6 ms·

Tesla driver again dies in crash with trailer, Autopilot not yet ruled out

42 points by jbuzbee 8y ago

blotter_paper 8y ago
>driver dies again Again? Dying once might be attributed to bad luck, but dying twice just reeks of carelessness. I hope the driver learns from this, and doesn't die a third time from the same cause. Edit: typo, not tact.
- bluejellybean 8y ago
  Every car manufacture deals with fatality[0], this isn't about carelessness. Cars today are dangerous and the safety of a specific car shouldn't be judged by only two bad accidents. [0] https://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview https://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatali...
  - blotter_paper 8y ago
    PROTIP: The downvoters were onto something; I'm just butchering an old Oscar Wilde line and applying it to an ambiguous headline I found dark humor in. The trash-tier comment you're replying to has nothing to do with Tesla.
rudolph9 8y ago
Statically are you more or less likely to die using Tesla auto pilot? I wonder if the number of hours drivers went without autopilot, the number with, and the number of fatal accident occurred with and without autopilot are public?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- URSpider94 8y ago
  Tesla has published numbers stating that the accident rate with autopilot engaged is roughly half the rate with it disengaged - across their fleet, so same driver pool. https://www.tesla.com/blog/q3-2018-vehicle-safety-report https://www.tesla.com/blog/q3-2018-vehicle-safety-report Note, this data is almost certainly biased since AP can only be engaged in certain circumstances and is mostly used on the highway, where accidents are much less likely overall.
  - joshstrange 8y ago
    > Note, this data is almost certainly biased since AP can only be engaged in certain circumstances and is mostly used on the highway, where accidents are much less likely overall. I don't disagree but highway accidents have to be the most dangerous as well due to the speed as well as other factors. I'm not as worried about fender benders as I am a 3, 4, 5, 6.... car pileup on the highway.
- mannykannot 8y ago
  The question of whether one is more or less likely to kill or injure other people when using Tesla autopilot is somewhat more important. This is not an easy question to answer, especially as there are not that many incidents, and also there may be some features of the autopilot package that enhance safety, while others might create more risk than they mitigate. I assume you are unfamiliar with the strange NHTSA report, claiming improvements that seemed too good to be believed - and were: https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-nhtsa-20190214-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-nhtsa-...
- popotamonga 8y ago
  Reducing that to a number is dangerous. What if it was 100% safe but every hour a random tesla would just blow into pieces. Would you ride it? What if it was 100 Teslas? What if it was a number just enough to be statistically safer than regular cars?
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    Likewise, failing to consider the overall number at all leaves us prone to discount significant progress that has a scary failure mode. If a system made me and my family 10x safer overall but every failure meant we were all gruesomely decapitated, I’d absolutely take it. Many people would argue strenuously against it.
    - julianlam 8y ago
      You seem to be conflating absolute risk and relative risk. In the same example, if my odds of getting into a car accident was 1 in 1000, and the Tesla 1 in 10000, I'd drive myself because fender benders and wipeouts are included in that 1 in 1000. If we're talking 1 in 5 to 1 in 50, this changes the calculus significantly.
