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> According to the NTSB, a witness had come across the stopped CR-V prior to the collision and noted that neither its taillights or hazard lights were illuminat
by metaphor 3y ago
> According to the NTSB, a witness had come across the stopped CR-V prior to the collision and noted that neither its taillights or hazard lights were illuminated, She was able to change lanes and avoid hitting the Honda, but after she passed it, she saw the Mach-E strike the stopped crossover in her rearview mirror.
This scenario sounds like what I refer to as a "peek-a-boo rear ending". You see it exaggerated in movies with high speed chase scenes, but its real world equivalent is a very common road going scenario and almost certainly leads to a collision if at 45+ mph and the rear car driver isn't maintaining situational awareness of traffic flow several cars ahead...a scenario that aggressive tailgaters simply don't take into account in their public behavioral risk calculus, and clearly BlueCruise isn't capable of handling either.
- dtjb 3y agoI would've thought a stopped vehicle without any visible lights would be much easier to detect with a lidar/sensor based system vs human reaction. Do these platforms like BlueDrive and FSD not constantly survey the distance of objects in front of and around you? Or do they still rely on visuals like tail lights?
- mkl 3y agoThe problem is the stopped car was hidden by the moving car that avoided it successfully. Only when that car swerved to avoid the stopped one did the BlueCruise car have line-of-sight to the stopped one. There was no visual at all, and no lidar, but possibly some indirect radar.
- MBCook 3y agoAnd radar generally ignores all stopped objects because there are too many false returns. It’s really only useful for objects traveling at some speed. If the CRV had been going even 5 miles an hour it maybe it would’ve been detected. Every radar system has this issue. It’s basically the same thing that caused that Tesla to run into the side of a semi so many years ago. The semi was stationary (relative to the road direction) so if the radar saw it probably ignored it. I’ve never heard of a system that uses the cameras. Except Tesla since they removed the radar I guess. No one else seems to.
- CommanderHux 3y agoSubaru's eyesight uses cameras
- MBCook 3y agoSorry. I meant cameras only. As far as I’m aware every system on the market uses cameras for lanes and radar for obstacles ahead except Tesla since they removed their radar. I’m guessing (but didn’t check!) Subaru also has the radar too.
- KennyBlanken 3y agoSubarus only use cameras.
- MBCook 3y agoInteresting. Thanks. Personally I’d rather have the radar + camera. I see it as more reliable. Doesn’t help in this situation though.
- grepfru_it 3y agoNeed to understand the modular nature of cars. The radar is one system and camera is another. Camera is only used for lane detection the only output from the camera is if road lines are detected and how close to either line. Based on this the car can “ping pong” since it detects it getting too close to one line, or if it has two cameras it can determine what the center of the lane is by keeping the distance from each line equal. Radar typically applies to the ACC system while camera applies to LKAS or lane centering. Rarely are the two connected. FSD and comma.ai are probably the only systems which combine the two.
- MBCook 3y agoRight that’s how I’m used to them all working.
- ra7 3y agoA system with lidar would have definitely detected the obstacle and braked. For a lidar, which is an active sensor, it doesn't matter if it's daytime or complete darkness since it makes its own light. FSD is inferring distance of objects as it has no direct measurements. It's a real challenge in darkness since camera is a passive sensor and it has to rely on visual cues. I believe BlueCruise is using a radar, but I'm not sure how robust it is.
- grepfru_it 3y agoI believe BlueCruise uses radar, gps, and mobile eye which is dual camera inputs. At least my 2019 ford uses radar+camera combination for lane centering, ymmv. Edit: looked at a Mach e and it uses dual cameras behind the rear view mirror so likely intel’s mobile eye platform
- drivingmenuts 3y agoI have had a couple of scares driving at night, even doing my best imitation of a tree full of owls. Dark cars w/o taillights (and that happens way more often than I'd like) on a street with poor lighting (ditto) is the perfect recipe for a disaster. I don't know why people drive without lights, but they do, and it's a damn nightmare when you come across one. Sometimes, you do everything right and the Universe tries to destroy you anyway.
- johnwalkr 3y agoWhy doesn’t every country mandate daytime running lights like Canada has for decades? Modern cars also always detect low light and crank up the dashboard brightness. There’s no longer a good clue to the driver that they forgot to turn the headlights on.
