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Did MIT study whether the "inattentive" drivers had higher accident rates and fatality rates than other drivers? That should be the question. "MIT study shows

Did MIT study whether the "inattentive" drivers had higher accident rates and fatality rates than other drivers? That should be the question. "MIT study shows folks drive 5MPH faster with seatbelts on" - doesn't mean we should get rid of seatbelts if overall damage and accidents / injury rates are reduced. Im serious - do the study. Put someone in a 6 hour drive or simulator for an SF to LA drive or something, one in a car with tesla's drivers aids one without. Then have something happen (sudden braking / someone cutting in front of you etc) on drive in half of the trips. Who crashes? The "inattentive" tesla driver? Or the other driver. Based on my own observation, there are drivers in regular cars texting, looking up directions, playing with their phone maybe for music? I've seen people putting on makeup, sitting at a light for 5 minutes on their phone (when it is green) etc. I've seen people drift out of their lanes crazily. These are folks in normal cars. I've seen folks speeding and swerving in and out of traffic, some without using blinkers etc.

Kydlaw 5y ago
The study doesn't say if it's bad or good. They just say that attention decreases with Autopilot is on. The question you ask is completely different and thus, not brought into the article.
mwint 5y ago
I’ve only driven a Tesla with Autopilot once, for ten minutes or so. By the end of it, I was struck by how much more time I was spending looking far ahead, or looking in the mirrors for longer. It felt like I switched to farther-field situational awareness once I was confident the car wouldn’t rear end the dude in front of me. So if attentiveness is measured as “staring at the license plate in front of me”, my attentiveness went down. But I felt safer since I was looking hundreds of yards down the road for situations I might have to handle or avoid, at a longer timescale.
- sjburt 5y ago
  This is how I feel as well (having driven many miles with a Comma), but I have no idea if I represent an average driver or if my perceived attentiveness matches what is really happening. I do think that it is very easy for me to spend longer looking at a screen or button when the autopilot is driving for me, since there is no immediate penalty (lane line, rumble strips, etc) for looking away.
- ummonk 5y ago
  You don’t need autopilot for that though - I do the same in my car with basic traffic adaptive cruise control.
- structural 5y ago
  Do people really stare at the license plate in front of them anyways, though? It was made quite clear during driver training courses many years ago not to do this and that your glance pattern should always start and return to near the horizon (whether that be hundreds of yards in a city, or miles away on a highway). I've always had the opposite problem, if I'm not maintaining situational awareness to the horizon, I'll inevitably fall asleep after an hour or two out of sheer boredom. I prefer to drive long distances in manual-transmission vehicles (there's more to do!), and commercial vehicles with loads requiring careful management of engine RPM are even better. Those I can drive for 10-12 hours in a day without issue. I never saw myself as anything other than an ordinary driver. In my case, a Tesla autopilot is the worst possible compromise. It removes enough attention requirements that it feels much harder to stay attentive, but without automating the process completely. Other people I've talked to that operate large pieces of mechanical equipment have often said similar things about automation that it's best to either be a) fully manual or b) fully automated for some duration of time.
- oblib 5y ago
  "I felt safer since I was looking hundreds of yards down the road for situations I might have to handle or avoid, at a longer timescale." I was taught to do this while driving. It was a basic lesson in "Driver's Ed". Making it a habit though is a different thing. For me that was easier because it was one of the things that pro racers mentioned they did as well. That is certainly a key to avoiding accidents. Others would be always keeping a safe distance between you and the cars in front of you and what's going on behind and around you. I made a habit when I first started driving to always stay focused on the task of driving. I almost never turn on the radio or play music. That's because I want to hear what's going on around me. The best advice I ever got was from a California Highway Patrol officer who told me "Drive like everyone is trying to crash into you". Where I live now almost everywhere I drive it's on curvy two lane mountain roads. Most have a 55mph limit with curve signs as low as 25mph. We also have deer by the thousands here, and they forage at night. You really have to pay attention to just to stay on the road and not hit deer. There is no way I'd trust a Tesla to drive me around here (or anywhere for that matter).
  - joelhoffman 5y ago
    > "Drive like everyone is trying to crash into you" That advice (for cyclists) was also in one of Neal Stephenson's early novels, Zodiac... I've found it useful. Now I just get annoyed when drivers insist on yielding to pedestrians and cyclists when they don't need to, it would be faster if they didn't and they aren't blocking any other traffic. The driver feels like they've helped, I guess, but the pedestrians are not safer.
lamontcg 5y ago
You can't just compare attentive Tesla drivers (where you're probably projecting your own self onto this driver) with the worst non-Tesla drivers. You have to compare the worst Tesla drivers to the worst drivers in regular vehicles. Average Tesla drivers to average drivers of regular vehicles, etc. And I'm not sure a simulator is the best comparison.
