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One of the reasons I would love to have autopilot is because I have a history of dozing off at the wheel. Never so much where I've had an accident, but bad enou

One of the reasons I would love to have autopilot is because I have a history of dozing off at the wheel. Never so much where I've had an accident, but bad enough where I've scared myself badly. I don't want autopilot so I can actually sleep at the wheel, I want it in case I do. I'd vastly prefer if the car noticed I was inattentive that it notified me. My feeling is for long drives this would be a safety feature, but I'm concerned that the way it's built it will my worst driving behaviors instead of helping compensate for them.

alanbernstein 6y ago
Aren't autopilot and sleep detection totally independent features?
- gene91 6y ago
  Auto manufacturers are approaching Adaptive Cruise Control in a manner that intermingles the two: GM "Super Cruise", Ford's upcoming "CoPilot 360 Active", etc. In my opinion, these two features are very related. In order to have a reasonably low false positive, the sleep detection must be reasonably lenient. In turn, this means the vehicle must be able to (most of the time) tolerate a few seconds of inattentive driving.
cptskippy 6y ago
> I have a history of dozing off at the wheel. Have you tried to address this issue? This seems like a huge safety concern and you're actively choosing to put others in harms way by continuing to drive.
- nexuist 6y ago
  I agree. If this is something like e.g. narcolepsy, you should see a doctor. There are a few low-risk prescriptions worth looking into. When I used to pull 18 hour days, I would also notice myself getting tired behind the wheel, but never fully falling asleep. My low-tech solution to this was to set an alarm for 10 minutes after I started driving and setting the alarm volume to max. Then, the alarm would go off in the middle of my drive, usually surprising me and jolting me awake since I'm obviously not paying attention to the time. Then, snoozing the alarm would make it go away for another 10 minutes, and so on until I made it home. This is probably not the perfect solution but it worked for me. Obviously the better long term solution is to a) not do 18 hour days and b) address what is making you so sleepy and stop it from happening.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > When I used to pull 18 hour days, I would also notice myself getting tired behind the wheel, but never fully falling asleep. This is fairly similar to what would trigger it with me. My solution was to ensure I have passengers or let someone else drive.
  - smeyer 6y ago
    It's hard to imagine that you were alert enough to safely drive even with the alarm. I'd urge anyone in a similar situation to stay off the roads; your ability to work 18 hour days is less important than the safety of everyone on the road.
    - nexuist 6y ago
      Yeah, what helped me is that on those nights I elected to avoid the highway and only take city roads, so lots of traffic, red lights, stop lights, etc. that allowed me to drive slowly. The downside is that sitting at stop lights made me sleepier, hence the alarms. Avoiding highways was what saved me I think; a mistake at 20mph is far less expensive than a mistake at 80mph. But certainly you're right; the obvious answer is to avoid driving or as another commenter said, carpool!
- adolph 6y ago
  Indeed. In a fail-safer world maybe an original use for driver monitoring and autopilot would be to move the vehicle to a safe spot to stop and perform alerting.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Yes. Mostly I just learned to recognize when I'm getting tired and pull over and take a nap which is a massive help. Also, it's pretty uncommon for me to drive solo anymore so it's far less of an issue. Oddly, it was a bigger issue when I was younger. It hasn't happened to me in quite a few years, but the awareness of it has lingered, thus my desire to take extra precautions.
  - orbital-decay 6y ago
    >Also, it's pretty uncommon for me to drive solo anymore so it's far less of an issue. There's almost nothing a person in another seat can do if you are asleep, even if they realize that in time (and that's a huge assumption). Speaking as someone who has unhealthy interest at failures, disasters, and their root causes, this type of attitude is super common, and always leads to disasters. Please seek medical attention before you killed somebody and yourself. You can't rely on self-control.
    - rightbyte 6y ago
      I guess what he is meaning is that you can change drivers when you are not alone?
      - nmcfarl 6y ago
        My guess is that he has someone to talk to. I've found that this makes get drowsy much less likely.
iddqd 6y ago
I hope as soon as EYES_CLOSED trigger loud alarms go off and the car slows down carefully, with or without autopilot enabled. You should probably stay off the roads if you’re having these issues and/or seek help to resolve them.
