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Tesla driver who killed 2 people while using autopilot must pay $23,000, no jail
- iAMkenough 3y ago$11,500 per human life extinguished for no reason. Tesla can easily cover that cost for the driver.
- bdcravens 3y agoThat's just the criminal penalty. There is still a civil case against both the driver and Tesla; that will likely be substantial.
- throwaway5959 3y agoThat fucker isn’t going to spend a day in jail. He should be in prison for at least a decade. You don’t accidentally go 74 miles an hour down an off ramp.
- iAMkenough 3y agoI'm doubtful, but appreciate your optimism. I should restate I suppose: Criminal law determined each life ended was only worth $11,500 each in this instance. This precedent determines you can drive your Tesla 74mph into another vehicle if you can pay a $11,500 fine for each random person you slaughter.
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- HPMOR 3y agoThe incentives in the United States strongly favor pedestrian fatalities and reckless driving. It is insane that killing two people in a car accident is treated with a fine instead of ANY jail time. There’s a reason why fatalities on roadways continue to increase in the US. This is one of them.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> insane that killing two people in a car accident is treated with a fine instead of ANY jail time Which component of justice— retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation and reparation [1]—is served by jailing this person? The only one I see is retribution. Given the families are pursuing damages, the reparation prerogative is better served with him out of jail (and not draining his assets fighting prison time). [1] https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/crime-prevention-criminal-justice/module-7/key-issues/2--justifying-punishment-in-the-community.html https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/crime-prevention-criminal-justi...
- jwalton 3y agoWhat was this guy doing while the vehicle he was supposed to be controlling ran a red light at more than twice the posted speed limit? The article is lacking on details here. If he was, say, watching a movie on his phone, then he should go to jail to deter others from watching movies on their phones.
- theossuary 3y agoAlso to keep him out of public for other's safety. Seems like him going to jail checks 3/5 at least.
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoNote: the criminal penalties are a conviction, fine and probation. The victims’ “families have separately filed civil lawsuits against Aziz Riad and Tesla that are ongoing.”
- orwin 3y agoThe civil lawsuit cannot give suspended prison sentence i guess. Who does this person know? Or is it usual in the US? In my country, a killer will always get time, even if its "only" negligence: the time will often get suspended until the next infraction. This end after 20 years, so at least idiots like this will maybe be careful about other people lives.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> In my country, a killer will always get time Which country? Because study after study shows deterence is weak at best for such crimes.
- orwin 3y agoFrance. It's not really deterrence (deterrence is mostly about other people not killing too, no?). This is taking into account that mistakes were made, and that maybe the person can improve and not be an idiot on the road. If the person can't improve, and is caught reckless driving or drunk driving (or worse, killing/hurting someone else), then the 'suspended' sentence transform into a full sentence, to protect other people from the idiot.
- aregreabn 3y ago[flagged]
- ShamelessC 3y agoDetermined to have your account banned or something?
- justin_oaks 3y agoI don't believe that partially automated driving, as shown by Autopilot is fit for human use. People will rely on it as if it's fully automated and more accidents like this will happen. We see this same problem with face recognition software that says an innocent man's face matches a criminal. The cops just accept what the computer says and arrest people because the computer says it's a match. We can't have the machine do stuff for us unless it's superior to human judgment, or the stakes are much lower than ruining lives.
- grecy 3y ago> I don't believe that partially automated driving, as shown by Autopilot is fit for human use. People will rely on it as if it's fully automated and more accidents like this will happen. Keep in mind 125 people are killed on the roads every single day in the US. If all vehicles magically switched to this system overnight and the system only killed 100 people per day, that would be a huge win. The fact some people will be killed by automated driving systems is not enough to ban them. If it was, we would ban all cars. The only important statistic is if those systems kill less people than the current state of affairs.
- jmpman 3y agoContinuing your analysis - vehicles magically switched to this system overnight and the system only killed 100 people per day. Huge win. But then you find out that the drivers of those 100 daily accidents were all browsing their phone when the accidents happened. Would we ban phone usage while using autopilot? And if we did ban phone usage while using autopilot, and someone was using their phone… should they go to jail? I expect the 125 people who are killed today have a high factor of alcohol being involved, and our society doesn’t take drunk driving lightly. Those drivers would certainly go to jail. Why would phone use be any more accepted if the death rate suddenly dropped to 124, or, as in your hypothetical situation, 100?
