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Pedestrian fatally crushed between two parked cars after one started remotely
- starpilot 7y agoIt begins.
- ishi 7y agoIt's an accident caused by something getting turned on at the wrong time. Is it any different than, for example, someone turning on the power without knowing that an electrician is currently doing some work, thereby causing him to get electrocuted?
- pmontra 7y agoIt is, because there are always pedestrians and other cars around the streets. They are more difficult to control especially if you're not looking. I'm pretty confident that I don't kill anybody if I turn on a light switch now. I'm pretty sure something bad would happen if I'd start my car remotely in gear and with no handbrake.
- K2L8M11N2 7y agohttps://xkcd.com/1656/ https://xkcd.com/1656/
- caymanjim 7y agoI wonder if this car had an after-market remote start system installed? I can't imagine that an official Lexus system would behave like this. I suppose there could be a defective sensor or something involved, but you'd think it would have sufficiently-tested failsafes.
- beamatronic 7y agoModel year 2002 for both cars. There’s more to the story.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kart23 7y agoIt was an aftermarket system. This article leaves out a lot. 2002 lexus cars did not come with auto start.
- tastroder 7y agoIt sounds weird, even with after-market remote starters you usually have to either cut a cable (or similar) to explicitly tell the unit that it's an automatic car or go through a procedure in manual transmission mode that's designed to prevent remote start while in gear (a usual one is the remote start turning the car off when the door is closed to ensure it's in neutral and only allowing remote start from that state).
- JoeMattie 7y agoThis sounds like someone installed an auto start system in their manual transmission car and bypassed the neutral sensor.
- ComputerGuru 7y agoI’m always confused when someone parks my car and I find they parked it in first rather than neutral plus the handbrake (High gradients excepted, where both should be used regardless of preference). People that learn it one way will never do it the other. (Also, yes, the 2002 IS300 was available in stick.)
- epanchin 7y agoIn the UK where stick is normal, we’re taught to park in gear + handbrake. The handbrake can start slipping when the brakes cool and the car could roll, so both are necessary, especially on a hill.
- StrangeSound 7y agoAnecdotally [UK], I can't say that I nor anyone that I've noticed ever park in gear. With parking on hills being the only exception.
- gerdesj 7y agoAnecdotally (UK), I do sometimes park in gear as well as the hand brake and I know others. I evaluate the situation first and use the appropriate combination. It may sound a bit excessive but a mental risk assessment takes seconds.
- zelos 7y agoMy UK driving instructor told me I should park with the car in reverse gear if you're pointing down a hill. I was never quite sure of the logic behind that.
- 7y ago
- consp 7y agoWhat is the point of remote start anyway? Heating up the engine? That is wasteful. Cooling down via airco? Open the Windows and wait 30 seconds or disconnect the airco system from the engine altogether as a design choice and add a bit beefier accumulator. I seriously do not get why you need it. Maybe someone can enlighten me Edit: completely forgot about really cold winters...
- neckardt 7y agoThe point is heating up the car so it's warm when you get inside. I don't have this feature and I live in the northern US. In the winter the car is freezing for the first 3 minutes as there is no heat until the engine warms up. Being able to start the car from the other side of the parking lot would increase my comfort by a large amount.
- consp 7y agoIsn't this why they invented preheaters? My old car blew out warm air after 10 seconds.
- 0db532a0 7y agoIt is not too hard to install a remote ignition system or have one installed.
- Daniel_sk 7y agoCars in EU usually have an auxiliary heater as an option you can purchase. This safely preheats the car, it’s a heater running on car’s fuel, but without the need to start the engine. They have remote and scheduled starts.
- lm28469 7y ago> In the winter the car is freezing for the first 3 minutes as there is no heat until the engine warms up. If this isn't the epitome of a first world problem... Imagine the man power, resources and money spend so that we can avoid being cold for 3 minutes.