- Reason077 6y ago
  Bjørn Nyland on YouTube drives a lot of different EVs in Norway, and one of the thing he tests is the Lane Assist/Autopilot/driver assist disengagement behaviour if there is no response from the driver. It seems like some cars will actually try to kill you - they'll beep a bit and try to alert you, then if you don't respond the autopilot will simply disengage. And drive off the road or into whatever. The better ones (such as the new Polestar) go to great efforts to try and alert you (noise, flashing lights, tugging on seatbelt tensioner) then will finally activate hazard lights, slow down gradually, and pull over safely.
- dosshell 6y ago
  No it won't do that directly. Even if it is longer then a blink. And the reason for that is false positives. It is _very_ hard to see the difference between a person looking down and when the person is closing the eye. The system usally have an EXTENDED_EYE_CLOSURE signal that is triggered after a certain time (together with a quality value of this signal). So not directly, but yes, close too. But it is still tricky. What happens if you start blinking and then the camera get covered. Should it warn? It can not always warn if it loses tracking. How should it warn? Disturbing the driver can actually cause accidents.
gamblor956 6y ago
In some states your medical condition would prevent you from getting (or renewing) a driver's license. You need to talk to a doctor immediately because you're an active risk to other people on the road.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  See my comment in the other thread.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    That other comment was posted after my reply, and your original comment said nothing about falling sleep after strenuous activity or large meals, so my comment still stands as a response to what you originally posted. Mostly just doing something physically tiring and having a full stomach, plus being in a monotonous 1-2 hour drive is a recipe for sleep. What you are describing still suggests an underlying medical condition or extreme indifference to the safety of others. I was being generous and assuming you were not deliberately being indifferent to the well-being other drivers. It's not normal to fall asleep driving after only a few hours of strenuous activity followed by food.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      > That other comment was posted after my reply, and your original comment said nothing about falling sleep after strenuous activity or large meals, so my comment still stands as a response to what you originally posted. You made a bunch of assumptions based on a small comment. I didn't say I have narcolepsy or regularly fall asleep at the wheel. > What you are describing still suggests an underlying medical condition or extreme indifference to the safety of others. I find it fascinating that people feel they are capable of coming up with a medical diagnosis for a random person over the internet based on a few vague comments.
- myHNAccount123 6y ago
  Yeah this persons actions are VERY concerning. They need to change their behaviour immediately. To Ogre_... you cannot self diagnose by saying "I know when I'm feeling tired so I nap." Go To A Doctor NOW.
heavyset_go 6y ago
> One of the reasons I would love to have autopilot is because I have a history of dozing off at the wheel. Never so much where I've had an accident, but bad enough where I've scared myself badly. This is pretty selfish. If you're falling asleep at the wheel enough that you want Tesla's Autopilot to save you, you have a problem. I've seen Tesla cars do absolutely insane maneuvers on the freeway that no sober driver would ever consider doing, only to find out that the person behind the wheel is asleep or doing another task other than driving.
cozzyd 6y ago
In this case, the Tesla should pull over and then call the highway patrol to give you a ticket.
TacticalCoder 6y ago
It's not a solution (you really shouldn't drive when you're sleepy) but a great many modern cars will warn you if you slowly quit your lane without having used your blinkers first, which is typically what happens when someone get sleepy while driving (slowly drifting out of your lane on the highway). My wife's little Toyota CH-R does just that: it tries to correct the car's trajectory, does give feedback both through vibration (in the steering wheel) and through an audio signal. I think it's more realistic to settle for that kind of features than to wait for a real 100% complete autopilot.
dimgl 6y ago
I was involved in a major car accident that totaled my new vehicle due to falling asleep at the wheel on a highway. Obviously it scared me enough that I'll never fall asleep in a car again, but it was due to sleep deprivation from being up many hours irresponsibly the night before. If you're falling asleep often at the wheel I would recommend you tell your primary. He'll likely refer you to a sleep doctor. I didn't have major symptoms, but after a recommendation from my primary I discovered I have a bad case of sleep apnea. If you're falling asleep at the wheel often (and btw, you're doing the right thing by pulling over and napping) you should go to a sleep doctor. You might not be getting a proper amount of sleep, for whatever reason, and they might be able to help.