mcguire 5y ago
"Individual glance metrics calculated at the epoch-level and binned by 10-s units of time across the available epoch lengths revealed that drivers in near-crashes have significantly longer on-road glances, and look less frequently between on- and off- road locations in the moments preceding a precipitating event as compared to crashes. During on-road glances, drivers in near-crashes were found to more frequently sample peripheral regions of the roadway than drivers in crashes. Output from the AttenD algorithm affirmed the cumulative net benefit of longer on-road glances and of improved attention management between on- and off-road locations." Then, there's http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/171327.aspx http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/171327.aspx, but I haven't given them my address. (https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/271664/1-s2.0-S0001457517X00109/1-s2.0-S0001457517302567/main.pdf?X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEJ3%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIQD8P4uCfRaomJ%2FXKpAEcIHelKmhPUfuGPYr1Ugw6UNhowIgZ3wy5pmArNCmVUi3pB5bSTXP%2FtsSUx0vsyIvwxdrmWsqgwQI9v%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FARAEGgwwNTkwMDM1NDY4NjUiDEAKOl5faLPXDn52SCrXAyKS%2B6rtOK2cGqQIs6bpAaa%2BlsVjQRedGFbEYL7OXHv42hGhEutF%2BCsNume5ZS47DfLJ2qti6cs0Zps%2FpM5hZ1uFil79%2BAtPvEhkzu3hyxAlCHHWUj7fhN5eibcISjdNuWFmbz9DC0pNQYnlGj0nM9qoemnuQ5xleXKUecpmsP476erhgFrkWAT975AWXZDQVT4IXtSzPlgY7X9etzT5iXfcjGINzL%2FiCNugwzGjKaBEQ0BEAESv3%2FtDCrJG7HAsYP5IAwZq2G61Kj205BKpDkRNb02p6sLlPRn873fdbE3Y6O80PLaV6vJZi7NN2pVav9OdgCse6xrKDtm7dgF08PUuGRv8%2FZyn1DLgT8Bx%2FNE8%2BWp3JeL3akO4Yi7WdbBFq1NqWLAHkrmVUpOHrMK73kEXAB28VJHOcJZe601W2BsuU1A0vDsIzG0L60i6BYx3ZUsnO5njBPpqpTfU6xZQQDggLyX2GoQvPvS3W8SEvNvtczFcGayzjXzXNUWfMTWoMeIENKdI2mJru16rQQJ%2FdGAcgdJL9Dk25EP67oPQzs1BUVSn3o8ceDqLKkV0Alror8MZcEDgLzJyjc%2Byrx%2FbMLifMUq9sbFS6PNbyHKF1JhqvTRAJ7us1zCS%2FqiKBjqlAVMmpKtOH4BidMxSzkq6JdvEEUCCYp5d%2Fw40IuFT64X%2BeQrA8uVjsH%2FGHjAugdKjbSHcbiydjdfs6fvvAAqST46ldRMr3FX39jl0GGj86v4W06ZDMhysAKtggsJ4hkrnNBuEsKYmprTtdWlqZchqopeK%2FAYvN3YTQMK%2BUr10%2BjPx8udHsBWiRXbtDSVu2K47z0Wl%2Fs2OW7PONj72gEhbaBYDmU0tnQ%3D%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20210921T214639Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAQ3PHCVTYUDNQW4GZ%2F20210921%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=ae9e91f7e6a06b776148e2728435ce73e562432513f0e4fc02a2f42205dfe387&hash=3f0819763fee0e7b2df6421f2cbc2832ce4704c97da22ed2968892031f61ba9f&host=68042c943591013ac2b2430a89b270f6af2c76d8dfd086a07176afe7c76c2c61&pii=S0001457517302567&tid=spdf-01f64873-7a0a-4c2b-a1f7-d49c740b7b53&sid=48b0c8bd72c42543f82b5ea4c1a8960a8896gxrqa&type=client https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/271664/1-s2.0-S000145751...)
kirse 5y ago
I ride a motorcycle and can pretty easily spot patterns of distracted driving, but after buying a truck with some ride height, it is amazing how many people are regularly on/touching their phone for something while driving. On the order of 50-75% in a city environment. After this recent revelation I'm almost more amazed at how few accidents there are given the sheer number of cell phone addicts.
- zionic 5y ago
  This. Every study suggesting holding a cellphone is equally risky to drunk driving must be false. I rode a commuter bus for years and saw the exact same thing you describe, and no one would seriously suggest 50-75% of drivers are (equivalently) drunk.
  - bumby 5y ago
    >Every study suggesting holding a cellphone is equally risky to drunk driving must be false. Or drunk driving isn’t as dangerous as previously thought. Or there’s many more drunk drivers than previously thought. I don’t necessarily agree with either of those, but the point is there are many possible explanations and we should be careful about jumping to conclusions. A better way of refuting those claims is to find flaws in their methodology
    - hajile 5y ago
      The flaw is obvious. People put their phones down when their semi-subconscious driving “algorithm” detect anything out of the ordinary. At that point, they bring their full attention to whatever weirdness is going on. This tends to happen with drivers no matter if they’re absorbed in the radio or just lost in their thoughts. I’d guess that the amount of driving time matters a great deal here. Inebriated is much different. They are less likely to notice something in the first place because their senses are deadened. If they do notice, their full attention while intoxicated is much less as is their ability to rationally make decisions. There’s no way to un-distract if something gains.
      - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
notshift 5y ago
Tesla publishes data on accident rates with and without autopilot, and the rate with autopilot engaged is lower. The problem is, that data is mostly meaningless because people don't use autopilot in conditions when an accident is most likely to occur. I suppose you'd have to compare against only manual driving in good conditions to make a fair comparison. Not sure that data exists anywhere.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > Not sure that data exists anywhere. Shouldn't Tesla create that data - research the issue - before giving people autopilot?
  - cheesetable 5y ago
    Governments are responsible for setting safety standards, and enforcing that they do.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      Tesla is responsible for the consequences of their actions. If their cars exploded when hitting potholes, and the government didn't stop them, Tesla is still responsible.
elif 5y ago
No. The MIT study exclusively selected the data of 19 drivers in Boston and only selected AP disengagements "on free-flow highways (min speed when AP was active was above 30 mph) in daylight (cameras were not infrared) that are not safety critical (no system warnings and no sustained deceleration above 3 m/s )." Its findings were that drivers paid more attention before engagement and after engagement than when AP was engaged.
