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Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider
- josephcsible 4y ago> The car's autopilot was on at the time of the crash, UHP said. I wonder whether the UHP pulled data from the car to verify this, or just took the driver's word for it.
- geoah 4y agoThe driver is still liable right? Is it still the driver’s responsibility or keeping aware and ready to react or is the autopilot software allowed to autonomously drive these days?
- josephcsible 4y agoThe driver is indeed still liable (since it's only a level 2 system), but that seems like the kind of thing that a lot of people would lie about anyway.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoTesla should be liable by virtue of calling things 'autopilot' or 'full self driving' which aren't.
- ActorNightly 4y agoThis is possibly the dumbest argument against Tesla one could make. From the origin of autopilot from its aviation history, its pretty clear that autopilot was not designed to prevent you from hitting things.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoIn aircraft or maritime it's a system you can activate and stop paying attention to the controls or do a task like navigation, eating, or going to the bathroom for timescales on the order of seconds to minutes. Tesla's 'autopilot' system is cruise control but with more mental overhead when the human needs to react because the human is being hypnotised by lack of stimulus and has to keep a mental model of what the car is planning in their head. And 'full self driving' is an automated way of making the driver as unprepared for novel stimulus as possible. "You have to sit here and do nothing, but react in milliseconds when I fuck up" is not a task a human can do. Tesla know this and have known this since before they made the features available and gave them misleading names. So when the human inevitably doesn't react in time in a scenario where it is impossible for them to react in time, they are the ones responsible.
- ActorNightly 4y agoTo just arbitrarily redefine autopilot for cars as something that can avoid accidents isn't a good argument. You are supposed to still have awareness when using autopilot in an airplane, ship - paying attention to things like radar, radio, ADSB, e.t.c. And in a Tesla, you are supposed to pay attention visually. Full self driving is still in beta test, with present dangers that you have to accept. All the accidents that happen with Tesla autopilot use are driver error, full stop. Just like its driver error to get drunk and drive, or be looking down at a phone distracted, and rear end a motorcycle. As someone who rides, Id rather have roads full of Teslas with FSD, because for every time it fucks up there are vastly more times for it to avoid an accident, given that you are not going to get rid of drunk, high, or distracted drivers.
- 4y ago
- 93po 4y agoThere's a definite track record of people lying about it to avoid the shame only to later have Tesla come out and say it's not true.
- slaymaker1907 4y agoI always think it's weird how instead of just improving public transit, we've all become fixated on self driving vehicles. Good transit would mean most people don't need to operate a vehicle while having a plethora of other benefits like combating climate change and more efficient land use (if you live in a suburb, take note of the sheer amount land dedicated to parking; it's often more land than the store for retail). The problem is kind of similar to people who insist on some overly complicated microservice architecture when a monolith would be a much better fit. I actually hope that self driving technology stagnates, at least until we can start designing cities for people and not just cars. I live near where the accident occurred and there is definitely sufficient population to support alternatives to driving.
- thehappypm 4y agoI doubt “we” can really fix public transit. The places where it’s great have an immense culture towards it. Here even places where the public transit network is extensive like NYC or Boston still face huge funding shortfalls and a lot of antagonism from their statehouses. Maybe self driving cars is an easier problem.
- GenerocUsername 4y agoTransit is not a replacement for cars in USA outside of the densest urban cores, and those areas are paradoxically the worst offenders for crime, drugs, and other urban issues which keep many off of transit.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kbos87 4y agoThis is an unpopular opinion but speaking from experience, it’s absolutely true.
- ncmncm 4y agoIt is a product of deliberate policy, so of course it's true. The policy was to drive working people out of cities and into cars, and it worked. You are living their policy.
- rvz 4y agoOh dear. It's getting really hard for anyone to defend this contraption. Perhaps that explains the silence from the Tesla autopilot crowd shocked by the news of this yet another collision from an unsafe piece of 'safety critical' software. Both Autopilot and FSD (Fools Self Driving) needs to be investigated urgently.
- joezydeco 4y agoThe silence is confidence from the Tesla crowd that these are necessary sacrifices to perfect FSD and achieve the dream. That was a literal quote from one owner, to me, in a previous thread here on HN.
- influxmoment 4y agoSo we ban all drivers assistance so it can't be misused? What's your point?