      - sokoloff 8y ago
        You seem to be conflating safety ratio with accident ratio. I specifically predicated on "makes me and my family 10x safer overall."
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-tesla-autopilot-cut-crashes-40-that-was-bogus/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-t... "When QCS director Randy Whitfield ran the numbers for these vehicles, he found that the rate of crashes per mile increased by 59 percent after Tesla enabled the Autosteer technology. So does that mean that Autosteer actually makes crashes 59 percent more likely? Probably not. Those 5,714 vehicles represent only a small portion of Tesla's fleet, and there's no way to know if they're representative."
kalleboo 8y ago
When will the US require trucks to have side underride guards like the EU? These accidents happen even with human drivers.
- brianwawok 8y ago
  What do these look like? Never seen one.
  - kalleboo 8y ago
    US truck: https://heavyvehicles.com.au/wp-content/uploads/fresightliner-cascadia-semi-truck-659x381.jpg https://heavyvehicles.com.au/wp-content/uploads/fresightline... EU truck: https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/transex-truck-bern-2.jpeg https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/... On the US truck, there is an open space under the trailer, where the engine of a car can go in so the trailer decapitates the passengers. On the EU truck, there are bars under the trailer to stop cars from going in there and letting the crumple zone do its job.
    - ferongr 8y ago
      If you've actually seen those guards in real live, you'd realise they're not able to stop anything heavier than a bicycle hitting them. The supports are often thin bent sheet steel and the bars themselves soft aluminum extrusions. Enforcements of standards is very lax in most countries.
      - thescriptkiddie 8y ago
        You're probably confusing the crash bars with similar looking but non-structural aerodynamic fairings, which are much more common in the US. The EU-compliant crash bars are an integral part of the trailer frame, not something bolted on.
- drewrv 8y ago
  I was researching vehicle safety for a new car purchase a few years ago and came across this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3G-kcKN70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3G-kcKN70 It freaked me out and I stay as far away as possible from semis on the road now.
JKCalhoun 8y ago
> In this new accident, the vehicle again kept going for over 500 yards (half a km) before coming to a stop. Disturbing.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  Presumably if the roof was taken off, lots of components of the autopilot system would have been seen as unavailable. In that case, I would design the system to apply the brakes quite hard (unless autopilot was disengaged by the user). Going to full emergency stop mode would clearly cause accidents in other more mundane cases like a malfunctioning sensor. A deceleration of 1 m/s from highway speeds ends up with the car travelling 400 yards, which is broadly in line with what happened here.
  - julianlam 8y ago
    That's reckless. If the car is effectively blinded, continuing to travel at highway speeds for nearly half a kilometer sounds like a terrible idea.
- Udik 8y ago
  If you see a convertible strolling down the highway with a decapitated driver at the wheel, you know what happenened :/
  - sjwpv 8y ago
    lmao that's some Final Destination shit