wolverine876 5y ago
> Did MIT study whether the "inattentive" drivers had higher accident rates and fatality rates than other drivers? > That should be the question. Why should that be the question? If the feature is dangerous, removing it will improve safety. If there are more dangerous features, we can remove those too.
- bracketslash 5y ago
  That should be the question because we don’t know if the drivers being inattentive actually lead to anything bad happening, I think. If the drivers are inattentive but there is no downside to that, then it doesn’t really matter.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  Because maybe the Tesla features improve safety despite increasing inattentiveness
- ghufran_syed 5y ago
  Because we need to define "dangerous" - the authors and you are making an assumption that what they call "inattention" is the same as "dangerous" whereas the comment you are replying to is questioning that assumption. If the link between "inattention" and accident rates is strong, then measuring that should be equivalent. In medicine there is a concept of measuring disease-oriented outcomes instead of patient-oriented outcomes, because it's easier to show an intervention affects the disease-oriented outcomes, and much harder to show a change in patient-oriented outcomes. So for example, a disease-oriented ourcome for hip-replacement surgery would be "range of movement after 2 weeks", patient-oriented might be "can go up a flight of stairs" The analogy here seems relevant.
oblib 5y ago
>>... Who crashes? The "inattentive" tesla driver? Or the other driver. That's bullshit. I'm sure it's safe to assume both crash more than very attentive drivers, which is the only question that matters when it comes to Tesla's autopilot. What you're really asking is "who'd you rather have smash into you, someone in a Tesla using autopilot, or someone texting on their phone while driving?
jocker12 5y ago
"That should be the question." No. That is NOT the question... because... Autopilot and FSD software suite users are required to remain attentive and ready to intervene in case o a software failure (often seen in many YouTube videos). But because they obviously, become inattentive, Autopilot usage is actually much more dangerous than having the drivers drive their cars by themselves. It creates complacency because the moment a driver physically removes feet from the pedals and hands from the steering wheel, his or her mind cannot maintain focus on two things at the same time. What are those two things an Autopilot user needs to perform simultaneously? First is watching the car's surroundings, the traffic around the vehicle. Second is watching and trying to understand software behavior in those constantly changing traffic situations. No average Joe, college kid, grandma or grandpa is capable of focusing on two things at the same time in constant life and death environment. Airplane pilots are not average Joes and they are constantly trained to understand flying Autopilot software limitations and capabilities in a lot less stressful and busy traffic environments, two of their main job requirements being discipline and responsibility. That is not the case with the average driver on the road.
- mft_ 5y ago
  I think OP is right with what the ultimate question should be. Let's agree that a normal driver without autopilot (ND) is mostly attentive, with occasional attention lapses (frequency depending on the individual). That same normal driver according to MIT, is less attentive when using an autopilot system - let's call this autopilot distraction (AD). However, the Autopilot system, despite its weaknesses, likely offers some extra safety benefit (ASB) - especially if it can somewhat counteract the attention lapses that a normal driver would have. So the question becomes, does the autopilot's marginal benefit outweigh the autopilot distraction? Is: ND > (ND - AD + ASB)? However, determining this would be difficult without real-world testing. In the real world, the factor which matters most is whether accidents happen (kind of the Overall Survival of this experiment) - which is why testing the real-world accident rate is important - and is ultimately the important question.
  - jocker12 5y ago
    Autopilot creates a false sense of safety, as long as the people that payed for it and are eventually using it, are (by their own standards that made them buy it) not good at driving and not interested to get better at it. But the fallacy stands in the numbers where Autopilot “safety report” is presented by Tesla and compared to average drivers performances. Why a fallacy? Because the human driver drives everywhere, at any time, in any weather conditions and on all drivable roads. The Autopilot goes on and off based on how drivable the environment is by the Autopilot system detection done by the sensors involved. In addition to that, up to this point, almost all of its errors where caught and corrected by its users, so no one could actually estimate what would happen if Autopilot owners would let the software do the driving for 100%, same thing the humans do. Also, once disconnected from the driving system (feet off the pedals and hands off the steering wheel) the driver would need up to 20 seconds (or even more) to reconnect and fully understand what the car does and what the traffic around is like. That is a recipe for disaster while every second the situation changes inside and outside the car.
esjeon 5y ago
This research itself is still valuable, as it proves that drivers become irresponsible with autopilot turned on. I don't get why you connect this to the safety of Tesla vehicles, or maybe I get the reason, but it's unspeakable.