- rvz 4y agoNo one said 'ban'. Perhaps Tesla should have a proper driver monitoring system to determine that the driver has their eyes on the road at all times whilst having autopilot or FSD when driving? In the article: [0] > "Just because your vehicle may be equipped with driver-assisted settings or auto-pilot features, all the vehicles still require the operator of that vehicle to still be attentive and still be watching the road," So it's really no surprise why they are getting lots of investigations by regulators over their contraption.
- coldtea 4y agoWhat matters is the ratio of autopilot vs human driver accidents. And in that area, the highly cherry-picked and curated test results from Tesla sound absolutely convincing! Actually, scratch that: what matter is that the autopilot sounds cool and high tech. Given that, who cares about the casualties?
- shepherdjerred 4y agoCan you explain how Teslas data is cherry picked? Is it unfair to compare crash data for just one particular area? Wouldn’t it make a lot of sense that some roads are inherently more dangerous because of poor designs or conditions?
- elkos 4y agoIs the raw data publicly available for public scrutiny?
- Ekaros 4y agoTo me it often feels like they are comparing the best conditions to all conditions. So for self driving only dry overcast well marked roads with no construction or surprises. Where as comparison include all conditions, from blizzard to blinding sunlight in between road construction on poorly maintained roads... So not really apples to apples comparison. Unless FSD is as safe in middle of blizzard when positioning system is being jammed it fails for me...
- ricardobeat 4y agoWhy does it "feel" like that? What is known about the sources of the data collected so far?
- Gordonjcp 4y agoIt's not even especially "cherry picked". If you compare accidents in vehicles driven on "autopilot" versus every other vehicle, you'll see that they have far fewer accidents per mile. However, that's not a fair comparison. Tesla's "autopilot" only works on clear motorways with nothing "exciting" going on. It can't cope with sudden changes in conditions very well, and hands over to the human driver. It can't cope with two-lane roads with cars coming at it at all, never mind single-track country roads. So, if you compare Tesla "autopilot" with cars driven in the same conditions as when "autopilot" is in use, you see that they're no safer or just a little bit worse. TL;DR Tesla "autopilot" only works in conditions where cars don't crash anyway, but they are compared against cars driven in all possible conditions.
- alexjplant 4y agoI just spent a few hours on my Honda riding back from LA. I made it to a mile away from my apartment without incident only to watch a Tesla turn the wrong way onto the one-way street I was on. The driver was either using malfunctioning FSD or made a mistake as they immediately pulled up to the passenger-side curb. I'll be steering well clear of these things in the future.
- shepherdjerred 4y agoHave you never accidentally turned onto a one way street when driving somewhere unfamiliar? It has definitely happened to me a couple of times. Humans make mistakes.
- nikolay 4y agoI don't get this autopilot scam - if you don't enjoy driving, take the bus/train and do this planet a favor!
- josephcsible 4y agoThat almost always takes significantly longer, if there's even a route to where you want to go at all.
- shepherdjerred 4y agoObviously public transit is far less convenient, and not always an option depending on where you live.
- ncmncm 4y agoPublic transit in the US is drastically underfunded, in favor of massive subsidies for cars and arrangements requiring cars. Compare to much of Europe.
- shepherdjerred 4y agoI totally agree, but the reality is that if you don't have a car then you won't be able to easily commute in most cities. I'd love for this to change, but a few individuals choosing to suffer by not having a car isn't going to help anything.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y agoMaybe individualism is the root of the problem?
- GenerocUsername 4y agoSocialist hands types this
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
- anony999 4y agowhat makes it so hard for "self driving" cars to avoid frontal collusions?
- 93po 4y agoprobably because the car is moving forward?
- ncmncm 4y ago"Full Self Crashing". What will it take before we indict Musk for reckless endangerment, and for fraud? What will it take for the NTSB and FTC to issue a recall, and require Tesla to openly refund all the money collected for it?
- mrhands556 4y agoDo you have statistics behind these claims?
- ncmncm 4y agoDo you have statistics refuting them? You can go on YT and step through self-crashing videos frame by frame. The burden is on them to show it is safe before they turn it on.
- 0xedd 4y agoHah! I see propaganda has captured you nicely. Cancel culture cuisine; it's enough to claim someone is guilty to indict him. It's his responsibility to prove innocence! A tangent; Tesla did show their self driving is safe. Doesn't mean it has no bugs.
- ncmncm 4y agoMust be a new definition of "safe": kills drivers, passengers, motorcyclists, people in other cars. Accelerates at concrete freeway barriers. Steers into cars parked off the road.
