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These two were idiots, but this highlights the dangers of L2 driver assistance systems (misleadingly marketed as "Full Self Driving") that requires driver atten

by ra7 3y ago

These two were idiots, but this highlights the dangers of L2 driver assistance systems (misleadingly marketed as "Full Self Driving") that requires driver attention at all times to prevent accidents. It gives you a false sense of security and there's no guarantee you'll take over in time to prevent an accident. If you give dumb toys to people, they will use it in dumb ways. This is why Waymo/Google abandoned their driver assistance efforts a decade ago and jumped straight to driverless. That turned out to be a masterstroke in terms of safety.

loceng 3y ago
Sorry but everything after "the driver who's responsible for their decisions was drunk" is moot. But otherwise, yes, your statement otherwise about giving "toys" to "dumb" people stands no matter the technology. And knives can be used to cut steak or stab people.
- ra7 3y ago
  You could be perfectly sober and still not be able to intervene in time to prevent a crash. Systems like this encourage inattention, but still expect drivers to turn on attention in a fraction of a second. That's the entire point. So no, it's not moot.
  - LeFantome 3y ago
    It depends on the discussion you are having. I agree that it is not “moot” in either case. Your point is that these systems need to be save even in the face of incapable drivers and that, despite the misleading marketing, they are not that ( yet ). The other point though is that people already have access to cars and, according to the evidence, cars with these features are LESS dangerous. Encouraging over-reliance is a problem but not as big a problem as having to rely on the human 100% of the time. This statement is just a fact given the statistics. Given the above, while it is too extreme to say that operation by an impaired driver is “moot”, it is fair to suggest that the most significant source of risk is the impaired driver themselves and their decision to operate a vehicle of any kind. The biggest offer to this risk are the additional safety features of the vehicle. The degree of over-confidence caused by the vehicle type is a distraction.
    - metabagel 3y ago
      > The other point though is that people already have access to cars and, according to the evidence, cars with these features are LESS dangerous. I don’t think we can say anything of the sort for Tesla FSD (beta).
    - ra7 3y ago
      There are no statistics that categorically prove cars with these features are less dangerous. Tesla's own "safety report" is extremely misleading and has no controls for geography, weather, time of day, average age of cars, demographics, etc. If you're developing an autonomous system, you have a moral and ethical obligation not to roll it out when it's half baked and unsafe. You can't give an unfinished safety critical system to the general public and then blaming them for misusing it.
      - loceng 3y ago
        Don't all Tesla vehicles have the highest safety ratings ever? I guess maybe though something being less dangerous isn't the same as something being relatively more safe?
        ra7 3y ago
        Those safety ratings don't assess FSD performance.
        loceng 3y ago
        You're missing or avoiding my point? Comparing similar accidents regardless of FSD or not - a Tesla's occupants are arguably kept safer, would fair better than being in any other vehicle, right?
        ra7 3y ago
        You’re making an entirely irrelevant point. They’d fare better if they were in a bus too. We’re talking about cause of the accident here, not what happens after one.
  - loceng 3y ago
    How about alcohol odour detection required in all vehicles? How about attention-distraction monitoring, and perhaps first penalty or safeguard is forced reduced speed, where attention-distraction level determined determines the maximum speed the vehicle can go - whereby reducing the need for as fast of a reaction time? Any other possible solutions? I think in general coddling people is more harmful than good, and is lazy to not find nuanced solutions - just because blanket rules are "easier."
