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Tesla owner arrested after riding in the back seat while it was on autopilot
- barbazoo 5y ago> "I feel safer in the back seat than I do in the driver's seat, and I feel safer with my car on Autopilot, I trust my car Autopilot more than I trust everyone on the road." > He believes his Model 3 can drive itself, and does not understand why he had to spend a night in jail. This sounds like the technology version of your typical anti-vaxxer's reasoning. "I believe, therefore it's true".
- Crosseye_Jack 5y agoI dropped the word “repeatedly” from the title as the full title was 7 chars over the limit.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- LatteLazy 5y agoLike Floridaman only in SF...
- pessimizer 5y agoLike Floridaman except not a poverty-stricken heroin addict in a state with no safety net.
- maxharris 5y agoThis isn't an honest person that has somehow been mislead about his car's capabilities. In fact, he was recently caught doing the same thing just a few weeks ago, but wasn't arrested after he was caught in that incident. It turns out that Param Sharma has a long history of committing crimes for attention. He sold a stolen iPhone back in 2014 in order to get attention on Instagram: https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/instagrams-richest-and-most-hated-teenager-param-sharma-lands-in-jail-for-selling-a-stolen-iphone-on-craigslist-713500.html https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/instagrams-richest-and-most...
- xkjkls 5y agoTesla's advertising and claims of self-driving encourage this kind of behavior. Elon himself tweeted joking approval of the couple who uploaded themselves having sex in the back of a Tesla. It's hard to act like these sort of things are just independent actors.
- maxharris 5y agoHow do you explain that he was focused on iPhones in 2014? Was that somehow Apple's fault, too? I suspect - but cannot prove - that he might have something to do with a stock manipulation scheme, targeting companies with high public profiles. If you read the article, he has a rich father. This is intriguing enough to justify further investigation. EDIT: apparently this is happening now https://www.thefocus.news/celebrity/param-sharma-parents/ https://www.thefocus.news/celebrity/param-sharma-parents/
- SigmundA 5y agoWhatever he's doing seems to be pretty easy, any word on how he's defeating the safety checks?
- jaywalk 5y agoThe picture in the article shows him touching the steering wheel with his shoeless foot, so I'm guessing that's the key.
- elliekelly 5y agoMy car can tell when someone is sitting in the seat and ding an alarm when they’re not buckled in or turn on the appropriate passenger airbag(s). Surely a Tesla has this same capability?
- jaywalk 5y agoPutting a sufficiently heavy object on the seat will take care of that.
- NikolaeVarius 5y agoSo, when are the correction articles coming from all the mainstream news sites and blogs (gawker)
- detaro 5y agoCorrecting what?
- topspin 5y agoI don't know. Maybe it's related to the thing that's confusing me. I thought I had learned that this shouldn't be possible; that Tesla vehicles won't 'autopilot' without a person in the driver's seat. This story and those claims can't both be simultaneously true unless this case involved some defeat device to allow autopilot without a driver. The claim that autopilot can't operate without someone in the drivers seat was a key point made by Tesla advocates (including the media ones) attempting to debunk the narrative around a recent crash that killed two people while they were supposedly in the back seat.
- detaro 5y agosee e.g.: https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cr-engineers-show-tesla-will-drive-with-no-one-in-drivers-seat/ https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cr-engine... it tries to detect a person, but that's relatively easily tricked.
- topspin 5y agoSo there isn't even something as simple minded as a pressure sensor in the seat to detect a body... a commonplace component with air bag systems. Or it isn't tied into the interlock. If so that is inexcusable.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoIt has sensors in the seat and it uses that to tell you that a seat belt should be buckled up. I don't think any other car does more than that but Tesla's do disengage auto steer and cruise control if the seat belt becomes detached and brings the car to a controlled stop with hazard flashers on. I would not want it to immediately disengage auto steer just because a wriggled in my seat though. I do think Tesla could do better but I see no reason why they should be censured for failing to prevent deliberate attempts to circumvent the checks. That would mean that they would have to engage in an arms race against ever more inventive people trying to defeat the system.
