6 ms·

From what I can tell, the car behind the tesla didn't crash into the tesla but stopped before. And so did the car behind that one. It is the cars after that tha

by cm2187 4y ago

From what I can tell, the car behind the tesla didn't crash into the tesla but stopped before. And so did the car behind that one. It is the cars after that that crashed into each others. While automatic cars doing random things is certainly problematic, clearly the cause of the crash here isn't the tesla, it is other cars not respecting minimum safety distances and not able to stop when there is a traffic jam ahead.

amelius 4y ago
This is a case of phantom braking, which is illegal. People often forget about the most important traffic rule: it is not allowed to cause an unsafe situation.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- randyrand 4y ago
  Illegal? Intentional bad driving is illegal, yes. But you would need to prove that incorrect automatic breaking is intentional, which has not been proven in any court I know of.
- cm2187 4y ago
  If you crash into the car in front of you in your lane, the responsibility is yours both morally and legally. The only car which has a valid excuse is the car immediately following the tesla since the tesla inserted itself into its lane then immediately stopped, not allowing it to build a safety distance.
  - foepys 4y ago
    This is not the case in Germany. Unnecessary emergency breaking will have you be at least 50% at fault. You are putting other people into an emergency situation which is endangering everyone around you.
    - bfgoodrich 4y ago
      [dead]
  - jsiepkes 4y ago
    > If you crash into the car in front of you in your lane, the responsibility is yours both morally and legally. It's not that simple. If it was it would be legal to break check someone and it would be that persons fault for crashing in to you.
    - cm2187 4y ago
      The cars stopping because there is an accident ahead aren’t doing something unsafe. You running into them is your fault.
  - BuckyBeaver 4y ago
    The video does indeed show that this happened. The driver's account, as quoted here, doesn't even make sense. In the first sentence it says he was driving along in lane 1, the car slowed, and he "felt an impact." The next part is contradictory, citing a different lane (2), a different cruising speed, and then a lane change... and no impact. WTH?
    - amelius 4y ago
      Are you surprised you can be guilty of an accident when you have not hit anyone?
      - BuckyBeaver 4y ago
        No. Why do you ask?
  - apigalore 4y ago
    I had an accident exactly like that. Car in front of me fully stopped all of a sudden as I was accelerating. This was right passed the lights. No traffic or anything in front him. I don't know why he stopped. My insurance told me he was 100% at fault.
    - tpxl 4y ago
      Would he still be 100% at fault if he was stopping for a child you didn't see?
      - amelius 4y ago
        Why do you think that matters here?
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    This seems like a rather absolute take
  - amelius 4y ago
    This is not true. If you cause an unsafe situation, then you are certainly to blame, regardless of other traffic rules that you think may be relevant.
iainmerrick 4y ago
I was thinking the same. One earlier article about this had a rather inflammatory photo of some twisted-up cars next to an empty baby buggy. But if you watch the video, that’s clearly where some human drivers ploughed straight into the back of the pile-up. The Tesla autopilot failure is really bad, for sure, but those human drivers should be banned for life. There’s no excuse for ramming into a traffic jam because you weren’t paying attention. Edit: occurs to me that possibly I’m being overly harsh here. Is there something about the dynamics of traffic that puts the cars three or four slots back at greater risk when somebody unexpectedly stops? I would assume that the immediately following car is at the greatest risk, but after that everybody is at successively less risk as they should all be slowing and should all see each others’ brake lights.
- misnome 4y ago
  Good luck maintaining a safe distance on a busy highway when every time you slow to make a space, somebody moves into the space from a different lane.
  - iainmerrick 4y ago
    Traffic jams happen. Do you really expect drivers to just ram into the back of them?
    - bearmode 4y ago
      Traffic jams usually have some sort of sign, a slowing of traffic, a stream of brake lights ahead. It's a different situation when someone is slamming on their brakes from highway speed with nothing ahead of them.
      - misnome 4y ago
        Exactly this. A traffic jam, by definition, is never running at highway speeds. If it was, it's not a Jam.
  - progman32 4y ago
bfgoodrich 4y ago
[dead]
trabant00 4y ago
> clearly the cause of the crash here isn't the tesla, it is other cars not respecting minimum safety distances The cause of the crash is the Tesla. You are not allowed to stop on bridges, in tunnels and several other places. The crashes starting with the Nth car and not the 1st is normal. Reaction time of the first car eats into the reaction of the second and so on until there's no more time to stop. Understand that cars further back do not see the car in front of them applying the brakes and slowing down, they are seeing a car moving at normal speed instantly crashing. Minimum safety distance is not as big as reaction time plus stopping to zero, that would be huge.