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  > Sorry but everything after "the driver who's responsible for their decisions was drunk" is moot. It's not for the larger discussion about safety of these sorts of systems. Any such system _has_ to consider the dumb human that's in the loop, because to not do so is almost inevitable to lead to problems. If your driving assist system makes people more likely, and more able, to drive drunk, then it's not just a problem with those people. Sure, they shouldn't be doing that, but ignoring that some people will is irresponsible. Any system that involves humans that doesn't consider the human element is doomed to fail eventually. We humans are far too good at making that a certainty.
  - loceng 3y ago
    So the solution is dumbing down the curriculum to appease to the dumbest - which has externalized costs, of course. But all this thread is great evidence towards requiring people of a certain ineptitude to be required to only use self-driving vehicles in the future, once they're proven ~100% safe, right? But really what you're arguing is people needing to be raised to be responsible, as the root cause-problem.
- fwip 3y ago
  Knives don't come with self-guided-propulsion-and-steering while requiring you to be ready to stop them within seconds.
  - loceng 3y ago
    Fair point. So would you argue for attention-reaction time testing to make sure a person is fast enough? We'd certainly be able to gather data for the situations that end badly to very horrifically - with harm or injury - and determine first at least if there is a threshold that everyone should need to meet; currently are there any thresholds, like I believe handicap drivers with only one hand/arm - who at first thought, and maybe I'm wrong, won't be able to react as quickly or strongly in any situation - though they may in general be far more cautious because of their state.
    - fwip 3y ago
      I don't think we specifically need a reaction-speed test for Level 2 driving systems, but maybe we could for driving in general. The pernicious combination that makes L2 unsafe is that it encourages the driver to let their focus wander, and then unexpectedly demands that you have full attention. When 95% of your highway time requires almost no focus, your brain will naturally wander off and pay much less attention to the situation on the road. So when the 1-in-1000 dangerous situation occurs, you're less prepared to react to it than an unassisted driver would be. Edit to be more clear: A reaction-speed test measures your best-case reaction time, because you know it's coming. Normal driving situations test your "normal" reaction time. Situations under L2 test your worse-than-normal reaction time.
- freejazz 3y ago
  That's not how proximate cause works in a negligence case.
  - loceng 3y ago
    Can you explain?
    - freejazz 3y ago
      Sure. If it's a fact that being sober wouldn't have prevented the accident from happening, then being drunk could not have been a proximate cause.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
It's not just Self Driving but Full Self Driving! Because today, self driving means not actually self driving at all.
- dylan604 3y ago
  I self drive every time I get behind the wheel. Who else is going to do it? Maybe they should call it "Someone else Driving" but that would just be Uber/Lyft.
redserk 3y ago
This is more than Tesla and it's claims of "full self driving" though. People publish videos about doing reckless stuff with lane centering and adaptive cruise control tech in other vehicles as well. This is a large issue that will take more than action against any individual manufacturer to solve.
ajross 3y ago
Your contention is that having FSD the car makes accidents more likely because people will rely on it when they shouldn't be driving at all. So... does it? The statistics don't seem to bear that out. This is the first significant accident of that type we've seen, where there have been multiple "driver passed out and the car stopped on the road" incidents. Seems like the truth is the opposite, no? Tesla didn't invent DUIs, but it seems like autopilot is a net win anyway.
- fwip 3y ago
  Well, there's many, many more cars without "FSD" than with it (especially if you include historical data), so the rate fold change would have to be astronomical for FSD cases to outnumber old-fashioned cases.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  We don't have apples-to-apples data in the public.
  - ajross 3y ago