Kydlaw 5y ago

The study doesn't say if it's bad or good. They just say that attention decreases with Autopilot is on. The question you ask is completely different and thus, not brought into the article.

mwint 5y ago

I’ve only driven a Tesla with Autopilot once, for ten minutes or so. By the end of it, I was struck by how much more time I was spending looking far ahead, or looking in the mirrors for longer. It felt like I switched to farther-field situational awareness once I was confident the car wouldn’t rear end the dude in front of me. So if attentiveness is measured as “staring at the license plate in front of me”, my attentiveness went down. But I felt safer since I was looking hundreds of yards down the road for situations I might have to handle or avoid, at a longer timescale.

sjburt 5y ago
This is how I feel as well (having driven many miles with a Comma), but I have no idea if I represent an average driver or if my perceived attentiveness matches what is really happening. I do think that it is very easy for me to spend longer looking at a screen or button when the autopilot is driving for me, since there is no immediate penalty (lane line, rumble strips, etc) for looking away.
ummonk 5y ago
You don’t need autopilot for that though - I do the same in my car with basic traffic adaptive cruise control.
structural 5y ago
Do people really stare at the license plate in front of them anyways, though? It was made quite clear during driver training courses many years ago not to do this and that your glance pattern should always start and return to near the horizon (whether that be hundreds of yards in a city, or miles away on a highway). I've always had the opposite problem, if I'm not maintaining situational awareness to the horizon, I'll inevitably fall asleep after an hour or two out of sheer boredom. I prefer to drive long distances in manual-transmission vehicles (there's more to do!), and commercial vehicles with loads requiring careful management of engine RPM are even better. Those I can drive for 10-12 hours in a day without issue. I never saw myself as anything other than an ordinary driver. In my case, a Tesla autopilot is the worst possible compromise. It removes enough attention requirements that it feels much harder to stay attentive, but without automating the process completely. Other people I've talked to that operate large pieces of mechanical equipment have often said similar things about automation that it's best to either be a) fully manual or b) fully automated for some duration of time.
oblib 5y ago
"I felt safer since I was looking hundreds of yards down the road for situations I might have to handle or avoid, at a longer timescale." I was taught to do this while driving. It was a basic lesson in "Driver's Ed". Making it a habit though is a different thing. For me that was easier because it was one of the things that pro racers mentioned they did as well. That is certainly a key to avoiding accidents. Others would be always keeping a safe distance between you and the cars in front of you and what's going on behind and around you. I made a habit when I first started driving to always stay focused on the task of driving. I almost never turn on the radio or play music. That's because I want to hear what's going on around me. The best advice I ever got was from a California Highway Patrol officer who told me "Drive like everyone is trying to crash into you". Where I live now almost everywhere I drive it's on curvy two lane mountain roads. Most have a 55mph limit with curve signs as low as 25mph. We also have deer by the thousands here, and they forage at night. You really have to pay attention to just to stay on the road and not hit deer. There is no way I'd trust a Tesla to drive me around here (or anywhere for that matter).