- dachryn 4y ago
  also, since they don't expect the need to come to a full stop, they don't apply enough braking force.
- cm2187 4y ago
  Not sure I understand your reasoning. The further you are from the first car, the more warning you get on what's going on, not the other way round. I typically watch not just the car in front of me but 1 or 2 cars ahead. If I see those cars braking, I start breaking. It's the car immediately following the tesla that got the least warning.
  - trabant00 4y ago
    It is not always possible to see 1 or 2 cars ahead, that can not be the standard for who is at fault. edit: to make it clear, we are debating whether the Tesla is at fault, not whether the other could have avoided it. Creating a dangerous situation still puts you at fault, you can not be allowed to do so at any time on the grounds that everybody else should avoid you.
- bagels 4y ago
  It's not illegal to stop on a bridge or tunnel if required to not crash, surely?
  - 4y ago
fullsend 4y ago
In my opinion 90% of the reason we don’t have more accidents is because people are so predictable. Watch dangerous drivers weave through traffic - it’s only possible because everyone follows spoken and unspoken rules. Randomly stopping is not some “you need to be prepared, it’s your fault” moment.
- rendall 4y ago
  > Randomly stopping is not some “you need to be prepared, it’s your fault” moment. Drivers are indeed expected to always be prepared for sudden stops even at the highest speeds.
- kosievdmerwe 4y ago
  A car switching into an empty lane and then stopping hard even more. If a human driver did it deliberately as the Tesla did (since it was designed to pull over and stop) then I would consider it a criminal level traffic violation on the part of the stopping car.
  - apigalore 4y ago
    I had an accident exactly like that. Car in front of me fully stopped all of a sudden as I was accelerating. This was right passed the lights. No traffic or anything in front him. I don't know why he stopped. My insurance told me he was 100% at fault.
    - ArteEtMarte 4y ago
      Here in the UK, that happened to me on a roundabout. Elderly driver in front pulled out and then, for no visible reason, slammed on the brakes. I ran into the back of her. It was deemed to be be 100% my fault. Here, if you run into the back of the car in front, it is always your fault. No exceptions. It makes sense: you should always leave enough room to stop, so I couldn't really complain. But, if everybody did that on that particular busy roundabout, it would result in gridlock.
      - 4y ago
__alexs 4y ago
Suddenly stopping at high speed is generally considered (at least in the UK) dangerous driving and will get you prosecuted and probably mean you lose your license at the very least. If it results in a death then you can get a life sentence in prison for it. Intentionally stopping inside a tunnel is a pretty clear cut case of dangerous driving over here.
- benj111 4y ago
  From what I gather from the article the car didn't suddenly stop. I still suspect it would be classed as dangerous driving as there wasn't a need to stop and they did find a safe place to stop. If it did suddenly brake though and it was the car, that seems like something Tesla should be liable for. The time taken for any driver, when a car starts automatically braking, to assess the situation and override isn't going to be enough to avoid the dangerous situation.
  - naavis 4y ago
    The article links to another article with a video recording of the accident: https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-autopilot/ https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-auto... The car does stop pretty suddenly.
    - pigtailgirl 4y ago
      -- not only does it stop suddenly - applies break - signals into a new lane - changes lane into new lane - breaks hard - well actually - if you watch the video frame by frame - it starts to initiate a left hand turn for lane change before it even signals - if a driver did this to me - sure i hit them --
- N19PEDL2 4y ago
  However there can be many reasons why a car has to stop suddenly: for example, a child might suddenly cross the road, or the driver might feel he or she is having a heart attack. My driving school teacher used to say: always remember that the car ahead of you could suddenly stop at any time for a reason that you might not know.
bearmode 4y ago
The drivers who crashed were obviously wrong, but stepping on the brakes in a 70+mph tunnel is incredible dangerous. The Tesla created this situation, and holds most of the blame.
chmod775 4y ago
> From what I can tell, the car behind the tesla didn't crash into the tesla but stopped before. The second video here clearly shows it crashing into the Tesla: https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-autopilot/ https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-auto... > While automatic cars doing random things is certainly problematic, clearly the cause of the crash here isn't the tesla The Tesla changed lanes, moving in front of the second vehicle, and immediately applied the brakes. That is 100% the Tesla's fault.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lm28469 4y ago
> clearly the cause of the crash here isn't the tesla, it is other cars not respecting minimum safety distances Try to park on the highway and claim the people who crash are at fault and see how it plays in a court of law