    That's not a license to believe whatever anecdotes you want, though. I'm just saying that if anecdotes are sufficient, autopilot wins the argument. If they're not, we need data and shouldn't be freaking out over the one drunk driving incident in the linked article.
    - ra7 3y ago
      We're not responsible for that data, Tesla is. You should be calling for them to be transparent and not just settle for misleading "safety reports" because it has a narrative you want to believe.
- Veserv 3y ago
  There are no third party statistics since Tesla lawyers actively force NHTSA to redact information from any reports they do make. Even ignoring the fact that Tesla habitually lies and acts in bad faith to consumers and investors alike, the “statistics” their marketing department publishes are worthless. They present no analysis, methodology, or even data to support it. It is literally just a conclusion. The level of scientific rigor they demonstrate is unfit to even grace the hallowed halls of a grade school science fair. Even ignoring that, this is not the first significant incident. By Tesla’s own admission there were already ~30 known incidents a year ago at the beginning of 2023. Unfortunately, I can not tell you which ones specifically because they, you guessed it, demanded NHTSA redact which system was active from their public disclosures. Even ignoring that, their reports are suspect in the first place. Of the over 1,000 crashes they admit to being involved in they did not report the injury severity in ~95% of cases. Of the ~5% of cases where they do report the injury severity a third party (news, official complaint, etc.) published that information which compels Tesla to report the same information under penalty of law. Of the tens of confirmed fatalities, Tesla only discovered a single one on their own (as of 2023-09). Their telemetry systems, which are responsible for detecting 90+% of their reported incidents detected fewer than 40% of their reported fatal crashes. A full 30% of known fatalities were undetected by both telemetry and media and are only recorded due to customer complaints by surviving parties who knew the system was engaged. The amount of missing data is almost certainly staggering. So no, the data does not bear it out since there is no credible positive safety data. And, as we all know, in a safety critical system we must assume the worst or people die. No data, no go.
LeFantome 3y ago
I totally agree with what you say. Certainly “Full Self Driving” should be illegal marketing for level 2 autonomy. That said, cars are dumb toys to give people. Certainly access to cars is dangerous for people that are going to use them while drunk. “Sense of security” or not, why were these guys in control of a vehicle? While autonomous vehicles are not ready, this event just cements the need for them in my mind. I expect that they have already saved more lives than they have cost. Some continue to insist that replacing human drivers is a high bar. In edge cases and for the best drivers, it is. Collectively though, evidence suggests that the bar is very low and that we have already surpassed it. At this point, it is more of a “fairness” or “control” issue who gets hurt by autonomy than it is aggregate safety by the numbers. In this case, thankfully, it sounds like it was fair.
- ajross 3y ago
  > I totally agree with what you say. Certainly “Full Self Driving” should be illegal marketing for level 2 autonomy. The driver was literally a Tesla Inc. employee. Do you really think that they were fooled by marketing into believing the system was more capable than it was? No, they were just drunk and made a terrible decision. I mean, I'm tempted to just agree. Let's call it something else. Will that stop these ridiculous arguments? I really doubt it.
  - ra7 3y ago