- perfunctory 7y agoFrom the article: > An owner's manual cautions: “NEVER remotely start the engine if you are unaware of the circumstances surrounding the vehicle as it may cause a life-threatening situation for those located in the vehicle’s vicinity.”
- adim86 7y agoThe police should investigate if the car system has been modified. That car was going to have a collision with the car in front of it, even if the boy was not there so something is very wrong here. I am no lawyer and we have not heard the other angles of the story but it seems plausible that someone is liable for this car behaving strangely
- personjerry 7y agoFYI if you didn't catch it, the car was from 2002. This isn't about the same AI driving we usually see here.
- moccachino 7y agoThanks, that turns this from a very serious concern to a much smaller one. I thought it was a Tesla that somehow completely failed to see a pedestrian and then to stop when it made contact, which would have terrible implications for the rest of the fleet.
- mapcars 7y ago>that turns this from a very serious concern to a much smaller one. Not really, this means there is a whole bunch of cars like this already in the wild and people being unaware of this.
- londons_explore 7y agoI don't really see any way the remote start could have triggered the car moving... Unless perhaps the car was in gear? I would guess this car has had some kind of aftermarket fiddling...
- celticmusic 7y agoIt has to be more than that unless you're willing to hold the bystanders who tried to help criminally responsible. They pushed the car away from the kid, did they just let it roll back up on him? I doubt it, it's more likely the vehicle was in gear.
- on_and_off 7y agoI think that gp is being ironic since the event they described actually happened.
- moccachino 7y agoThat is true, but if it's a 2002 model and this first happened now, I perceived it to be a low-probability event. I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of this bug, I'm just saying it doesn't have as catastrophic implications as it would if this happened in a state-of-the-art Tesla.
- jdnenej 7y agoHow many deaths per year do we tolerate before deciding cars were a mistake?
- mikekchar 7y agoIt's a good question. Wikipedia tells me that the rate of deaths per 100K vehicles is about 14 in the US. As a point of comparison, selling raw, unpasteurised milk is prohibited in most UK states. It has a death rate of about 1 per million drinkers. Of course laws are not always rational, but somewhere in there someone has decided that the death toll/benefit trade off for cars is worth it and for raw milk is not. It might be surprising, but I actually would rather have it the other way around, but I think there is considerable room for reasonable disagreement.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jasonlfunk 7y agoYou would also need to factor in how many deaths per year are avoided because of cars. I'm thinking specifically of emergency vehicles (ambulances, police cars, etc) but I'm sure other the argument can be made for other vehicles as well.
- jdnenej 7y agoNo one advocating against cars thinks emergency vehicles should be removed. Emergency vehicles would be aided by the removal of cars from streets since pedestrians and cyclists are able to clear the space easily for emergency vehicles unlike a road full of cars.
- puPoh 7y agoSustainable and clean public transportation does not stroke people's egos like owning a car.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- akmarinov 7y agoIf this was a Tesla, it would’ve said “Tesla starts on its own and kills a person”, but since it’s a Lexus - no one cares.
- manmal 7y agoI'm pretty sure the Tesla would stop on the slightest perception of any impact. Summon is also super slow.
- londons_explore 7y agoDetecting collisions reliably is actually really hard - especially minor collisions against soft things like people. I predict that if self driving cars do get widely deployed, the number of 'hit and runs' they do because they couldn't detect they had collided will be very high, even if the overall accident rate is low.
- manmal 7y agoI don’t believe that. The 360 degree view provided by multiple cameras makes measuring proximity to close objects easy. Look at sentry mode recordings, it’s very obvious on the feed when a person touches the car.
- xiphias2 7y agoEven my 8 year old BMW's radar is good enough to detect people at very slow speed.
- vinay427 7y agoThe difference is the current details seem to indicate there's nothing Lexus-specific at play here. It was almost certainly an aftermarket remote starter system.
- michaelcampbell 7y agosee: Strawman Whatever gives you the idea no one cares?