by cm2187 4y ago

amelius 4y ago

This is a case of phantom braking, which is illegal. People often forget about the most important traffic rule: it is not allowed to cause an unsafe situation.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
randyrand 4y ago
Illegal? Intentional bad driving is illegal, yes. But you would need to prove that incorrect automatic breaking is intentional, which has not been proven in any court I know of.
cm2187 4y ago
If you crash into the car in front of you in your lane, the responsibility is yours both morally and legally. The only car which has a valid excuse is the car immediately following the tesla since the tesla inserted itself into its lane then immediately stopped, not allowing it to build a safety distance.
- foepys 4y ago
  This is not the case in Germany. Unnecessary emergency breaking will have you be at least 50% at fault. You are putting other people into an emergency situation which is endangering everyone around you.
  - bfgoodrich 4y ago
    [dead]
- jsiepkes 4y ago
  > If you crash into the car in front of you in your lane, the responsibility is yours both morally and legally. It's not that simple. If it was it would be legal to break check someone and it would be that persons fault for crashing in to you.
  - cm2187 4y ago
    The cars stopping because there is an accident ahead aren’t doing something unsafe. You running into them is your fault.
- BuckyBeaver 4y ago
  The video does indeed show that this happened. The driver's account, as quoted here, doesn't even make sense. In the first sentence it says he was driving along in lane 1, the car slowed, and he "felt an impact." The next part is contradictory, citing a different lane (2), a different cruising speed, and then a lane change... and no impact. WTH?
  - amelius 4y ago
    Are you surprised you can be guilty of an accident when you have not hit anyone?
    - BuckyBeaver 4y ago
      No. Why do you ask?
- apigalore 4y ago
  I had an accident exactly like that. Car in front of me fully stopped all of a sudden as I was accelerating. This was right passed the lights. No traffic or anything in front him. I don't know why he stopped. My insurance told me he was 100% at fault.
  - tpxl 4y ago
    Would he still be 100% at fault if he was stopping for a child you didn't see?
    - amelius 4y ago
      Why do you think that matters here?
- brailsafe 4y ago
  This seems like a rather absolute take
- amelius 4y ago
  This is not true. If you cause an unsafe situation, then you are certainly to blame, regardless of other traffic rules that you think may be relevant.

iainmerrick 4y ago

I was thinking the same. One earlier article about this had a rather inflammatory photo of some twisted-up cars next to an empty baby buggy. But if you watch the video, that’s clearly where some human drivers ploughed straight into the back of the pile-up. The Tesla autopilot failure is really bad, for sure, but those human drivers should be banned for life. There’s no excuse for ramming into a traffic jam because you weren’t paying attention. Edit: occurs to me that possibly I’m being overly harsh here. Is there something about the dynamics of traffic that puts the cars three or four slots back at greater risk when somebody unexpectedly stops? I would assume that the immediately following car is at the greatest risk, but after that everybody is at successively less risk as they should all be slowing and should all see each others’ brake lights.

misnome 4y ago
Good luck maintaining a safe distance on a busy highway when every time you slow to make a space, somebody moves into the space from a different lane.
- iainmerrick 4y ago
  Traffic jams happen. Do you really expect drivers to just ram into the back of them?
  - bearmode 4y ago
    Traffic jams usually have some sort of sign, a slowing of traffic, a stream of brake lights ahead. It's a different situation when someone is slamming on their brakes from highway speed with nothing ahead of them.
    - misnome 4y ago
      Exactly this. A traffic jam, by definition, is never running at highway speeds. If it was, it's not a Jam.
- progman32 4y ago

bfgoodrich 4y ago

[dead]

trabant00 4y ago

> clearly the cause of the crash here isn't the tesla, it is other cars not respecting minimum safety distances The cause of the crash is the Tesla. You are not allowed to stop on bridges, in tunnels and several other places. The crashes starting with the Nth car and not the 1st is normal. Reaction time of the first car eats into the reaction of the second and so on until there's no more time to stop. Understand that cars further back do not see the car in front of them applying the brakes and slowing down, they are seeing a car moving at normal speed instantly crashing. Minimum safety distance is not as big as reaction time plus stopping to zero, that would be huge.