    Did you read the article? > Von Ohain used Full Self-Driving nearly every time he got behind the wheel, Bass said, placing him among legions of Tesla boosters heeding Musk’s call to generate data and build the technology’s mastery. While Bass refused to use the feature herself — she said its unpredictability stressed her out — her husband was so confident in all it promised that he even used it with their baby in the car. > “It was jerky, but we were like, that comes with the territory of” new technology, Bass said. “We knew the technology had to learn, and we were willing to be part of that.” Seems like he was indeed fooled by marketing.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Totally agree. As a driver with a car with advanced "driver assistance features", I honestly don't understand how people get value out of most of these. That is, I'd rather just use a system where I know I have to be in control at all times, vs one where "You only have to be in control 1% of the time, oh and if you miss that 1%, you're dead." For example, I recently tried using the adaptive cruise control/lane centering features on a long road trip, and it was maddening, not to mention pretty terrifying. The exits from this highway weren't well marked, so at most of the exits the car tried to stay it the middle of the rightmost driving lane and the exist lane (i.e. directly into the oncoming divider). I get that other systems may be more advanced, but I don't see the benefit of an automation level that every now and then takes on the driving characteristics of a drunk toddler.
- throwway120385 3y ago
  I would settle for being able to see out my back window. It's one of the reasons I still have my crappy little truck from 2006. The windows are all low enough that I don't need a backup camera to back up. I can just turn my head around and see everything through the rear windshield.
- toast0 3y ago
  > Totally agree. As a driver with a car with advanced "driver assistance features", I honestly don't understand how people get value out of most of these. I've got radar cruise control, lane keeping, and auto braking on one of my cars. I just drive it like it's a normal car, and the computer helps me out from time to time. That's where the value is for me. I don't do a lot of driving with cruise control, so radar assisted isn't very helpful, but lane keeping nudges me when I drive on the line, and auto brake helps out in some situations (and prevents me from backing over flowers, and some other over reactions). For my car, lane keeping doesn't nudge too hard, so it's not hard to push through, but it helps a bit if I lose attention. I'm considering replacing this vehicle, and I'd get these systems again. If I replace my other vehicles, which don't get to go on long drives, it wouldn't be as big of a priority.
- itsoktocry 3y ago
  >I honestly don't understand how people get value out of most of these. That is, I'd rather just use a system where I know I have to be in control at all times, vs one where "You only have to be in control 1% of the time, oh and if you miss that 1%, you're dead." A lot of accidents happen from a split second of lack of attention. Lane keep prevents you from inadvertently drifting over the centre line into traffic. Radar cruise control prevents you from rear ending the vehicle in front of you. Both of these simple features are awesome.
samatman 3y ago
This is a question with intersecting margins, and those are fiendishly hard to answer. Here's what I mean. There are people who will drive drunk. At the margin, there are people who will not drive drunk, but who will drive drunk using FSD. But how many? How much more drunk are they willing to be? On the other side, driving drunk with FSD is safer than doing it without. Criminally irresponsible, yes, but I think reasonable people will agree that it's somewhat safer, FSD has a better track record than drunk drivers. But how much safer? Depending on how the margins intersect, FSD is either more dangerous or less so. I suspect the answer is less so, that is, there aren't that many people who would only drive drunk with FSD, and FSD is good enough at what it does to lead to fewer accidents. But I can't prove it, and reasonable people might come to a different conclusion. Practically speaking, it's impossible to get data which would settle this question.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 3y ago
  > FSD has a better track record than drunk drivers. We don't know that.
  - samatman 3y ago
    We do, in fact, know that.
    - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 3y ago
      How do we know that?
    - bbradley406 3y ago
      You only get "recorded" as a drunk driver if you crash or cause a situation, drive erratically, cops are called, breathalyzers etc. Obviously I'm not condoning drunk driving, but you are looking at an extremely skewed set of circumstances, much like driving during daylight on California streets with no weather for FSD.