- GenerocUsername 4y agoYeah because car accidents didn't exist until Musk came along. Get real. Show stats of accidents per 100k miles or gtfo
- 93po 4y ago
- ricardobeat 4y ago“Autopilot was on” doesn’t mean self driving, it’s a driving assist feature that requires human attention just like in other cars.
- sathomasga 4y agoAs someone who's more likely to cycle somewhere than to drive, I wish there was as much attention paid every time a human-piloted car did something like this. It happens much more frequently than most folks realize. I used to follow "bicycle" news stories in a news aggregation app, but had to stop because my timeline was filled with "bicyclist killed by driver" stories. There was almost always at least one every day. I'm by no means a fan of self-driving cars, but despite tragedies like this one, I wouldn't be surprised if overall they're much safer than human pilots even for cyclists.
- effingwewt 4y agoThis is about a motorcycle, not a bicycle. It was on a highway not a regular road to be shared with cyclists. edit to add as I dont think it was clear- the tesla's system should have been able to detect the motorcycle as it was on the highway operating normally, so imo this makes it all the more egregious.
- credit_guy 4y agoTo me it seems there's more to this story. The crash happened at 1:10 am on a highway in Utah. I imagine there was no traffic at that time. Most likely there were only this motorcycle and the Tesla, and at most a few other cars over a good stretch of highway. When there's no traffic, motorcycles tend to go faster than cars. A Tesla on autopilot either respects the speed limit (factory setting), or it can be programmed by the owner to allow a bit above, just like the regular traffic flow. Let's say 10 mph above speed limit. It seems quite unlikely the motorcycle was doing less than that speed, so how exactly did the Tesla rear-end the motorcycle? Also, how did the driver of the Tesla "not see" the motorcycle? You drive on a highway with the headlights on, there's a motorcycle in front of you with taillight on, how can you not see it? I can see some possibilities: - reduced visibility because of fog, or some other reasons - the motorcycle rider was driving under the influence, and made some sudden move that the Tesla autopilot was not trained to predict (e.g. aggressive cutting in front of the vehicle) - somewhat similar: the motorcycle rider lost control of his own vehicle for whatever reasons, and the Tesla rear-ended them while they were skidding on the pavement - the Tesla owner had overridden the autopilot speed limit factory setting by 20 mph more - Tesla was not on autopilot at all, and the owner is simply lying; maybe the owner was DUI - a case of road rage: the biker did something, the Tesla guy honked, the thing escalated, maybe both were a bit inebriated, and the Tesla guy rear-ends the biker not with the intention to kill, but just to "teach the guy a lesson" I'm not trying to say Tesla is not at fault. In the first 4 cases I listed, Tesla is clearly culpable. I just simply doubt the story is "biker riding normally, and suddenly a speeding Tesla rear-ends and kills him out of the blue". At 1:10 am on a nearly empty highway.
- justsomedood 4y agoThe speed limit where this occurred is 70mph. Most motorcyclists are at the speed limit. If the Tesla rear ended the motorcycle at 80mph (10mph difference) that is a life ending mistake. As to how the driver didn't see the motorcycle, if the car is driving for you why even pay attention? Especially at night when there are so few other drivers. The whole reason to use autopilot is to interact less with the vehicle. I know telsa says you have to pay attention, but the point of the feature is not to.
- antipaul 4y agoBut it's supposed to automatically drive itself safely with "AutoPilot", no?
- seanhunter 4y agoAs a biker myself, I was always taught that when riding a bike you are responsible for your own safety. This means you should always be taking in as much information as you can in order to make escape plans in the event of something unexpected. Getting rear-ended like this is an absolute nightmare scenario. Even though the relative velocity between the vehicles is small, even the slightest bump to your back wheel will almost certainly cause you to hit the tarmac[1], and often on a freeway you have limited escape routes because you may not be able to change lanes safely and if a car comes up behind you fast you may not be able to accelerate away from them. Autopilot (as I understand it) is a lane-following dynamic cruise control so should have detected the bike and slowed down on approach. Human beings have a weakness in their stereoscopic vision where because their eyes are not far apart they can’t accurately tell the speed of a narrow object (like a bike) if it’s travelling towards or away from them. It seems like this should not be a problem with a car (because you can put the cameras on either side of the vehicle for example), but I wonder whether Teslas detectors or software have weaknesses with narrow objects. [1] And even though with good gear you can skid along the road relatively safely, other cars are bound to hit you.