dachryn 4y ago
also, since they don't expect the need to come to a full stop, they don't apply enough braking force.
cm2187 4y ago
Not sure I understand your reasoning. The further you are from the first car, the more warning you get on what's going on, not the other way round. I typically watch not just the car in front of me but 1 or 2 cars ahead. If I see those cars braking, I start breaking. It's the car immediately following the tesla that got the least warning.
- trabant00 4y ago
  It is not always possible to see 1 or 2 cars ahead, that can not be the standard for who is at fault. edit: to make it clear, we are debating whether the Tesla is at fault, not whether the other could have avoided it. Creating a dangerous situation still puts you at fault, you can not be allowed to do so at any time on the grounds that everybody else should avoid you.
bagels 4y ago
It's not illegal to stop on a bridge or tunnel if required to not crash, surely?
- 4y ago

fullsend 4y ago

In my opinion 90% of the reason we don’t have more accidents is because people are so predictable. Watch dangerous drivers weave through traffic - it’s only possible because everyone follows spoken and unspoken rules. Randomly stopping is not some “you need to be prepared, it’s your fault” moment.

rendall 4y ago
> Randomly stopping is not some “you need to be prepared, it’s your fault” moment. Drivers are indeed expected to always be prepared for sudden stops even at the highest speeds.
kosievdmerwe 4y ago
A car switching into an empty lane and then stopping hard even more. If a human driver did it deliberately as the Tesla did (since it was designed to pull over and stop) then I would consider it a criminal level traffic violation on the part of the stopping car.
- apigalore 4y ago
  I had an accident exactly like that. Car in front of me fully stopped all of a sudden as I was accelerating. This was right passed the lights. No traffic or anything in front him. I don't know why he stopped. My insurance told me he was 100% at fault.
  - ArteEtMarte 4y ago
    Here in the UK, that happened to me on a roundabout. Elderly driver in front pulled out and then, for no visible reason, slammed on the brakes. I ran into the back of her. It was deemed to be be 100% my fault. Here, if you run into the back of the car in front, it is always your fault. No exceptions. It makes sense: you should always leave enough room to stop, so I couldn't really complain. But, if everybody did that on that particular busy roundabout, it would result in gridlock.
    - 4y ago

__alexs 4y ago

Suddenly stopping at high speed is generally considered (at least in the UK) dangerous driving and will get you prosecuted and probably mean you lose your license at the very least. If it results in a death then you can get a life sentence in prison for it. Intentionally stopping inside a tunnel is a pretty clear cut case of dangerous driving over here.

benj111 4y ago
From what I gather from the article the car didn't suddenly stop. I still suspect it would be classed as dangerous driving as there wasn't a need to stop and they did find a safe place to stop. If it did suddenly brake though and it was the car, that seems like something Tesla should be liable for. The time taken for any driver, when a car starts automatically braking, to assess the situation and override isn't going to be enough to avoid the dangerous situation.
- naavis 4y ago
  The article links to another article with a video recording of the accident: https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-autopilot/ https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-auto... The car does stop pretty suddenly.
  - pigtailgirl 4y ago
    -- not only does it stop suddenly - applies break - signals into a new lane - changes lane into new lane - breaks hard - well actually - if you watch the video frame by frame - it starts to initiate a left hand turn for lane change before it even signals - if a driver did this to me - sure i hit them --
N19PEDL2 4y ago
However there can be many reasons why a car has to stop suddenly: for example, a child might suddenly cross the road, or the driver might feel he or she is having a heart attack. My driving school teacher used to say: always remember that the car ahead of you could suddenly stop at any time for a reason that you might not know.

bearmode 4y ago

The drivers who crashed were obviously wrong, but stepping on the brakes in a 70+mph tunnel is incredible dangerous. The Tesla created this situation, and holds most of the blame.

chmod775 4y ago

> From what I can tell, the car behind the tesla didn't crash into the tesla but stopped before. The second video here clearly shows it crashing into the Tesla: https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-autopilot/ https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-auto... > While automatic cars doing random things is certainly problematic, clearly the cause of the crash here isn't the tesla The Tesla changed lanes, moving in front of the second vehicle, and immediately applied the brakes. That is 100% the Tesla's fault.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lm28469 4y ago

> clearly the cause of the crash here isn't the tesla, it is other cars not respecting minimum safety distances Try to park on the highway and claim the people who crash are at fault and see how it plays in a court of law