by ra7 3y ago

loceng 3y ago

Sorry but everything after "the driver who's responsible for their decisions was drunk" is moot. But otherwise, yes, your statement otherwise about giving "toys" to "dumb" people stands no matter the technology. And knives can be used to cut steak or stab people.

ra7 3y ago
You could be perfectly sober and still not be able to intervene in time to prevent a crash. Systems like this encourage inattention, but still expect drivers to turn on attention in a fraction of a second. That's the entire point. So no, it's not moot.
- LeFantome 3y ago
  It depends on the discussion you are having. I agree that it is not “moot” in either case. Your point is that these systems need to be save even in the face of incapable drivers and that, despite the misleading marketing, they are not that ( yet ). The other point though is that people already have access to cars and, according to the evidence, cars with these features are LESS dangerous. Encouraging over-reliance is a problem but not as big a problem as having to rely on the human 100% of the time. This statement is just a fact given the statistics. Given the above, while it is too extreme to say that operation by an impaired driver is “moot”, it is fair to suggest that the most significant source of risk is the impaired driver themselves and their decision to operate a vehicle of any kind. The biggest offer to this risk are the additional safety features of the vehicle. The degree of over-confidence caused by the vehicle type is a distraction.
  - metabagel 3y ago
    > The other point though is that people already have access to cars and, according to the evidence, cars with these features are LESS dangerous. I don’t think we can say anything of the sort for Tesla FSD (beta).
  - ra7 3y ago
    There are no statistics that categorically prove cars with these features are less dangerous. Tesla's own "safety report" is extremely misleading and has no controls for geography, weather, time of day, average age of cars, demographics, etc. If you're developing an autonomous system, you have a moral and ethical obligation not to roll it out when it's half baked and unsafe. You can't give an unfinished safety critical system to the general public and then blaming them for misusing it.
    - loceng 3y ago
      Don't all Tesla vehicles have the highest safety ratings ever? I guess maybe though something being less dangerous isn't the same as something being relatively more safe?
      - ra7 3y ago
        Those safety ratings don't assess FSD performance.
        loceng 3y ago
        You're missing or avoiding my point? Comparing similar accidents regardless of FSD or not - a Tesla's occupants are arguably kept safer, would fair better than being in any other vehicle, right?
        ra7 3y ago
        You’re making an entirely irrelevant point. They’d fare better if they were in a bus too. We’re talking about cause of the accident here, not what happens after one.
- loceng 3y ago
  How about alcohol odour detection required in all vehicles? How about attention-distraction monitoring, and perhaps first penalty or safeguard is forced reduced speed, where attention-distraction level determined determines the maximum speed the vehicle can go - whereby reducing the need for as fast of a reaction time? Any other possible solutions? I think in general coddling people is more harmful than good, and is lazy to not find nuanced solutions - just because blanket rules are "easier."
genocidicbunny 3y ago
> Sorry but everything after "the driver who's responsible for their decisions was drunk" is moot. It's not for the larger discussion about safety of these sorts of systems. Any such system _has_ to consider the dumb human that's in the loop, because to not do so is almost inevitable to lead to problems. If your driving assist system makes people more likely, and more able, to drive drunk, then it's not just a problem with those people. Sure, they shouldn't be doing that, but ignoring that some people will is irresponsible. Any system that involves humans that doesn't consider the human element is doomed to fail eventually. We humans are far too good at making that a certainty.
- loceng 3y ago
  So the solution is dumbing down the curriculum to appease to the dumbest - which has externalized costs, of course. But all this thread is great evidence towards requiring people of a certain ineptitude to be required to only use self-driving vehicles in the future, once they're proven ~100% safe, right? But really what you're arguing is people needing to be raised to be responsible, as the root cause-problem.
fwip 3y ago
Knives don't come with self-guided-propulsion-and-steering while requiring you to be ready to stop them within seconds.
- loceng 3y ago
  Fair point. So would you argue for attention-reaction time testing to make sure a person is fast enough? We'd certainly be able to gather data for the situations that end badly to very horrifically - with harm or injury - and determine first at least if there is a threshold that everyone should need to meet; currently are there any thresholds, like I believe handicap drivers with only one hand/arm - who at first thought, and maybe I'm wrong, won't be able to react as quickly or strongly in any situation - though they may in general be far more cautious because of their state.
  - fwip 3y ago
    I don't think we specifically need a reaction-speed test for Level 2 driving systems, but maybe we could for driving in general. The pernicious combination that makes L2 unsafe is that it encourages the driver to let their focus wander, and then unexpectedly demands that you have full attention. When 95% of your highway time requires almost no focus, your brain will naturally wander off and pay much less attention to the situation on the road. So when the 1-in-1000 dangerous situation occurs, you're less prepared to react to it than an unassisted driver would be. Edit to be more clear: A reaction-speed test measures your best-case reaction time, because you know it's coming. Normal driving situations test your "normal" reaction time. Situations under L2 test your worse-than-normal reaction time.
freejazz 3y ago
That's not how proximate cause works in a negligence case.
- loceng 3y ago
  Can you explain?
  - freejazz 3y ago
    Sure. If it's a fact that being sober wouldn't have prevented the accident from happening, then being drunk could not have been a proximate cause.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

It's not just Self Driving but Full Self Driving! Because today, self driving means not actually self driving at all.

dylan604 3y ago
I self drive every time I get behind the wheel. Who else is going to do it? Maybe they should call it "Someone else Driving" but that would just be Uber/Lyft.