- wilg 3y agoWhat? Phone usage is already banned while driving, period. Also, along with other Autopilot distractions, it is also detected by the cabin camera and it can kick you from using it. So I guess the answer to your questions are yes and yes?
- frank_bb 3y ago[dead]
- wilg 3y agoI would like the NHTSA to gather and publish robust data on: • Crashes per mile on each manufacturer's "self-driving" systems • Crashes per mile on each manufacturer's LKAS (lane keeping assistant) systems • Crashes per mile on each manufacturer's TACC (traffic aware cruise control) • Crashes per mile on each manufacturer's regular cruise control • Crashes per mile under manual control Break each out by highway, suburban, city, and car model year. Also include whether the crash resulted in injuries and deaths, and whether those deaths were occupants or not. Then we can actually determine where the problem is, and the scope of it.
- thfuran 3y agoI suspect age correlates with vehicle choice and know it correlates with accident rates, so I'm not sure those figures would tell you what you think they're telling you.
- wilg 3y agoOK, include driver age. Have some people put together a robust research plan that accounts for various biases. Should not be particularly difficult.
- iAMkenough 3y agoI see you claiming it's not difficult, but I don't see you making it happen. If it's so simple, take your developed plan to the authorities and make it happen. Show them what data they need to collect and how they can force manufacturers to provide it.
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- ajross 3y ago> Then we can actually determine where the problem is, and the scope of it. Unpopular opinion: there probably isn't a problem? None of these system is going to be perfectly safe, but there's quite a bit of evidence at this point that they're all safer, as actually used (which, yes, includes some misuse) than a human driver is at doing the same task. No one wants to hear that though, so instead we take "where the problem is" as a prior and continue arguments like this ad nauseum. Full disclosure: my car is going to drive me to Idaho in the morning.
- xnx 3y agoThe Tesla thing feels like a bit of a red herring. Killing anyone with a car is basically just an "oopsie" in terms of US law.
- kuchenbecker 3y agoIt's generally an accident.
- acdha 3y agoIt’s generally unintentional. It’s rarely the case that the collision would have occurred had the driver been in compliance with the law. Road design is often a factor because the biggest thing which makes it a fatality is speed, and we have many roads where the speed limit is supposed to be 20-25mph but the design is like a much faster highway, causing almost everyone to go over the limit and thus have less time to react to anyone unexpected and hit them at higher speeds. This recent blog post was making the rounds based on Washington state data showing the speeding rate _in school zones_ was over 70%, which I think is what you’d find almost anywhere in the United States: https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/12/12/drivers-are-speeding-in-wa-school-zones/ https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/12/12/drivers-are-speeding-...
- tbrownaw 3y ago> Despite facing more than seven years behind bars, a judge sentenced him to probation in June. I assume this is the usual issue where the news looks at the maximum sentence and the legal system uses a standard formula that almost never applies the maximum? > It was among a series of deadly crashes investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that led to this week’s recall. Assuming the sentence actually is lighter than typical, maybe this is part of why?
- orwin 3y agoNo time, even suspended time? You don't have suspended prison time in California? I mean, i understand it's the US, but you got to at least remove the driving licence for like 5 years and add a 5-10 year suspended prison time (until his next road infraction, seems a good way to prevent him from killing people by arrogance and negligence again).
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoTo whom it may concen, Thanks for flagging this otherwise I might have missed it. Also thanks for flagging these too: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/13/tech/tesla-recall-autopilot/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/13/tech/tesla-recall-autopil... https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/12/more-than-2-million-teslas-are-being-recalled-due-to-unsafe-autopilot/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/12/more-than-2-million-tes... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67693935 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67693935 I might have missed them otherwise.
- gnicholas 3y agoIs there a way to see flagged postings?
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoI read HN as a single HTML page in a text-only browser. For example, it's about 7MB today. To read the flagged submissions I do something like sed -n '/\[flagged\]/p' yc.htm > 1.htm links -no-connect 1.htm This excludes the comments so I can evaluate the submission myself without the noise. Or, if I'm reading yc.htm, I might search for the pattern "[flagged]" in the page. In the browser I use, searching is done with a single keypress "/" and then "n" for next match an "p" for previous. Popular browsers might require more complex keypresses or possibly mouse clicks; they might be sluggish with a 7MB HTML file. Not sure.
- gnicholas 3y agoNice. I've thought it would be nice to be able to view posts that made it to the front page, and perhaps surpassed some level of commenting, and were then flagged off.
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