42 points by jbuzbee 8y ago

>driver dies again Again? Dying once might be attributed to bad luck, but dying twice just reeks of carelessness. I hope the driver learns from this, and doesn't die a third time from the same cause. Edit: typo, not tact.

bluejellybean 8y ago
Every car manufacture deals with fatality[0], this isn't about carelessness. Cars today are dangerous and the safety of a specific car shouldn't be judged by only two bad accidents. [0] https://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview https://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatali...
- blotter_paper 8y ago
  PROTIP: The downvoters were onto something; I'm just butchering an old Oscar Wilde line and applying it to an ambiguous headline I found dark humor in. The trash-tier comment you're replying to has nothing to do with Tesla.

rudolph9 8y ago

Statically are you more or less likely to die using Tesla auto pilot? I wonder if the number of hours drivers went without autopilot, the number with, and the number of fatal accident occurred with and without autopilot are public?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
URSpider94 8y ago
Tesla has published numbers stating that the accident rate with autopilot engaged is roughly half the rate with it disengaged - across their fleet, so same driver pool. https://www.tesla.com/blog/q3-2018-vehicle-safety-report https://www.tesla.com/blog/q3-2018-vehicle-safety-report Note, this data is almost certainly biased since AP can only be engaged in certain circumstances and is mostly used on the highway, where accidents are much less likely overall.
- joshstrange 8y ago
  > Note, this data is almost certainly biased since AP can only be engaged in certain circumstances and is mostly used on the highway, where accidents are much less likely overall. I don't disagree but highway accidents have to be the most dangerous as well due to the speed as well as other factors. I'm not as worried about fender benders as I am a 3, 4, 5, 6.... car pileup on the highway.
mannykannot 8y ago
The question of whether one is more or less likely to kill or injure other people when using Tesla autopilot is somewhat more important. This is not an easy question to answer, especially as there are not that many incidents, and also there may be some features of the autopilot package that enhance safety, while others might create more risk than they mitigate. I assume you are unfamiliar with the strange NHTSA report, claiming improvements that seemed too good to be believed - and were: https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-nhtsa-20190214-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-nhtsa-...
popotamonga 8y ago
Reducing that to a number is dangerous. What if it was 100% safe but every hour a random tesla would just blow into pieces. Would you ride it? What if it was 100 Teslas? What if it was a number just enough to be statistically safer than regular cars?
- sokoloff 8y ago
  Likewise, failing to consider the overall number at all leaves us prone to discount significant progress that has a scary failure mode. If a system made me and my family 10x safer overall but every failure meant we were all gruesomely decapitated, I’d absolutely take it. Many people would argue strenuously against it.
  - julianlam 8y ago
    You seem to be conflating absolute risk and relative risk. In the same example, if my odds of getting into a car accident was 1 in 1000, and the Tesla 1 in 10000, I'd drive myself because fender benders and wipeouts are included in that 1 in 1000. If we're talking 1 in 5 to 1 in 50, this changes the calculus significantly.
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      You seem to be conflating safety ratio with accident ratio. I specifically predicated on "makes me and my family 10x safer overall."
LoSboccacc 8y ago
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-tesla-autopilot-cut-crashes-40-that-was-bogus/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-t... "When QCS director Randy Whitfield ran the numbers for these vehicles, he found that the rate of crashes per mile increased by 59 percent after Tesla enabled the Autosteer technology. So does that mean that Autosteer actually makes crashes 59 percent more likely? Probably not. Those 5,714 vehicles represent only a small portion of Tesla's fleet, and there's no way to know if they're representative."

kalleboo 8y ago

When will the US require trucks to have side underride guards like the EU? These accidents happen even with human drivers.

brianwawok 8y ago
What do these look like? Never seen one.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  US truck: https://heavyvehicles.com.au/wp-content/uploads/fresightliner-cascadia-semi-truck-659x381.jpg https://heavyvehicles.com.au/wp-content/uploads/fresightline... EU truck: https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/transex-truck-bern-2.jpeg https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/... On the US truck, there is an open space under the trailer, where the engine of a car can go in so the trailer decapitates the passengers. On the EU truck, there are bars under the trailer to stop cars from going in there and letting the crumple zone do its job.
  - ferongr 8y ago
    If you've actually seen those guards in real live, you'd realise they're not able to stop anything heavier than a bicycle hitting them. The supports are often thin bent sheet steel and the bars themselves soft aluminum extrusions. Enforcements of standards is very lax in most countries.
    - thescriptkiddie 8y ago
      You're probably confusing the crash bars with similar looking but non-structural aerodynamic fairings, which are much more common in the US. The EU-compliant crash bars are an integral part of the trailer frame, not something bolted on.
drewrv 8y ago
I was researching vehicle safety for a new car purchase a few years ago and came across this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3G-kcKN70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3G-kcKN70 It freaked me out and I stay as far away as possible from semis on the road now.

JKCalhoun 8y ago

> In this new accident, the vehicle again kept going for over 500 yards (half a km) before coming to a stop. Disturbing.

londons_explore 8y ago
Presumably if the roof was taken off, lots of components of the autopilot system would have been seen as unavailable. In that case, I would design the system to apply the brakes quite hard (unless autopilot was disengaged by the user). Going to full emergency stop mode would clearly cause accidents in other more mundane cases like a malfunctioning sensor. A deceleration of 1 m/s from highway speeds ends up with the car travelling 400 yards, which is broadly in line with what happened here.
- julianlam 8y ago
  That's reckless. If the car is effectively blinded, continuing to travel at highway speeds for nearly half a kilometer sounds like a terrible idea.
Udik 8y ago
If you see a convertible strolling down the highway with a decapitated driver at the wheel, you know what happenened :/
- sjwpv 8y ago
  lmao that's some Final Destination shit