redserk 3y ago

This is more than Tesla and it's claims of "full self driving" though. People publish videos about doing reckless stuff with lane centering and adaptive cruise control tech in other vehicles as well. This is a large issue that will take more than action against any individual manufacturer to solve.

ajross 3y ago

Your contention is that having FSD the car makes accidents more likely because people will rely on it when they shouldn't be driving at all. So... does it? The statistics don't seem to bear that out. This is the first significant accident of that type we've seen, where there have been multiple "driver passed out and the car stopped on the road" incidents. Seems like the truth is the opposite, no? Tesla didn't invent DUIs, but it seems like autopilot is a net win anyway.

fwip 3y ago
Well, there's many, many more cars without "FSD" than with it (especially if you include historical data), so the rate fold change would have to be astronomical for FSD cases to outnumber old-fashioned cases.
paulryanrogers 3y ago
We don't have apples-to-apples data in the public.
- ajross 3y ago
  That's not a license to believe whatever anecdotes you want, though. I'm just saying that if anecdotes are sufficient, autopilot wins the argument. If they're not, we need data and shouldn't be freaking out over the one drunk driving incident in the linked article.
  - ra7 3y ago
    We're not responsible for that data, Tesla is. You should be calling for them to be transparent and not just settle for misleading "safety reports" because it has a narrative you want to believe.
Veserv 3y ago
There are no third party statistics since Tesla lawyers actively force NHTSA to redact information from any reports they do make. Even ignoring the fact that Tesla habitually lies and acts in bad faith to consumers and investors alike, the “statistics” their marketing department publishes are worthless. They present no analysis, methodology, or even data to support it. It is literally just a conclusion. The level of scientific rigor they demonstrate is unfit to even grace the hallowed halls of a grade school science fair. Even ignoring that, this is not the first significant incident. By Tesla’s own admission there were already ~30 known incidents a year ago at the beginning of 2023. Unfortunately, I can not tell you which ones specifically because they, you guessed it, demanded NHTSA redact which system was active from their public disclosures. Even ignoring that, their reports are suspect in the first place. Of the over 1,000 crashes they admit to being involved in they did not report the injury severity in ~95% of cases. Of the ~5% of cases where they do report the injury severity a third party (news, official complaint, etc.) published that information which compels Tesla to report the same information under penalty of law. Of the tens of confirmed fatalities, Tesla only discovered a single one on their own (as of 2023-09). Their telemetry systems, which are responsible for detecting 90+% of their reported incidents detected fewer than 40% of their reported fatal crashes. A full 30% of known fatalities were undetected by both telemetry and media and are only recorded due to customer complaints by surviving parties who knew the system was engaged. The amount of missing data is almost certainly staggering. So no, the data does not bear it out since there is no credible positive safety data. And, as we all know, in a safety critical system we must assume the worst or people die. No data, no go.

LeFantome 3y ago

I totally agree with what you say. Certainly “Full Self Driving” should be illegal marketing for level 2 autonomy. That said, cars are dumb toys to give people. Certainly access to cars is dangerous for people that are going to use them while drunk. “Sense of security” or not, why were these guys in control of a vehicle? While autonomous vehicles are not ready, this event just cements the need for them in my mind. I expect that they have already saved more lives than they have cost. Some continue to insist that replacing human drivers is a high bar. In edge cases and for the best drivers, it is. Collectively though, evidence suggests that the bar is very low and that we have already surpassed it. At this point, it is more of a “fairness” or “control” issue who gets hurt by autonomy than it is aggregate safety by the numbers. In this case, thankfully, it sounds like it was fair.

