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Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

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Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#71

Post by ideamotor »

juunpp wrote: post #32
ideamotor wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a programmer every problem looks like a software problem. Information technology tends to free ride on public goods, essentially profiting from commons without contributing to them. That’s the feedback loop that is lacking. The negative externality, if you will, that should be brought in. If, let’s say ubers and taxis paid a tax when they rode around without passengers and that tax specifically went to road upkeep…

This isn't just programmers trying to "solve" a "problem" though, although many are indeed very confused about what constitutes a problem, let alone a solution. There is (or was, at least, prior to covid and the various lay-offs) a huge amount of VC going into self-driving to "disrupt" the transportation system. In other words, the tech bros are hungry for more power and money.

Cheers for calling a spade a spade. I think you’ll agree neither is the whole picture. Engineers like to solve problems and nearly everyone wants the tools to solve problems which are power and money. My only hope is that people try to work on something that serves a social good while also getting paid well. I found it with renewable energy.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#72

Post by woodruffw »

ravenstine wrote: post #54
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #5

I always think it's weird how instead of just improving public transit, we've all become fixated on self driving vehicles. Good transit would mean most people don't need to operate a vehicle while having a plethora of other benefits like combating climate change and more efficient land use (if you live in a suburb, take note of the sheer amount land dedicated to parking; it's often more land than the store for retail…

What are your ideas for improving public transit? Because the way I see it, public transit suffers from issues that are hard to overcome and are exacerbated by globalized societies. Public transit simply can't take you everywhere. Even when I e lived in areas with dense bus routes, how one would get to a stop was often a question. Buses are relatively slow and impede traffic, especially in larger cities. More trains…

> The only place where I have lived where this wasn't a problem was New Zealand, and that was 18 years ago, so I don't know if that's still the case. I always give up on public transit after seeing enough acts of human degradation and fights breaking out. Let's not forget the smell.

You were supposed to describe public transit, not a rest stop on an Interstate Highway in the United States :-)

But seriously: the things you're describing are civic issues, not issues with public transportation. The only reason you see them less in your car is because the activation energy for them affecting you is much higher (specifically, instances of road rage, DWI, etc. culminating in someone colliding with you). But that doesn't actually make them less frequent; it just converts the drunk guy shouting on the subway bench into the drunk guy who's about to T-bone you.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#73

Post by [deleted] »

ravenstine wrote: post #54
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #5

I always think it's weird how instead of just improving public transit, we've all become fixated on self driving vehicles. Good transit would mean most people don't need to operate a vehicle while having a plethora of other benefits like combating climate change and more efficient land use (if you live in a suburb, take note of the sheer amount land dedicated to parking; it's often more land than the store for retail…

What are your ideas for improving public transit? Because the way I see it, public transit suffers from issues that are hard to overcome and are exacerbated by globalized societies. Public transit simply can't take you everywhere. Even when I e lived in areas with dense bus routes, how one would get to a stop was often a question. Buses are relatively slow and impede traffic, especially in larger cities. More trains…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#74

Post by decafninja »

Panzer04 wrote: post #64
ravenstine wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your ideas for improving public transit? Because the way I see it, public transit suffers from issues that are hard to overcome and are exacerbated by globalized societies. Public transit simply can't take you everywhere. Even when I e lived in areas with dense bus routes, how one would get to a stop was often a question. Buses are relatively slow and impede traffic, especially in larger cities. More trains…

"de facto homeless shelters"? wtf? Is that genuinely a concern in some places? Cars have an edge on transit because orders of magnitude more money is spent on the road system and on the vehicles than is spent on PT. Despite that, PT tends to be faster in cities, where it's simply not possible to jam more cars in (it turns out only carrying one person per car is a truly massive capacity constraint. Cars will probably…

Yes - it's a genuine concern in the US.

In fact, looking at many of these public transit vs. car threads on HN, on the topic of safety, I feel transit advocates are not understanding the issue properly.

Most people that dislike using public transit in the US are not afraid that the train or bus will derail or get into an accident. The odds of that happening are definitely tiny.

What they're afraid of is some psycho on the train/bus committing anything from nuisance harassment to outright murder.

It doesn't help that many of the people that most advocate public transit are the ones most resistant to making transit free from being terrorized by such potentially dangerous individuals.

Even outside of that psycho scenario, you also encounter a lot of benign, but otherwise annoying or otherwise less-than-desirable-to-be-around people whether it's someone with horrific body odor or someone blasting loud music or someone coughing their lungs up.

I never felt afraid, anxious, or even annoyed in any way getting on the subway in Seoul, Tokyo, or Hong Kong.

