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Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

latimes.com

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Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#2
The driver was found using his phone, over-relied on the autopilot system, and lied about what he was doing when being questioned. Sadly, we can't 100% trust these automated driving systems yet so folks need to stay attentive behind the wheel. The more accidents like this will cause lawmakers to create laws that can potentially slow down automated driving development.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#3

The driver was found using his phone, over-relied on the autopilot system, and lied about what he was doing when being questioned. Sadly, we can't 100% trust these automated driving systems yet so folks need to stay attentive behind the wheel. The more accidents like this will cause lawmakers to create laws that can potentially slow down automated driving development.

If we want to be fair to consumers and bystanders, Tesla needs their product to safely stop the reckless behavior (not simply warn the user). If it can't do that, it needs to disable AutoPilot. AutoPilot was marketed in a way which led to Tesla selling their product to people with unwittingly dangerous uses in mind.

It is unacceptable for Tesla to enable this reckless driving. Tesla has the ability to affect the scale of this problem most readily and relying on individual consumers is not in the best interests of public health.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#5
post #4

Report... Highway Accident Brief: Rear-End Collision Between a Car Operating with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and a Stationary Fire Truck https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/HA...

Thanks for the link. Interestingly, the NTSB's page appears unable to scroll at all with javascript disabled, but I was still able to view all the content by resizing the viewport(?) in both Firefox and Chrome. A very odd design decision...

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#7

The driver was found using his phone, over-relied on the autopilot system, and lied about what he was doing when being questioned. Sadly, we can't 100% trust these automated driving systems yet so folks need to stay attentive behind the wheel. The more accidents like this will cause lawmakers to create laws that can potentially slow down automated driving development.

The best way to stay attentive behind the wheel is to actually be the one driving. There's virtually no way of being both attentive and passive for long periods of time. If a driver can't check their email or whatever on their phone while autopilot is on, then autopilot is not safe to put in cars. And while I'm okay with not-exactly-safe for most things people willingly consume or use, driving is not an area where it's okay to roll out a feature that may cause people to stop paying attention to the road.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#8
post #7

The driver was found using his phone, over-relied on the autopilot system, and lied about what he was doing when being questioned. Sadly, we can't 100% trust these automated driving systems yet so folks need to stay attentive behind the wheel. The more accidents like this will cause lawmakers to create laws that can potentially slow down automated driving development.

The best way to stay attentive behind the wheel is to actually be the one driving. There's virtually no way of being both attentive and passive for long periods of time. If a driver can't check their email or whatever on their phone while autopilot is on, then autopilot is not safe to put in cars. And while I'm okay with not-exactly-safe for most things people willingly consume or use, driving is not an area where it…

It is certainly okay when the rates at which these things happen is lower than the rates at which non-self driving cars have accidents.

A 0% accident rate is unrealistic and unfair.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#9
Fire truck driver here: People crash into parked fire trucks and ambulances and cop cars all the damn time. That's why we park the Big Red Truck at an angle behind the accident -- so that when the 2-ton car crashes into the 30-ton truck, the car will bounce off and the people behind the truck (us) won't be injured.

I don't disagree that Tesla's software is partly to blame here, but the null experiment also has a lousy track record.

Re: Tesla’s Autopilot found partly to blame for 2018 crash on the 405

#10

The driver was found using his phone, over-relied on the autopilot system, and lied about what he was doing when being questioned. Sadly, we can't 100% trust these automated driving systems yet so folks need to stay attentive behind the wheel. The more accidents like this will cause lawmakers to create laws that can potentially slow down automated driving development.

What is the point of a self-driving system where you need to stay attentive behind the wheel?

The physical act of turning a wheel isn't the hard part of driving. Paying attention is.

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