ajross 3y ago
> I totally agree with what you say. Certainly “Full Self Driving” should be illegal marketing for level 2 autonomy. The driver was literally a Tesla Inc. employee. Do you really think that they were fooled by marketing into believing the system was more capable than it was? No, they were just drunk and made a terrible decision. I mean, I'm tempted to just agree. Let's call it something else. Will that stop these ridiculous arguments? I really doubt it.
- ra7 3y ago
  Did you read the article? > Von Ohain used Full Self-Driving nearly every time he got behind the wheel, Bass said, placing him among legions of Tesla boosters heeding Musk’s call to generate data and build the technology’s mastery. While Bass refused to use the feature herself — she said its unpredictability stressed her out — her husband was so confident in all it promised that he even used it with their baby in the car. > “It was jerky, but we were like, that comes with the territory of” new technology, Bass said. “We knew the technology had to learn, and we were willing to be part of that.” Seems like he was indeed fooled by marketing.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Totally agree. As a driver with a car with advanced "driver assistance features", I honestly don't understand how people get value out of most of these. That is, I'd rather just use a system where I know I have to be in control at all times, vs one where "You only have to be in control 1% of the time, oh and if you miss that 1%, you're dead." For example, I recently tried using the adaptive cruise control/lane centering features on a long road trip, and it was maddening, not to mention pretty terrifying. The exits from this highway weren't well marked, so at most of the exits the car tried to stay it the middle of the rightmost driving lane and the exist lane (i.e. directly into the oncoming divider). I get that other systems may be more advanced, but I don't see the benefit of an automation level that every now and then takes on the driving characteristics of a drunk toddler.

throwway120385 3y ago
I would settle for being able to see out my back window. It's one of the reasons I still have my crappy little truck from 2006. The windows are all low enough that I don't need a backup camera to back up. I can just turn my head around and see everything through the rear windshield.
toast0 3y ago
> Totally agree. As a driver with a car with advanced "driver assistance features", I honestly don't understand how people get value out of most of these. I've got radar cruise control, lane keeping, and auto braking on one of my cars. I just drive it like it's a normal car, and the computer helps me out from time to time. That's where the value is for me. I don't do a lot of driving with cruise control, so radar assisted isn't very helpful, but lane keeping nudges me when I drive on the line, and auto brake helps out in some situations (and prevents me from backing over flowers, and some other over reactions). For my car, lane keeping doesn't nudge too hard, so it's not hard to push through, but it helps a bit if I lose attention. I'm considering replacing this vehicle, and I'd get these systems again. If I replace my other vehicles, which don't get to go on long drives, it wouldn't be as big of a priority.
itsoktocry 3y ago
>I honestly don't understand how people get value out of most of these. That is, I'd rather just use a system where I know I have to be in control at all times, vs one where "You only have to be in control 1% of the time, oh and if you miss that 1%, you're dead." A lot of accidents happen from a split second of lack of attention. Lane keep prevents you from inadvertently drifting over the centre line into traffic. Radar cruise control prevents you from rear ending the vehicle in front of you. Both of these simple features are awesome.

samatman 3y ago

This is a question with intersecting margins, and those are fiendishly hard to answer. Here's what I mean. There are people who will drive drunk. At the margin, there are people who will not drive drunk, but who will drive drunk using FSD. But how many? How much more drunk are they willing to be? On the other side, driving drunk with FSD is safer than doing it without. Criminally irresponsible, yes, but I think reasonable people will agree that it's somewhat safer, FSD has a better track record than drunk drivers. But how much safer? Depending on how the margins intersect, FSD is either more dangerous or less so. I suspect the answer is less so, that is, there aren't that many people who would only drive drunk with FSD, and FSD is good enough at what it does to lead to fewer accidents. But I can't prove it, and reasonable people might come to a different conclusion. Practically speaking, it's impossible to get data which would settle this question.

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 3y ago
> FSD has a better track record than drunk drivers. We don't know that.
- samatman 3y ago
  We do, in fact, know that.
  - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 3y ago
    How do we know that?
  - bbradley406 3y ago
    You only get "recorded" as a drunk driver if you crash or cause a situation, drive erratically, cops are called, breathalyzers etc. Obviously I'm not condoning drunk driving, but you are looking at an extremely skewed set of circumstances, much like driving during daylight on California streets with no weather for FSD.