- sigstoat 5y agoi've had (multiple!) nightmares about somehow finding myself in the backseat of a vehicle that i was supposed to be controlling. i can't imagine wanting to do that on purpose. uggggh.
- annoyingnoob 5y agoThis person should not have a driver's license. Proof that it is too easy to obtain a driver's license.
- ghaff 5y agoI agree about the first part and I would certainly hope it gets suspended. But, assuming he actually does know how to drive, how could/should he have been prevented from obtaining a driver's license in the first place?
- mitchdoogle 5y agoPresumably if it is more costly to obtain a license (either in time, effort, or money) then people would be more careful about their behavior and wouldn't risk losing their license that they spent so much effort to obtain on something stupid like this.
- sigstoat 5y agoare you suggesting psychological testing to get a license? because bizarre attention-seeking behavior seems to be this fellow's only problem.
- chrisseaton 5y agoHow would you change the test to exclude people like him from passing?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- annoyingnoob 5y agoNot sure its about exclusion as much as causing one to take it more seriously. Maybe the solution is to take it away for a while when you've been reckless, instead of letting you offend over and over.
- annoyingnoob 5y ago
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago> In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Sharma said he did nothing wrong, and he will keep riding in the back seat with no one behind the steering wheel. > He believes his Model 3 can drive itself, and does not understand why he had to spend a night in jail. >He said he started riding in the back seat of autonomously driving Tesla vehicles in 2018 and has gone about 40,000 miles without being in the driver's seat. They should, at the minimum, suspend his drivers license. He is recklessly putting others at risk.
- hobs 5y agoI'd say at minimum if you are admitting commission of crimes like that it should be straight forward to confiscate your vehicle. "I started drinking and driving and I've done 40,000 miles!" would have most people want him in jail for longer than a night.
- rrauenza 5y agoDoes he need a driver's license if he's not actually driving....? I really hope a lawyer doesn't try to make that argument. "Your honor, he's NOT in control of the vehicle!"
- bombcar 5y agoIt'd be interesting to see if Tesla can revoke the auto drive license from his car. I wonder if they have some terms in the EULA permitting that. If I were Tesla I'd suggest it to the court as an appropriate "punishment" so it was clear it was at the court's orders.
- Crosseye_Jack 5y agoMy first thought was that too (After all Tesla has revoked AP in past - https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-aut... - in that case they re-enabled it after the news blew up. But on reflection I think its the wrong move. Its not the drivers first time doing this and there are already have laws in place for this sort of thing, Basically driving license revocation. (I understand that DUI drivers can be required to equip a breathalyzer as a condition to retain their licence, does this option get offered to repeat offenders?) Revoking auto drive wouldn't prevent the driver from selling the car and getting another Tesla if they REALLY wanted the feature back (It appears the person in question comes from a wealthy family). I don't feel that the loss of the feature would be much of a deterant and it penalises any other driver of the car who would use the feature correctly (which might even be the cars next owner).
- mrlonglong 5y agoHow has this arsehole managed to bypass the autopilot safety feature that brings the car to a stop if seat is unoccupied? This fairly buggers belief he has got away with this for so long.
- ajross 5y agoIt's a driver attention nag, not a security feature. Put a weight on the steering wheel and buckle the seatbelt, basically. The purpose to the device is to ensure that the driver doesn't fall asleep or otherwise lose focus, not to defeat an attack by a malicious (non-)driver.
- kodah 5y ago25 years old and he owns a luxury performance car worth $60,000. Incredible.
- tester756 5y ago25 yo can also means that he's working for at least 6 years thus what's so weird?
- Maken 5y agoWhat kind of job lets a 19 yo save 10k a year? Genuinely interested.
- RandallBrown 5y agoYou don't need 60k to buy a 60k car. 12k down with a 6 year loan would be something like $900 a month. Expensive, but well within the reach of plenty of 25 year olds (especially in industries that frequent HN.)
- kodah 5y agoThese are the moments when I am at a sort of loss; maybe more accurately I realize that people live very different lives than what I came to expect as normal. I could not fathom a $900 obligation aside from rent, that I could already barely afford, at 25.