- drivingmenuts 3y ago> Why doesn’t every country mandate daytime running lights like Canada has for decades? Not everyone drives an up-to-date vehicle and TBH, some vehicle owners do not care that they are a hazard, regardless of what the law requires. Here in Austin, when the police get in a snit, they just stop enforcing the law and even when they're not in a snit about something, there are parts of town where traffic laws are traffic suggestions. All of this makes for a somewhat hazardous driving environment at times.
- amethyst 3y agoMy 2017 Golf R would intentionally turn off the dashboard backlights at night if the lights weren't on, providing me excellent feedback that they weren't on. Either head lights should always be on auto by default, or more cars need proper feedback to the driver when they aren't.
- MBCook 3y agoDidn’t the US do that a long time ago? What we don’t have is mandated automatic headlights. I remember there was a discussion recently about requiring automatic headlights or maybe not automatically increasing the brightness of the dash when it’s dark out. But I don’t remember what happened with it.
- sugarpile 3y ago[flagged]
- Rodeoclash 3y agoWhat scenario in your mind constitutes deserved tail gating?
- malfist 3y agoWhen is "aggressive tailgate" deserved?
- tejohnso 3y agoMy guess would be not adhering to the "keep right except to pass" signs on the highway. I don't tail gate, but I do find it rather annoying when people block traffic by driving right beside another vehicle rather than passing them and clearing the lane. So that we can all not adhere to the "maximum" speed signs on the highway to the degree that we prefer :) I was a passenger while a friend was driving once and he said "I'm already going fast enough. Nobody should be going faster than me anyway." So there's one mentality.
- pikewood 3y agoI'd imagine it would be similar to this scene from the movie Disturbia: https://youtu.be/b9qMqGTi1uc?si=s-QoxZ4hRv9Oyjhn&t=28 https://youtu.be/b9qMqGTi1uc?si=s-QoxZ4hRv9Oyjhn&t=28
- metaphor 3y agoExaggerated for effect as you'd expect from Hollywood, but yes. Blind curves, peaking hill ascents, and backed up interstate exits immediately come to mind where peek-a-boo rear ends become a serious risk.
- InTheArena 3y agoTesla FSD (but not autopilot) deliberately tracks the car in front of it, as well as the lane and tries to follow that car (and takes it as a safety signal and slows when the car above swerves out of the lane). It's interesting behavior, and usually annoying, but this is why it's there.
- grepfru_it 3y agoMost radar cruise control is set low on the bumper which allows visibility into the vehicle in front. My 12 year old car with adaptive cruise control will sometimes begin slowing when the car two cars ahead starts slowing. Sometimes because it requires a truck or suv or otherwise a vehicle with a higher ride height for radar to pass under. When it’s a Miata in front of me, I will only track that Miata because it’s so low. At the same time.. I can see over these lower cars. The ford flex however is a car that stands out as a low sitting vehicle that is rather tall for its ride height. That said none of this matters if the object or vehicle in front of the following car is stopped. The radar system will ignore it as part of the background.
- dawnerd 3y agoSad part is Tesla had this and it was great and people bragged about it.
- 0xfaded 3y agoI had this happen with Teslas FSD about a year ago. A car missed a turn at a light because they didn't get into the turn lane early enough ... so they decided to make the turn from the "going straight" instead. But the light changed before they made the turn and they became stuck in the middle of the intersection once they lost the protected left ... So now they're sitting in the "going straight" lane where you wouldn't expect a stopped car. The car in front of me changes lanes without really slowing down, and the FSD prediction model didn't pick up that the stopped car was stopped. I can't really blame it, it took me half a second to figure it out as well and by that time I was hard on the brakes.
- grepfru_it 3y agoIsn’t this a sign that you are following too closely? A driver should typically be able stop a car length per 10mph. So if you are traveling at 40mph you would need about 4 car lengths to react and stop. Ergo if you are following closer than that you may not stop in time. Just because you are using cruise control doesn’t absolve you of this requirement. My car allows me to set a cruise control gap in seconds which translates to reaction time. 2 seconds is the lowest gap mode and usually leaves me with half the distance necessary for a safe stop (although the car has aggressive brakes and can quickly slowdown at the expense of passenger comfort). Due to this I leave the gap mode at 6 seconds which is larger than I would like but would (and has) allow me to slow down in time for a stopped object in the road. I apologize for any flame wars this creates, since people find driving to be deeply personal and any findings which may criticize their driving habits is generally frowned upon.