- vaccinator 6y ago
  I fell asleep once and only hit tall grass... No damages luckily. I hope that they would stop mowing the side of highways (it is good for slowing you down)
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  I replied in another comment, but it was never super frequent, and hasn't happened to me in years. Just like it sounds like with you, the fear of it happening again has lingered.
Shivetya 6y ago
I am one of those drivers that on long distance drives will occasionally view a bridge in my rear view mirror and cannot recall passing under it. Hence for me the system is insurance for the time where I am truly distracted. When I use my 3's driving feature on local roads I find I am more attentive as I am constantly looking for situations I think should confuse it but then I realize I am overthinking the situation far more often than not. While I love to drive I do look forward to the day anyone can just hop in and ask to be taken somewhere and safely
spike021 6y ago
Honestly if you're driving even somewhat regularly I'd highly recommend stopping that immediately and getting this completely figured out. I don't even mean "well I think I know now how to tell when it's coming on and if I should pull over." I mean get it diagnosed, whatever. I'm not sure how someone who knows they have this issue feels the least bit okay with going out on a road in a 1+ ton car.
tobinfricke 6y ago
Have you been evaluated for sleep apnea? Microsleeps while driving are extremely dangerous. You should take this seriously.
echelon 6y ago
> I don't want autopilot so I can actually sleep at the wheel, I want it in case I do. You should never get behind the wheel if there's a chance you'll fall asleep! You shouldn't be driving. Period. This is incredibly dangerous and puts innocent people at risk. No technology should compensate for this. We don't design technology to help drivers under the influence feel better about their driving. Please don't get behind the wheel if you're drowsy.
- agentdrtran 6y ago
  You know people are going to do it, though, so it's good to have checks on it.
  - echelon 6y ago
    I disagree wholeheartedly. This technology empowers people to make stupid decisions and rationalize them. We never had people deliberately sleeping in cars (with pillows!) before autopilot was a thing. If the kinds of people prone to make these types of decisions come to trust technology to save them, we're going to wind up in a worse spot than before the technology existed. People will rely on the tech to save them when it was never meant for that.
    - randallsquared 6y ago
      > This technology empowers people to make stupid decisions and rationalize them. Not just "this" technology -- technology in general. There are always risk adjustments; airbags and seat belts had similar riskier-driving effects.
- 14 6y ago
  I have the unfortunate ability to be wide awake when I leave and then suddenly be tired. I often have to stop on even 1-2 hour drives. But I recognize when I am tired and am know for just pulling over to nap even if I have passengers. Sleep driving is like drunk driving.
- danudey 6y ago
dmead 6y ago
you should not be driving at all.
sorenjan 6y ago
You're describing driver drowsiness detection, and that is available in a lot of different cars, and was launched in 2007 by Volvo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_drowsiness_detection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_drowsiness_detection
huid827 6y ago
I'm also looking forward to getting autopilot at some point to address situations where I feel pretty drowsy. While yes, the correct thing to do is to not drive, to pull over, and so forth, reality doesn't always allow for those things and it would be nice to have autopilot as a driver aid.
devit 6y ago
If you have to drive despite this, you probably should ensure to have a supply of caffeine in the car (e.g. caffeine gums, instant coffee, maybe energy drinks) and take a sufficient dose before driving [https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/motr/can-a-caffeine-buzz-improve-driving-safety.html https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/motr/can-a-caffein...] You might also be able to get a prescription for modafinil, which might be even more effective.
OBFUSCATED 6y ago
Ford has a system that does this. It looks out for things like sudden corrective steering inputs. https://www.haynesford.co.uk/Tech-Ford-driver-alert https://www.haynesford.co.uk/Tech-Ford-driver-alert
kerng 6y ago
Maybe a warning system to tell you to stop driving might be better?
kerng 6y ago
Maybe a warning system to tell you to stop driving might be better? I believe such systems that track your eye movement actually exist already
