken are being taken knowingly - you cannot market a self driving vehicle whose functionality "is 2x better than any human being" while simultaneously stating in your legal language to protect yourself: don'…

Here is the messy situation: maybe this system is better at avoiding accidents than 40% of the people 99.999% of the time.

The best thing is to build a system to analyze your driving and figure out if you are in that 40% of people and then let it drive for you. Maybe drunk drivers, for example. It can do this per ride: “oh you’re driving recklessly, do you want me to take over?”

EVERYTHING ELSE SHOULD BE A STRICT IMPROVEMENT. Taking over driving and letting people stop paying attention is not a strict improvement.

The argument should NOT be about playing with people’s lives now so im the future some people can have a better system. That’s a ridiculous argument. Instead WHY DON’T THE COMPANIES COLLABORATE ON OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND RESEARCH TO ALL BUILD ON EACH OTHER’S WORK? Capitalism and “intellectual property”, that’s why. In this case, a gift economy like SCIENCE or OPEN SOURCE is far far superior at saving lives. But we are so used to profit driven businesses, it’s not likely they will take such an approach to it.

What we have instead is companies like Waymo suing Uber and Uber having deadly accidents.

And what we SHOULD have is if an incremental improvement makes things safer, every car maker should be able to adopt it. There should be open source shops for this stuff like Linux that enjoy huge defensive patent portfolios.

Ain’t gonna happen I’m afraid.

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

#462

Post by dingo_bat »

DavidAdams wrote: post #158
Dwolb wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla need to stop calling it 'Autopilot'. The name implies drivers don't need to drive and is most likely a big reason drivers are lured into a false sense of security.

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…

> It's amazing at keeping me in my lane when I'm fiddling with my podcast feed though.

That's exactly what the tesla driver must have thought too. Right until the auto pilot steered directly into a barrier. Volvo S's system may be better, but any lapse in attention can lead to the type of crash we are discussing about.

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

#463

Post by mrb »

chrisper wrote: post #146
mrb wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« When autopilot is used as required by their ToS, it is useless » Really? Having an autopilot system with an incredibly fast reaction time able brake/swerve/avoid accidents faster than humans is "useless"?

A safety feature is useless if you can't rely on it all the time.

An imperfect safety feature is still better than no safety feature at all.

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

#464

Post by slg »

danso wrote: post #443
slg wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it crazy to hold a driver to a higher standard than simply Googling "Tesla autopilot" and only reading the first paragraph of the first result? If you read that entire page, the difference between autopilot and full self-driving is clear. If you read the car's manual, the difference is clear. If you look at the configurator for the car, the difference is clear when you have to pay $3,000 extra for full self-drivin…

Is it crazy to ask a car-making company to create 2 separate webpages when describing completely different systems?

It isn’t crazy to ask that, but I think it is crazy to view failing to create two pages as an intentional attempt to deceive or as something that absolves drivers of their own responsibilities.

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

#465

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

efraim wrote: post #440
otalp wrote: post #2

Full statement: "We are very sorry for the family's loss. According to the family, Mr. Huang was well aware that Autopilot was not perfect and, specifically, he told them it was not reliable in that exact location, yet he nonetheless engaged Autopilot at that location. The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is i…

> The crash happened on a clear day with several hundred feet of visibility ahead, which means that the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road, despite the car providing multiple warnings to do so. This is very misleading, he might have seen the barrier well in time but the car could have steered towards it in the last second, like it does in several of the vi…

I think this is the critical factor.

In the videos from others, the autopilot begins to move with the lane, but then crosses over into the barrier as it approaches. There's no way to anticipate that this is going to happen by simply looking ahead of you. There are no warning signs that something strange is about to occur. By the time you've processed that something is happening, it's well underway.

If you were to simulate this, I wonder how many people would be able to properly react? I think this would be an interesting experiment; sit people in driving simulators and have them drive around for 30 minutes or something and randomly introduce this. Even in the context of an experiment where people are likely to be more attentive due to the novelty of the experience, I'd expect to see quite slow reactions with fairly high frequency.

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

#466

Post by Retric »

phkahler wrote: post #403
Retric wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your belief is meaningless, we have hard data that shows a net benefit to these systems. It's not a question of zero deaths, it's a question of reducing the number which means you need to look beyond individual events. Remember the ~90 people who died yesterday from a US car accident without making the news are far more important than a few individuals.

>> our belief is meaningless, we have hard data that shows a net benefit to these systems. No we don't. Tesla likes to compare their deaths per mile to the national average. The problem is that their autopilot is not fit to drive everywhere or in all conditions that go into that average. There is no data to support that autopilot is safer overall. It may not even be safer in highway conditions given that we've seen i…

Specific failures are again meaningless. Computers don't fail the way people do, on the other hand people also regularly fall asleep at the wheel and do similar dumb things.

And really, driving conditions are responsible for a relatively small percentage of vehicle fatalities. Most often it's people doing really dumb things like driving 100+ MPH.

The only thing we actually know is these cars are safer on average than similar cars without these systems. That's not looking at how much they are used, just the existence of said safety system and likely relates to them being used when the drivers are extremely drunk or tired which are both extremely dangerous independent of weather conditions.

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

#467

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

zaidf wrote: post #129

"The reason the other families aren't on TV are because their loved ones are still alive." Wow, this sounds like a horrible, tasteless burn to end the statement with. And I am a Tesla fan.

I have to imagine someone will get fired for that. You could easily have made that, "Those families have been sparred that grief," or something to that effect. So many ways to say it that don't suggest that the family is on TV in bad faith, or directly contrast their loss with the happiness of others.

It's also grammatically incorrect "The reason ... is because". Just bizarre.

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

#468

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

waitwhatt wrote: post #211
imh wrote: post #116

It should be noted that the 40% crash reduction they keep quoting is done with an extremely simplistic analysis and is only a brief paragraph of the full report. https://www.scribd.com/embeds/337007075/content?start_page=1... It's not nearly as definitive as people (and Tesla) seem to claim it as. edit: The full analysis (from page 10 of the link): >5.4 Crash rates. ODI analyzed mileage and airbag deployment data sup…

I would argue that the people who can afford a Tesla are rich people and thus likely well educated and are safer drivers. Poor people with bad cars, no education and unsafe driving practices probably have more accidents. I don't think these stats mean much.

This was a before/after comparison, so it's like vs. like.

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

#469

Post by kbutler »

Fins wrote: post #389
fapjacks wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to preface my post to say that I think developing self-driving automobiles is so important that it's worth the implied cost of potentially tens of thousands of lives in order to perfect the technology, because that's what people do; make sacrifices to improve the world we live in so that future generations don't have to know the same problem. But I think you're right. I think the "best" way to move forward unt…

I am not really sure if development of SDVs is really that important, but even if it were, your proposal would only be acceptable if it were you and Mr. Musk racing your Teslas on Tesla's private proving grounds. Somewhere in the Kalahari desert seems to be an acceptable location. The moment people "making a sacrifice" are unsuspecting customers, and eventually innocent bystanders you are veering very much into Dr. M…

"Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled. "

And $879B in USA per year.

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

#470

Post by theluketaylor »

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 don't even enable cruise control because taking the accelerator input away from me is enough to cause my mind to wander

You're not alone. I find the act of modulating my speed is what keeps me focused on the task of driving safely. Steering alone isn't enough; I can stay in my lane without tracking the vehicles around me or fully comprehending road conditions.

Until a Level 5 autonomous car is ready to drive me point A to point B while I watch a movie I will remain firmly in command of the vehicle.

Post reply on HN