- joelhoffman 5y ago
  > "Drive like everyone is trying to crash into you" That advice (for cyclists) was also in one of Neal Stephenson's early novels, Zodiac... I've found it useful. Now I just get annoyed when drivers insist on yielding to pedestrians and cyclists when they don't need to, it would be faster if they didn't and they aren't blocking any other traffic. The driver feels like they've helped, I guess, but the pedestrians are not safer.

lamontcg 5y ago

You can't just compare attentive Tesla drivers (where you're probably projecting your own self onto this driver) with the worst non-Tesla drivers. You have to compare the worst Tesla drivers to the worst drivers in regular vehicles. Average Tesla drivers to average drivers of regular vehicles, etc. And I'm not sure a simulator is the best comparison.

mcguire 5y ago

"Individual glance metrics calculated at the epoch-level and binned by 10-s units of time across the available epoch lengths revealed that drivers in near-crashes have significantly longer on-road glances, and look less frequently between on- and off- road locations in the moments preceding a precipitating event as compared to crashes. During on-road glances, drivers in near-crashes were found to more frequently sample peripheral regions of the roadway than drivers in crashes. Output from the AttenD algorithm affirmed the cumulative net benefit of longer on-road glances and of improved attention management between on- and off-road locations." Then, there's http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/171327.aspx http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/171327.aspx, but I haven't given them my address. (https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/271664/1-s2.0-S0001457517X00109/1-s2.0-S0001457517302567/main.pdf?X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEJ3%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIQD8P4uCfRaomJ%2FXKpAEcIHelKmhPUfuGPYr1Ugw6UNhowIgZ3wy5pmArNCmVUi3pB5bSTXP%2FtsSUx0vsyIvwxdrmWsqgwQI9v%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FARAEGgwwNTkwMDM1NDY4NjUiDEAKOl5faLPXDn52SCrXAyKS%2B6rtOK2cGqQIs6bpAaa%2BlsVjQRedGFbEYL7OXHv42hGhEutF%2BCsNume5ZS47DfLJ2qti6cs0Zps%2FpM5hZ1uFil79%2BAtPvEhkzu3hyxAlCHHWUj7fhN5eibcISjdNuWFmbz9DC0pNQYnlGj0nM9qoemnuQ5xleXKUecpmsP476erhgFrkWAT975AWXZDQVT4IXtSzPlgY7X9etzT5iXfcjGINzL%2FiCNugwzGjKaBEQ0BEAESv3%2FtDCrJG7HAsYP5IAwZq2G61Kj205BKpDkRNb02p6sLlPRn873fdbE3Y6O80PLaV6vJZi7NN2pVav9OdgCse6xrKDtm7dgF08PUuGRv8%2FZyn1DLgT8Bx%2FNE8%2BWp3JeL3akO4Yi7WdbBFq1NqWLAHkrmVUpOHrMK73kEXAB28VJHOcJZe601W2BsuU1A0vDsIzG0L60i6BYx3ZUsnO5njBPpqpTfU6xZQQDggLyX2GoQvPvS3W8SEvNvtczFcGayzjXzXNUWfMTWoMeIENKdI2mJru16rQQJ%2FdGAcgdJL9Dk25EP67oPQzs1BUVSn3o8ceDqLKkV0Alror8MZcEDgLzJyjc%2Byrx%2FbMLifMUq9sbFS6PNbyHKF1JhqvTRAJ7us1zCS%2FqiKBjqlAVMmpKtOH4BidMxSzkq6JdvEEUCCYp5d%2Fw40IuFT64X%2BeQrA8uVjsH%2FGHjAugdKjbSHcbiydjdfs6fvvAAqST46ldRMr3FX39jl0GGj86v4W06ZDMhysAKtggsJ4hkrnNBuEsKYmprTtdWlqZchqopeK%2FAYvN3YTQMK%2BUr10%2BjPx8udHsBWiRXbtDSVu2K47z0Wl%2Fs2OW7PONj72gEhbaBYDmU0tnQ%3D%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20210921T214639Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAQ3PHCVTYUDNQW4GZ%2F20210921%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=ae9e91f7e6a06b776148e2728435ce73e562432513f0e4fc02a2f42205dfe387&hash=3f0819763fee0e7b2df6421f2cbc2832ce4704c97da22ed2968892031f61ba9f&host=68042c943591013ac2b2430a89b270f6af2c76d8dfd086a07176afe7c76c2c61&pii=S0001457517302567&tid=spdf-01f64873-7a0a-4c2b-a1f7-d49c740b7b53&sid=48b0c8bd72c42543f82b5ea4c1a8960a8896gxrqa&type=client https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/271664/1-s2.0-S000145751...)