- dosshell 6y ago
  Yes, head, eye, eyelid, glasses and facemask trackers do exist now in cars. BMW, GM etc. Face recognition, speak detection (who is speaking) and drowsiness is coming very soon as far as I know. The car will know when you changed driver last time etc.
dheera 6y ago
The one thing I hate about most cars' active lane keep systems is that if you fall asleep and don't grip the steering wheel for a while, it does the most UNSAFE thing possible, which is to beep a few times and then disable itself, which would mean that you crash, 100% of the time. Yet other lane keep systems disable themselves below 40mph which means you crash as soon as the car slows down to that speed. What it should do is continue to aggressively lane keep, switch on emergency flashers, and sound progressively louder alarms until you wake up, but NEVER stop lane keeping, even as the car slows down below 40mph. It should lane keep all the way down to 0 and keep sounding the alarms. What does Tesla do if you actually fall asleep and ignore the warnings?
- awad 6y ago
  The hazard lights go on, the car will slow down, and eventually pull over to the side of the road while Autopilot is disabled for the rest of the trip. Though the "disabled for rest of the trip" bit can be trivially worked around by shutting down and powering back on, this seems to be better than what you mentioned in immediately shutting down the system while still driving.
  - dheera 6y ago
    That's awesome, at least the hazard lights and pulling over to the side of the road, sounds infinitely more safe than any other lane keep system I've seen.
mtgx 6y ago
Then the Autopilot should never be a thing people can enable at will. It should be something automatic like automatic-braking in case of imminent accident. And in such scenarios it should be MUCH louder than just beeping about while you doze off after 20h of not getting enough sleep. And if it happens say 3 times in a short amount of time, it should just ull you over.
mrich 6y ago
In Germany, there are quite a few cars with "Emergency Assist" technology. There are different variants of it, in my VW Touran it works like this: When the car is in ACC/lane assist mode (similar to Autopilot), it will detect when there is no steering wheel input for a while. First it beeps, then it will brake a few times to "wake you up". Still no input? Then it will brake to a complete stop and turn on the warning lights. In more recent incarnations the car will park at the side of the road. It is great for medical emergencies (stroke/seizure) but of course you should not rely on it and drive without paying attention to the road.
Diederich 6y ago
The first road trip we took with our Tesla Model S was from the SF Bay Area to Lompoc, CA, to see a SpaceX launch. (Seeing ANY rocket launch in person is a highly encouraged activity by the way!). The timing of it allowed us to drive there, see the launch, and drive back the same day, but getting home pretty late. Getting into the bay area, it was dark, and I was damn tired. Had this been a long trip of some kind, I'd have at least pulled over and done a power nap, but I foolishly decided to press on, since we were less than 30 minutes from home and bed. I'd been using autopilot for most of the trip, closely supervising it of course. Suddenly I was awakened by the frantic, loud beeping that you get when you don't keep some minor torque on the steering wheel for a while. It scared the hell out of me and my family in the car. With their help, we were able to make it home safely. Your specific use case is valid, but the other commenters are also correct. Autopilot still needs to be supervised, and one should NOT be driving while extremely drowsy. In my many decades of driving, and countless long trips, this is the first time I've fallen asleep, and I've always done the right thing and (at a minimum) taken power naps as needed. But circumstances conspired and I did the wrong thing. I'm not claiming that Autopilot saved our lives or anything; I would almost certainly have been woken up by the rumble strips when the car drifted out of the lane. To those who might argue that using Tesla Autopilot might tend to cause people to take bigger relevant risks: that's possible, but it's been a godsend for us. Using it doesn't make me, personally, any less attentive of a driver. Indeed, I'm quite a bit more alert to the important things than without it.
TheRealNGenius 6y ago
DO NOT DRIVE. What you are doing, and what others in comments are also doing, IS IRRESPONSIBLE.
withinboredom 6y ago
When I fall asleep at the wheel, I do it looking straight ahead with my eyes open; it freaks my wife out. My wife never lets me drive the long stretches unless we're talking the entire time. I don't think Tesla will help me here.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
F-16 autopilot saving an unconscious pilot's life: https://youtu.be/WkZGL7RQBVw https://youtu.be/WkZGL7RQBVw

