3 ms·
NTSB Report here: https://ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAB1907.pdf https://ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAB1... (found it
by aduitsis 7y ago
NTSB Report here: https://ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAB1907.pdf https://ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAB1... (found it here: https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/4/20849499/tesla-autopilot-crash-culver-city-2018-ntsb-report https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/4/20849499/tesla-autopilot-c...)
Copying: When the last lead vehicle changed lanes—3 to 4 seconds before the
crash—revealing the fire truck on the path of the Tesla, the system was unable to immediately
detect the hazard and accelerated the Tesla toward the stationary truck. By the time the system
detected the stationary vehicle and gave the driver a collision warning—0.49 second before impact
—the collision was imminent and the warning was too late, particularly for an inattentive driver.
The AEB system did not activate. Had the driver been attending to the driving task, he could have
taken evasive action to avoid or mitigate the collision.
So there you have it: "particularly for an inattentive driver".
Not really an expert in the field, but I think a major problem with self-driving in general is handing over from an autopilot to a human. This is something that cannot be easily solved just by throwing smarter technology at the problem. Even if autopilot technology manages to be reliable 99.9% of the time, this won't be good enough, because people will invariably think they can rely on it 100% of the time and fall asleep or get distracted. So this 0.1% can be potentially catastrophic, because you cannot go from being asleep to full alertness in 0.5 seconds. Besides, even if one actually wants to maintain alertness, it may be harder to be alert and not doing anything than being alert and doing something (driving).
So, unless autopilots can really really handle anything thrown at them, this will be a real issue. Although there is much willingness for people to convince others and be convinced that this kind of autopilot is very close to being a reality, I suspect it may be not.
- olau 7y agoThere was an interview with George Hotz from comma.ai where he talked about this. His fix is a very attentive driver monitoring setup. So if you are not paying attention, it will barf at you. IIRC he was also talking about how this driver monitoring setup is worth something in itself for trucking companies, fewer damages.