- userbinator 7y agoSeveral bystanders managed to push the car backwards, police said, but "in the course of doing so, the vehicle rolled forward once again and pinned the pedestrian between the two vehicles once more." ...and with even more force, since the car now had a bit more distance to build up some speed. One wonders whether he would've survived if they had left him there, and it was the second blow that killed him, since the fact that they were able to push it back suggests it was probably an automatic left in neutral with nothing more than the idle torque. If it was a manual, stopping it or pushing it backwards would've already stalled the engine. I suppose another lesson here is that if you ever have to push a car out of the way, chock the wheels afterwards, or otherwise try to prevent it from moving again. I'm also surprised that was enough to kill. Edit: downvoters, explain yourselves please.
- ubercow13 7y agoI think it’s not surprising having your legs crushed can kill you. All your blood flows through there!
- lonelappde 7y agoHow far do you reckon they pushed the car?
- londons_explore 7y agoAfter having your legs crushed and someone freeing you, I would imagine your first action would be to sit down. Then the person pushing the car back gets tired (since they are pushing against an automatic cars 'creep' torque converter), and the car comes back at you again, this time crushing your head. I can see how that's deadly.
- asdff 7y agoOr more sinister: the pinned car could have acted as a tourniquet, and once it was removed the pedestrian could have been free to quickly bleed out.
- vinay427 7y agoThe creep you're referring to in an automatic is in drive (or other modes besides park and neutral). Neutral functions similarly to neutral on a manual transmission car.
- PinguTS 7y agoThat is the reason why in Europe this feature is strictly forbidden. Even blue light vehicles needed to be started explicitly with the driver in seat and the driver has to follow a procedure if he wants to leave and lock the car with engine running. In blue light vehicles a running engine will support the blue light to run longer like when the car is used as a blocker in an accident situation on a highway.
- jfim 7y agoFor those confused by this post, blue light vehicles refer to emergency vehicles.
- NetOpWibby 7y agoThank you
- DonHopkins 7y agoI was worried Kmart was selling cheap cars. Or blue lightbulbs for driving schoolbusses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8ZxtRrWxOs&t=9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8ZxtRrWxOs&t=9s
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Reason077 7y agoTesla’s “summmon” feature, which allows the vehicle to be moved/parked remotely from an app, does work in Europe. However, it’s functionality is greatly reduced compared to the US version, and requires the operator to be standing nearby with a line of sight to the vehicle.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Piskvorrr 7y agoOh, but does work and may work are two different beasts entirely, and Tesla specifically is notorious in disregard for the latter: "you could do this, but don't, wink wink wink."
- tus88 7y agoAnd how many people have been killed between two cars because someone forget to pull the parking brake on a hill? A lot more than this way I am guessing.
- mongol 7y agoGiven that cars have been around for over 100 years, yes most likely
- noobermin 7y agoAs anticar as I am in general (thinking of the last post I engaged in), this was my first reaction. It may be new technology but failures happen all the time. I guess the difference here is it was in fact human error that did this than a technical failure AND the person wasn't present and couldn't see it. I'm trying to think of an analogous situation with old technology, the "parking brake on a hill" is closer to a failure of the brake + an human error that is one of neglect. The autostart is an error that on the other hand requires human action, not neglect, so may be that's why it feels different. This whole thought process conjures up arguments around the trolley problem.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- slowhand09 7y agoBoth cars from 2002 tells me the onwers are probably friends, members of the same club, car modders, etc. A remote start on a 2002 is almost certainly an aftermarket add-on. And to move while/after starting, it was almost certainly a manual transmission. And incorrectly installed. Auto-start on manual trans cars require the vehicle be in neutral with the parking brake on.
- brokentone 7y agoJust watched a Def Con video where Jmaxxz self-installs a remote-start system. Lots of interesting details about what could have gone wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8SG2V3n4-U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8SG2V3n4-U