alanbernstein 6y ago

Aren't autopilot and sleep detection totally independent features?

gene91 6y ago
Auto manufacturers are approaching Adaptive Cruise Control in a manner that intermingles the two: GM "Super Cruise", Ford's upcoming "CoPilot 360 Active", etc. In my opinion, these two features are very related. In order to have a reasonably low false positive, the sleep detection must be reasonably lenient. In turn, this means the vehicle must be able to (most of the time) tolerate a few seconds of inattentive driving.

cptskippy 6y ago

> I have a history of dozing off at the wheel. Have you tried to address this issue? This seems like a huge safety concern and you're actively choosing to put others in harms way by continuing to drive.

nexuist 6y ago
I agree. If this is something like e.g. narcolepsy, you should see a doctor. There are a few low-risk prescriptions worth looking into. When I used to pull 18 hour days, I would also notice myself getting tired behind the wheel, but never fully falling asleep. My low-tech solution to this was to set an alarm for 10 minutes after I started driving and setting the alarm volume to max. Then, the alarm would go off in the middle of my drive, usually surprising me and jolting me awake since I'm obviously not paying attention to the time. Then, snoozing the alarm would make it go away for another 10 minutes, and so on until I made it home. This is probably not the perfect solution but it worked for me. Obviously the better long term solution is to a) not do 18 hour days and b) address what is making you so sleepy and stop it from happening.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  > When I used to pull 18 hour days, I would also notice myself getting tired behind the wheel, but never fully falling asleep. This is fairly similar to what would trigger it with me. My solution was to ensure I have passengers or let someone else drive.
- smeyer 6y ago
  It's hard to imagine that you were alert enough to safely drive even with the alarm. I'd urge anyone in a similar situation to stay off the roads; your ability to work 18 hour days is less important than the safety of everyone on the road.
  - nexuist 6y ago
    Yeah, what helped me is that on those nights I elected to avoid the highway and only take city roads, so lots of traffic, red lights, stop lights, etc. that allowed me to drive slowly. The downside is that sitting at stop lights made me sleepier, hence the alarms. Avoiding highways was what saved me I think; a mistake at 20mph is far less expensive than a mistake at 80mph. But certainly you're right; the obvious answer is to avoid driving or as another commenter said, carpool!
adolph 6y ago
Indeed. In a fail-safer world maybe an original use for driver monitoring and autopilot would be to move the vehicle to a safe spot to stop and perform alerting.
ogre_codes 6y ago
Yes. Mostly I just learned to recognize when I'm getting tired and pull over and take a nap which is a massive help. Also, it's pretty uncommon for me to drive solo anymore so it's far less of an issue. Oddly, it was a bigger issue when I was younger. It hasn't happened to me in quite a few years, but the awareness of it has lingered, thus my desire to take extra precautions.
- orbital-decay 6y ago
  >Also, it's pretty uncommon for me to drive solo anymore so it's far less of an issue. There's almost nothing a person in another seat can do if you are asleep, even if they realize that in time (and that's a huge assumption). Speaking as someone who has unhealthy interest at failures, disasters, and their root causes, this type of attitude is super common, and always leads to disasters. Please seek medical attention before you killed somebody and yourself. You can't rely on self-control.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    I guess what he is meaning is that you can change drivers when you are not alone?
    - nmcfarl 6y ago
      My guess is that he has someone to talk to. I've found that this makes get drowsy much less likely.

iddqd 6y ago

I hope as soon as EYES_CLOSED trigger loud alarms go off and the car slows down carefully, with or without autopilot enabled. You should probably stay off the roads if you’re having these issues and/or seek help to resolve them.