I always feel at least some degree anxiety and annoyance, and sometimes outright fear, getting on the subway in NYC.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#75

Post by juunpp »

ideamotor wrote: post #71
juunpp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't just programmers trying to "solve" a "problem" though, although many are indeed very confused about what constitutes a problem, let alone a solution. There is (or was, at least, prior to covid and the various lay-offs) a huge amount of VC going into self-driving to "disrupt" the transportation system. In other words, the tech bros are hungry for more power and money.

Cheers for calling a spade a spade. I think you’ll agree neither is the whole picture. Engineers like to solve problems and nearly everyone wants the tools to solve problems which are power and money. My only hope is that people try to work on something that serves a social good while also getting paid well. I found it with renewable energy.

Indeed, the problem is the lack of accountability of one coupled with the ingenuity of the other. Some might even go as far as believing that they are doing something positive when in reality they are blind.

Congratulations on balancing your career with social good; that has been the quandary of my life so far.

I also agree 200% on your statement about contributing to the commons, and pretending that the technology somehow "knows" better than democracy. These two irk me personally, just didn't otherwise have much to add.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#76

Post by user_named »

dahdum wrote: post #33
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #5

I always think it's weird how instead of just improving public transit, we've all become fixated on self driving vehicles. Good transit would mean most people don't need to operate a vehicle while having a plethora of other benefits like combating climate change and more efficient land use (if you live in a suburb, take note of the sheer amount land dedicated to parking; it's often more land than the store for retail…

> I always think it's weird how instead of just improving public transit, we've all become fixated on self driving vehicles. To me self driving EV's appear a much more viable way to "solve" public transit everywhere beyond major metros. They'll drastically drop labor costs and are extremely flexible. No major infrastructure changes are needed compared to adding things like rail. No cities need to be redesigned in one…

Self driving cars don't exist.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#78

Post by rvz »

influxmoment wrote: post #34
rvz wrote: post #11

Oh dear. It's getting really hard for anyone to defend this contraption. Perhaps that explains the silence from the Tesla autopilot crowd shocked by the news of this yet another collision from an unsafe piece of 'safety critical' software. Both Autopilot and FSD (Fools Self Driving) needs to be investigated urgently.

So we ban all drivers assistance so it can't be misused? What's your point?

No one said 'ban'.

Perhaps Tesla should have a proper driver monitoring system to determine that the driver has their eyes on the road at all times whilst having autopilot or FSD when driving?

In the article: [0]

> "Just because your vehicle may be equipped with driver-assisted settings or auto-pilot features, all the vehicles still require the operator of that vehicle to still be attentive and still be watching the road,"

So it's really no surprise why they are getting lots of investigations by regulators over their contraption.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#79

Post by sathomasga »

As someone who's more likely to cycle somewhere than to drive, I wish there was as much attention paid every time a human-piloted car did something like this. It happens much more frequently than most folks realize. I used to follow "bicycle" news stories in a news aggregation app, but had to stop because my timeline was filled with "bicyclist killed by driver" stories. There was almost always at least one every day.

I'm by no means a fan of self-driving cars, but despite tragedies like this one, I wouldn't be surprised if overall they're much safer than human pilots even for cyclists.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#80

Post by credit_guy »

To me it seems there's more to this story. The crash happened at 1:10 am on a highway in Utah. I imagine there was no traffic at that time. Most likely there were only this motorcycle and the Tesla, and at most a few other cars over a good stretch of highway. When there's no traffic, motorcycles tend to go faster than cars. A Tesla on autopilot either respects the speed limit (factory setting), or it can be programmed by the owner to allow a bit above, just like the regular traffic flow. Let's say 10 mph above speed limit. It seems quite unlikely the motorcycle was doing less than that speed, so how exactly did the Tesla rear-end the motorcycle? Also, how did the driver of the Tesla "not see" the motorcycle? You drive on a highway with the headlights on, there's a motorcycle in front of you with taillight on, how can you not see it?

I can see some possibilities: - reduced visibility because of fog, or some other reasons - the motorcycle rider was driving under the influence, and made some sudden move that the Tesla autopilot was not trained to predict (e.g. aggressive cutting in front of the vehicle) - somewhat similar: the motorcycle rider lost control of his own vehicle for whatever reasons, and the Tesla rear-ended them while they were skidding on the pavement - the Tesla owner had overridden the autopilot speed limit factory setting by 20 mph more - Tesla was not on autopilot at all, and the owner is simply lying; maybe the owner was DUI - a case of road rage: the biker did something, the Tesla guy honked, the thing escalated, maybe both were a bit inebriated, and the Tesla guy rear-ends the biker not with the intention to kill, but just to "teach the guy a lesson"

I'm not trying to say Tesla is not at fault. In the first 4 cases I listed, Tesla is clearly culpable.

I just simply doubt the story is "biker riding normally, and suddenly a speeding Tesla rear-ends and kills him out of the blue". At 1:10 am on a nearly empty highway.

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