- RandallBrown 5y agoA 25 year old working at a tech company in a large city is making in the ballpark of $150k per year just in salary. (Some more, some less) Let's say they're only taking home $100k of that after taxes. That means you have $8000 to spend on your life. They might spend spend $3000 per month on rent (which gets you a pretty decent apartment anywhere and an amazing one in lots of places.) Let's say they put $2000 of that into savings. That leaves them with $3000 to spend each month. $900 a month on a car payment isn't such a big deal at that point.
- pavon 5y agoOfftopic: That has got to be the most obtuse cookie prompt I have dealt with yet. I have no idea what I actually selected/agreed to.
- m4tthumphrey 5y ago> "It was actually designed to be ridden in the back seat," Sharma said. Citation needed.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 5y agoSomewhat related, the NTSB released a preliminary report on the Tesla crash in the Woodlands, Texas: https://dig.abclocal.go.com/ktrk/PICS/MAY2021/051021-ktrk-ntsb-tesla-crash-report-pdf.pdf https://dig.abclocal.go.com/ktrk/PICS/MAY2021/051021-ktrk-nt... Some findings: - The driver did start off in the driver's seat - The NTSB tested in the location with another car, and Autosteer would not engage, but that Traffic Aware Cruise Control would Discussed here recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27112010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27112010 HN original discussion about the crash: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26852399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26852399
- calrueb 5y agoI happened to have the local news on yesterday evening and watched this ridiculous interview with him [1]. He is comically arrogant. Not someone I'd like to hangout with, but an interesting (although dangerous) character for sure. [1] https://www.ktvu.com/news/man-arrested-for-riding-in-back-of-driverless-tesla-on-autopilot-gets-out-of-jail https://www.ktvu.com/news/man-arrested-for-riding-in-back-of...
- graerg 5y agoHoly shit, this dude is John Hinckley Jr. levels of insane, just with Elon Musk rather than Jodi Foster.
- wrs 5y agoIf people are this desperate for attention at the risk of their safety, consider that all the other drivers on the road just have to move their hands clockwise a few inches to “disable the safety features” and cause total chaos. In most cars the only “safety feature” is the general sanity of the driver.
- ajross 5y agoIt's worth pointing out that the frame of the argument: that this is horrifyingly dangerous behavior, is actually kinda belied by the facts on the ground. The car wasn't used properly, but it did in fact drive itself safely. People need to be aware of this kind of circular logic, which was applied in the Texas crash debates too: the fact that there are still safety controls in place on a new feature that isn't quite ready for full autonomy doesn't constitute evidence that the feature is unsafe. That require an entirely different kind of evidence. And frankly... while everyone keeps circling around the same minutiae about the driver nag... Teslas on autopilot aren't actually crashing. In fact it's been quite a long time now since we've seen a juicy autopilot failure.
- aaomidi 5y agoAs someone who owns a Model 3, I call bullshit on 40000 miles without being in the driver seat. Seriously no.
- ghaff 5y agoIt really seems implausible. So he sat in the back seat with a foot on the steering wheel for more than 50 24-hour days of driving or the equivalent of about 6 round trips from cost to coast in the US? And we pretty much know that Autopilot won't work under all conditions.
- maxerickson 5y agoDo we know if there were any near misses? That's how I evaluate my own driving, I think of things much less severe than collisions as incidents.
- ajross 5y agoDoes e.g. the NTSB track "near misses" for human drivers? That would no doubt be great data to have, but it's impractical to collect for all known technologies, even ones widely regarded as having acceptable safety. Thankfully in this case cars actually crash a lot, so we have good proxy data anyway. And... again, Tesla seems to be doing pretty well. People are desperate for bad news about autopilot, to the extent that we all blew up a story about (what turns out to have been) a routine human driver crash in Texas two weeks ago based on a quote from one fire marshall. But the reality is that the system appears to be doing pretty well.
- fernly 5y agoWant to meet the dude himself? In the footage from local station KTVU, he demonstrates how he moves between front and back. "If you take my tesla away I will get another tesla." https://www.ktvu.com/news/back-seat-tesla-rider-pulls-same-stunt-but-in-new-car-after-jail-release https://www.ktvu.com/news/back-seat-tesla-rider-pulls-same-s...