Reason077 6y ago
Bjørn Nyland on YouTube drives a lot of different EVs in Norway, and one of the thing he tests is the Lane Assist/Autopilot/driver assist disengagement behaviour if there is no response from the driver. It seems like some cars will actually try to kill you - they'll beep a bit and try to alert you, then if you don't respond the autopilot will simply disengage. And drive off the road or into whatever. The better ones (such as the new Polestar) go to great efforts to try and alert you (noise, flashing lights, tugging on seatbelt tensioner) then will finally activate hazard lights, slow down gradually, and pull over safely.
dosshell 6y ago
No it won't do that directly. Even if it is longer then a blink. And the reason for that is false positives. It is _very_ hard to see the difference between a person looking down and when the person is closing the eye. The system usally have an EXTENDED_EYE_CLOSURE signal that is triggered after a certain time (together with a quality value of this signal). So not directly, but yes, close too. But it is still tricky. What happens if you start blinking and then the camera get covered. Should it warn? It can not always warn if it loses tracking. How should it warn? Disturbing the driver can actually cause accidents.

gamblor956 6y ago

In some states your medical condition would prevent you from getting (or renewing) a driver's license. You need to talk to a doctor immediately because you're an active risk to other people on the road.

ogre_codes 6y ago
See my comment in the other thread.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  That other comment was posted after my reply, and your original comment said nothing about falling sleep after strenuous activity or large meals, so my comment still stands as a response to what you originally posted. Mostly just doing something physically tiring and having a full stomach, plus being in a monotonous 1-2 hour drive is a recipe for sleep. What you are describing still suggests an underlying medical condition or extreme indifference to the safety of others. I was being generous and assuming you were not deliberately being indifferent to the well-being other drivers. It's not normal to fall asleep driving after only a few hours of strenuous activity followed by food.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    > That other comment was posted after my reply, and your original comment said nothing about falling sleep after strenuous activity or large meals, so my comment still stands as a response to what you originally posted. You made a bunch of assumptions based on a small comment. I didn't say I have narcolepsy or regularly fall asleep at the wheel. > What you are describing still suggests an underlying medical condition or extreme indifference to the safety of others. I find it fascinating that people feel they are capable of coming up with a medical diagnosis for a random person over the internet based on a few vague comments.
myHNAccount123 6y ago
Yeah this persons actions are VERY concerning. They need to change their behaviour immediately. To Ogre_... you cannot self diagnose by saying "I know when I'm feeling tired so I nap." Go To A Doctor NOW.

heavyset_go 6y ago

> One of the reasons I would love to have autopilot is because I have a history of dozing off at the wheel. Never so much where I've had an accident, but bad enough where I've scared myself badly. This is pretty selfish. If you're falling asleep at the wheel enough that you want Tesla's Autopilot to save you, you have a problem. I've seen Tesla cars do absolutely insane maneuvers on the freeway that no sober driver would ever consider doing, only to find out that the person behind the wheel is asleep or doing another task other than driving.

cozzyd 6y ago

In this case, the Tesla should pull over and then call the highway patrol to give you a ticket.

TacticalCoder 6y ago

It's not a solution (you really shouldn't drive when you're sleepy) but a great many modern cars will warn you if you slowly quit your lane without having used your blinkers first, which is typically what happens when someone get sleepy while driving (slowly drifting out of your lane on the highway). My wife's little Toyota CH-R does just that: it tries to correct the car's trajectory, does give feedback both through vibration (in the steering wheel) and through an audio signal. I think it's more realistic to settle for that kind of features than to wait for a real 100% complete autopilot.

dimgl 6y ago

I was involved in a major car accident that totaled my new vehicle due to falling asleep at the wheel on a highway. Obviously it scared me enough that I'll never fall asleep in a car again, but it was due to sleep deprivation from being up many hours irresponsibly the night before. If you're falling asleep often at the wheel I would recommend you tell your primary. He'll likely refer you to a sleep doctor. I didn't have major symptoms, but after a recommendation from my primary I discovered I have a bad case of sleep apnea. If you're falling asleep at the wheel often (and btw, you're doing the right thing by pulling over and napping) you should go to a sleep doctor. You might not be getting a proper amount of sleep, for whatever reason, and they might be able to help.

vaccinator 6y ago
I fell asleep once and only hit tall grass... No damages luckily. I hope that they would stop mowing the side of highways (it is good for slowing you down)
ogre_codes 6y ago
I replied in another comment, but it was never super frequent, and hasn't happened to me in years. Just like it sounds like with you, the fear of it happening again has lingered.