kirse 5y ago

I ride a motorcycle and can pretty easily spot patterns of distracted driving, but after buying a truck with some ride height, it is amazing how many people are regularly on/touching their phone for something while driving. On the order of 50-75% in a city environment. After this recent revelation I'm almost more amazed at how few accidents there are given the sheer number of cell phone addicts.

zionic 5y ago
This. Every study suggesting holding a cellphone is equally risky to drunk driving must be false. I rode a commuter bus for years and saw the exact same thing you describe, and no one would seriously suggest 50-75% of drivers are (equivalently) drunk.
- bumby 5y ago
  >Every study suggesting holding a cellphone is equally risky to drunk driving must be false. Or drunk driving isn’t as dangerous as previously thought. Or there’s many more drunk drivers than previously thought. I don’t necessarily agree with either of those, but the point is there are many possible explanations and we should be careful about jumping to conclusions. A better way of refuting those claims is to find flaws in their methodology
  - hajile 5y ago
    The flaw is obvious. People put their phones down when their semi-subconscious driving “algorithm” detect anything out of the ordinary. At that point, they bring their full attention to whatever weirdness is going on. This tends to happen with drivers no matter if they’re absorbed in the radio or just lost in their thoughts. I’d guess that the amount of driving time matters a great deal here. Inebriated is much different. They are less likely to notice something in the first place because their senses are deadened. If they do notice, their full attention while intoxicated is much less as is their ability to rationally make decisions. There’s no way to un-distract if something gains.
    - 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

notshift 5y ago

Tesla publishes data on accident rates with and without autopilot, and the rate with autopilot engaged is lower. The problem is, that data is mostly meaningless because people don't use autopilot in conditions when an accident is most likely to occur. I suppose you'd have to compare against only manual driving in good conditions to make a fair comparison. Not sure that data exists anywhere.

wolverine876 5y ago
> Not sure that data exists anywhere. Shouldn't Tesla create that data - research the issue - before giving people autopilot?
- cheesetable 5y ago
  Governments are responsible for setting safety standards, and enforcing that they do.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Tesla is responsible for the consequences of their actions. If their cars exploded when hitting potholes, and the government didn't stop them, Tesla is still responsible.

elif 5y ago

No. The MIT study exclusively selected the data of 19 drivers in Boston and only selected AP disengagements "on free-flow highways (min speed when AP was active was above 30 mph) in daylight (cameras were not infrared) that are not safety critical (no system warnings and no sustained deceleration above 3 m/s )." Its findings were that drivers paid more attention before engagement and after engagement than when AP was engaged.