- mlinhares 3y agoFollowing too closely is just how people drive, unfortunately. The main reason I almost always have adaptive cruise control on is so that it keeps me at a safe braking distance from cars in front of me but I've found that most people do not care. Just yesterday there was a corolla that was following a school bus so closely i'm sure it could sniff the bus' ass. That driver was one hard brake away from being decapitated by the school bus bumper.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThis is a very very very common way of dying, and is why German highway kits require reflective vests and warning triangles (just in case your emergency lights are broken or even as extra redundancy). It might be a good idea to carry road flares along as well. This reminds me I should update my kit even though I'm in the US.
- devmor 3y agoThis situation nearly happened to me just a couple hours ago - thankfully I was maintaining a proper distance from the semi truck in front of me as it swerved left out of the lane - otherwise I would have had no chance to notice the car going <15mph with no lights on, in the middle of the night, on a 70MPH interstate.
- tyfon 3y agoI got in a situation like this in my model x a couple years ago. I was going 125 km/h using autopilot on the highway towards Sweden in quite dense traffic and a car two cars ahead of me crashed. When I hit the brake, it was already max engaged by the car, probably .5 seconds ahead of me. I managed to stop, but the car behind me had to steer into the side to avoid hitting me in the rear. I figured it that day that a proper emergency brake system in the car is worth the money! Edit: I always drive with the max distance to the next car when on autopilot.
- jnsaff2 3y ago> I always drive with the max distance to the next car when on autopilot. This. Also the Tesla Model 3 max-distance setting is really not big enough for my taste, especially for winter driving. I have a feeling that it does not even satisfy the legal requirement of 1,5 seconds we have here.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoThat's odd. I've roughly checked my Model S and the maximum separation seems to correspond to the recommended 3 seconds.
- tyfon 3y agoI agree, I have both a 3 and X and the max distance on the 3 is a bit shorter for some reason. I'd like an even longer setting on both cars.
- Cacti 3y agotailgaters are relevant because … ?
- metaphor 3y ago...it's an example of a common human driving behavior whose setup conditions lead to a high probability of collision if a peek-a-boo scenario were to manifest, namely by: - obstructing the rear driver's ability to assess forward traffic conditions, especially if the leading vehicle is larger and/or has dark tinted glass; and - posturing for insufficient clearance/time to safely react to an abrupt change in forward obstacle speed upon surprise discovery. The tailgater pejorative is what drivers are most likely familiar with; implied risks are much easier to internalize when framing the scenario from this oft encountered context. It's just one possible path towards the conditions and outcomes being discussed, which is what really matters. Sure, this might naively beg the question: Was the BlueCruise vehicle tailgating as a typical driver might characterize? If yes, then the outcome should be unsurprising, and it makes me wonder how such an operating mode is even permitted. If no, then it begs the even harder question of whether the automation tech is operationally mature enough to safely handle such a common known unknown.
- jimnotgym 3y agoI have had exactly this on a 70mph 2 lane road in Britain known as a dual-carriageway. I will phrase this carefully because we drive on the left, so the overtaking lane is on the right. I was following a 'Luton van' (Which is like a small truck body on a normal 3.5tonne class long wheel base van chassis, you might call it a small box truck in the US). Incidentally Luton Vans are not allowed to go 70mph on a dual carriageway, they are limited to 60. I couldn't see past at all due to his wide body, so I was following at a safe distance and matching his speed at 70mph. Suddenly he swerved into the overtaking lane and I was met by a queue of stationary traffic! I knew this road well and stationary traffic would not normally be backed up this far. I braked very hard and felt the ABS rattle. I had just enough time to realise that there was a narrow gravel shoulder on this section I could turn into if needed, but the car grabbed just in time to not need that option. It was one of the scariest things to happen to me on a road. If I had been tailgating the truck I would not have had nearly enough time to stop and it would have caused a really nasty accident as I would have hit a stationary car into a line of stationary cars. I don't see how lidar, radar or cameras could have helped much, except to have reduced the reaction time slightly perhaps? It probably would not have been able to judge that the shoulder was a good alternative option.
- pbazarnik 3y agoEmergency Brake Assist would help if the van was equipped with it. Swerving at the last moment and without warning would not be possible because EBA would activate brakes earlier and you would be able to see van's stop lights.