Shivetya 6y ago

I am one of those drivers that on long distance drives will occasionally view a bridge in my rear view mirror and cannot recall passing under it. Hence for me the system is insurance for the time where I am truly distracted. When I use my 3's driving feature on local roads I find I am more attentive as I am constantly looking for situations I think should confuse it but then I realize I am overthinking the situation far more often than not. While I love to drive I do look forward to the day anyone can just hop in and ask to be taken somewhere and safely

spike021 6y ago

Honestly if you're driving even somewhat regularly I'd highly recommend stopping that immediately and getting this completely figured out. I don't even mean "well I think I know now how to tell when it's coming on and if I should pull over." I mean get it diagnosed, whatever. I'm not sure how someone who knows they have this issue feels the least bit okay with going out on a road in a 1+ ton car.

tobinfricke 6y ago

Have you been evaluated for sleep apnea? Microsleeps while driving are extremely dangerous. You should take this seriously.

echelon 6y ago

> I don't want autopilot so I can actually sleep at the wheel, I want it in case I do. You should never get behind the wheel if there's a chance you'll fall asleep! You shouldn't be driving. Period. This is incredibly dangerous and puts innocent people at risk. No technology should compensate for this. We don't design technology to help drivers under the influence feel better about their driving. Please don't get behind the wheel if you're drowsy.

agentdrtran 6y ago
You know people are going to do it, though, so it's good to have checks on it.
- echelon 6y ago
  I disagree wholeheartedly. This technology empowers people to make stupid decisions and rationalize them. We never had people deliberately sleeping in cars (with pillows!) before autopilot was a thing. If the kinds of people prone to make these types of decisions come to trust technology to save them, we're going to wind up in a worse spot than before the technology existed. People will rely on the tech to save them when it was never meant for that.
  - randallsquared 6y ago
    > This technology empowers people to make stupid decisions and rationalize them. Not just "this" technology -- technology in general. There are always risk adjustments; airbags and seat belts had similar riskier-driving effects.
14 6y ago
I have the unfortunate ability to be wide awake when I leave and then suddenly be tired. I often have to stop on even 1-2 hour drives. But I recognize when I am tired and am know for just pulling over to nap even if I have passengers. Sleep driving is like drunk driving.
danudey 6y ago

dmead 6y ago

you should not be driving at all.

sorenjan 6y ago

You're describing driver drowsiness detection, and that is available in a lot of different cars, and was launched in 2007 by Volvo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_drowsiness_detection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_drowsiness_detection

huid827 6y ago

I'm also looking forward to getting autopilot at some point to address situations where I feel pretty drowsy. While yes, the correct thing to do is to not drive, to pull over, and so forth, reality doesn't always allow for those things and it would be nice to have autopilot as a driver aid.

devit 6y ago

If you have to drive despite this, you probably should ensure to have a supply of caffeine in the car (e.g. caffeine gums, instant coffee, maybe energy drinks) and take a sufficient dose before driving [https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/motr/can-a-caffeine-buzz-improve-driving-safety.html https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/motr/can-a-caffein...] You might also be able to get a prescription for modafinil, which might be even more effective.