wolverine876 5y ago

> Did MIT study whether the "inattentive" drivers had higher accident rates and fatality rates than other drivers? > That should be the question. Why should that be the question? If the feature is dangerous, removing it will improve safety. If there are more dangerous features, we can remove those too.

bracketslash 5y ago
That should be the question because we don’t know if the drivers being inattentive actually lead to anything bad happening, I think. If the drivers are inattentive but there is no downside to that, then it doesn’t really matter.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
Because maybe the Tesla features improve safety despite increasing inattentiveness
ghufran_syed 5y ago
Because we need to define "dangerous" - the authors and you are making an assumption that what they call "inattention" is the same as "dangerous" whereas the comment you are replying to is questioning that assumption. If the link between "inattention" and accident rates is strong, then measuring that should be equivalent. In medicine there is a concept of measuring disease-oriented outcomes instead of patient-oriented outcomes, because it's easier to show an intervention affects the disease-oriented outcomes, and much harder to show a change in patient-oriented outcomes. So for example, a disease-oriented ourcome for hip-replacement surgery would be "range of movement after 2 weeks", patient-oriented might be "can go up a flight of stairs" The analogy here seems relevant.

oblib 5y ago

>>... Who crashes? The "inattentive" tesla driver? Or the other driver. That's bullshit. I'm sure it's safe to assume both crash more than very attentive drivers, which is the only question that matters when it comes to Tesla's autopilot. What you're really asking is "who'd you rather have smash into you, someone in a Tesla using autopilot, or someone texting on their phone while driving?

jocker12 5y ago

"That should be the question." No. That is NOT the question... because... Autopilot and FSD software suite users are required to remain attentive and ready to intervene in case o a software failure (often seen in many YouTube videos). But because they obviously, become inattentive, Autopilot usage is actually much more dangerous than having the drivers drive their cars by themselves. It creates complacency because the moment a driver physically removes feet from the pedals and hands from the steering wheel, his or her mind cannot maintain focus on two things at the same time. What are those two things an Autopilot user needs to perform simultaneously? First is watching the car's surroundings, the traffic around the vehicle. Second is watching and trying to understand software behavior in those constantly changing traffic situations. No average Joe, college kid, grandma or grandpa is capable of focusing on two things at the same time in constant life and death environment. Airplane pilots are not average Joes and they are constantly trained to understand flying Autopilot software limitations and capabilities in a lot less stressful and busy traffic environments, two of their main job requirements being discipline and responsibility. That is not the case with the average driver on the road.

mft_ 5y ago
I think OP is right with what the ultimate question should be. Let's agree that a normal driver without autopilot (ND) is mostly attentive, with occasional attention lapses (frequency depending on the individual). That same normal driver according to MIT, is less attentive when using an autopilot system - let's call this autopilot distraction (AD). However, the Autopilot system, despite its weaknesses, likely offers some extra safety benefit (ASB) - especially if it can somewhat counteract the attention lapses that a normal driver would have. So the question becomes, does the autopilot's marginal benefit outweigh the autopilot distraction? Is: ND > (ND - AD + ASB)? However, determining this would be difficult without real-world testing. In the real world, the factor which matters most is whether accidents happen (kind of the Overall Survival of this experiment) - which is why testing the real-world accident rate is important - and is ultimately the important question.
- jocker12 5y ago
  Autopilot creates a false sense of safety, as long as the people that payed for it and are eventually using it, are (by their own standards that made them buy it) not good at driving and not interested to get better at it. But the fallacy stands in the numbers where Autopilot “safety report” is presented by Tesla and compared to average drivers performances. Why a fallacy? Because the human driver drives everywhere, at any time, in any weather conditions and on all drivable roads. The Autopilot goes on and off based on how drivable the environment is by the Autopilot system detection done by the sensors involved. In addition to that, up to this point, almost all of its errors where caught and corrected by its users, so no one could actually estimate what would happen if Autopilot owners would let the software do the driving for 100%, same thing the humans do. Also, once disconnected from the driving system (feet off the pedals and hands off the steering wheel) the driver would need up to 20 seconds (or even more) to reconnect and fully understand what the car does and what the traffic around is like. That is a recipe for disaster while every second the situation changes inside and outside the car.

esjeon 5y ago

This research itself is still valuable, as it proves that drivers become irresponsible with autopilot turned on. I don't get why you connect this to the safety of Tesla vehicles, or maybe I get the reason, but it's unspeakable.