OBFUSCATED 6y ago

Ford has a system that does this. It looks out for things like sudden corrective steering inputs. https://www.haynesford.co.uk/Tech-Ford-driver-alert https://www.haynesford.co.uk/Tech-Ford-driver-alert

kerng 6y ago

Maybe a warning system to tell you to stop driving might be better?

kerng 6y ago

Maybe a warning system to tell you to stop driving might be better? I believe such systems that track your eye movement actually exist already

dosshell 6y ago
Yes, head, eye, eyelid, glasses and facemask trackers do exist now in cars. BMW, GM etc. Face recognition, speak detection (who is speaking) and drowsiness is coming very soon as far as I know. The car will know when you changed driver last time etc.

dheera 6y ago

The one thing I hate about most cars' active lane keep systems is that if you fall asleep and don't grip the steering wheel for a while, it does the most UNSAFE thing possible, which is to beep a few times and then disable itself, which would mean that you crash, 100% of the time. Yet other lane keep systems disable themselves below 40mph which means you crash as soon as the car slows down to that speed. What it should do is continue to aggressively lane keep, switch on emergency flashers, and sound progressively louder alarms until you wake up, but NEVER stop lane keeping, even as the car slows down below 40mph. It should lane keep all the way down to 0 and keep sounding the alarms. What does Tesla do if you actually fall asleep and ignore the warnings?

awad 6y ago
The hazard lights go on, the car will slow down, and eventually pull over to the side of the road while Autopilot is disabled for the rest of the trip. Though the "disabled for rest of the trip" bit can be trivially worked around by shutting down and powering back on, this seems to be better than what you mentioned in immediately shutting down the system while still driving.
- dheera 6y ago
  That's awesome, at least the hazard lights and pulling over to the side of the road, sounds infinitely more safe than any other lane keep system I've seen.

mtgx 6y ago

Then the Autopilot should never be a thing people can enable at will. It should be something automatic like automatic-braking in case of imminent accident. And in such scenarios it should be MUCH louder than just beeping about while you doze off after 20h of not getting enough sleep. And if it happens say 3 times in a short amount of time, it should just ull you over.

mrich 6y ago

In Germany, there are quite a few cars with "Emergency Assist" technology. There are different variants of it, in my VW Touran it works like this: When the car is in ACC/lane assist mode (similar to Autopilot), it will detect when there is no steering wheel input for a while. First it beeps, then it will brake a few times to "wake you up". Still no input? Then it will brake to a complete stop and turn on the warning lights. In more recent incarnations the car will park at the side of the road. It is great for medical emergencies (stroke/seizure) but of course you should not rely on it and drive without paying attention to the road.

Diederich 6y ago

The first road trip we took with our Tesla Model S was from the SF Bay Area to Lompoc, CA, to see a SpaceX launch. (Seeing ANY rocket launch in person is a highly encouraged activity by the way!). The timing of it allowed us to drive there, see the launch, and drive back the same day, but getting home pretty late. Getting into the bay area, it was dark, and I was damn tired. Had this been a long trip of some kind, I'd have at least pulled over and done a power nap, but I foolishly decided to press on, since we were less than 30 minutes from home and bed. I'd been using autopilot for most of the trip, closely supervising it of course. Suddenly I was awakened by the frantic, loud beeping that you get when you don't keep some minor torque on the steering wheel for a while. It scared the hell out of me and my family in the car. With their help, we were able to make it home safely. Your specific use case is valid, but the other commenters are also correct. Autopilot still needs to be supervised, and one should NOT be driving while extremely drowsy. In my many decades of driving, and countless long trips, this is the first time I've fallen asleep, and I've always done the right thing and (at a minimum) taken power naps as needed. But circumstances conspired and I did the wrong thing. I'm not claiming that Autopilot saved our lives or anything; I would almost certainly have been woken up by the rumble strips when the car drifted out of the lane. To those who might argue that using Tesla Autopilot might tend to cause people to take bigger relevant risks: that's possible, but it's been a godsend for us. Using it doesn't make me, personally, any less attentive of a driver. Indeed, I'm quite a bit more alert to the important things than without it.

TheRealNGenius 6y ago

DO NOT DRIVE. What you are doing, and what others in comments are also doing, IS IRRESPONSIBLE.

withinboredom 6y ago

When I fall asleep at the wheel, I do it looking straight ahead with my eyes open; it freaks my wife out. My wife never lets me drive the long stretches unless we're talking the entire time. I don't think Tesla will help me here.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

F-16 autopilot saving an unconscious pilot's life: https://youtu.be/WkZGL7RQBVw https://youtu.be/WkZGL7RQBVw