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A Tesla ran a stop sign and killed a man, Full Self-Driving/Autopilot was on

169 points by FabHK 19d ago

thewanderer1983 19d ago
Do you know how humans run stop lights and kill people, how does it compare?
- grim_io 19d ago
  We hold the driver accountable.
- b40d-48b2-979e 19d ago
  You're right, we should ban cars.
  - maerF0x0 19d ago
    Their point, presumably, was that we shouldnt be anti-tech but we have to compare the statistics.
    - b40d-48b2-979e 19d ago
      Their point is whataboutism to somehow defend autonomous deaths as acceptable.
      - maerF0x0 19d ago
        I think, pragmatically, we have to accept that death is the outcome for us all, and trending towards fewer avoidable deaths and longer fuller lives is approximately the aim. Nonetheless deaths from a technology is inevitable. I believe what you're trying to talk about are excess deaths when a technology is less capable than the incumbent? I'm not sure the stats, but I'd suspect FSD is already superior to the often distracted, sometimes drunk, phone in hand driver that is the norm today. If chatgpt is to be trusted, Waymo and Tesla FSD are already massively safer than human drivers.
        b40d-48b2-979e 19d ago
        [flagged]
        maerF0x0 17d ago
        For the haters: https://spectrum.ieee.org/are-self-driving-cars-safe https://spectrum.ieee.org/are-self-driving-cars-safe
      - wat10000 19d ago
        It’s not whataboutism when you’re comparing the exact same actions and the two things can be substituted for each other. Whataboutism is “how dare you complain about our gulags when you treat your black people like slaves.” It is not “our system kills people but it kills fewer people than what we currently have.” Especially when killing people is a result of being on the bleeding edge of what’s possible rather than being a deliberate choice to hurt people.
      - mianos 19d ago
        It's not 'whataboutism'. It's an identical situation, and the statistics relate to the same events.
- manquer 19d ago
  Humans can go to prison [1], and depending on the state there are specific vehicular homicide laws or they are could be charged under normal homicide laws, specific statutes exist because vehicular laws can have higher punishment than typical negligence/reckless standards. In California the charge can be anything from vehicular manslaughter to second degree murder, that means 15 years-to-life without parole, depending on other factors such prior(murder) convictions or if the victim is a peace officer and so forth. In comparison self-driving systems do not have any punishment mechanism in the penal code. There is not even a well established liability standard, or ban/suspension threshold or any regulatory body equipped to audit a self driving system specifically [2] [1] if found guilty - we may disagree on the mechanisms, effectiveness ,conviction rate and other details, nonetheless there is enforcement and there are going people in prison for this type of crime everyday. [2] yes NTSB can do investigations but only for accidents (and give recommendations) and also has just 400 employees and $150M budget to cover everything from aviation to marine or pipeline and rail accidents.
  - wat10000 19d ago
    Oh good. I may be put at unnecessary risk because people have higher standards for automation, but at least the guy who killed me will go to jail, maybe.
    - manquer 18d ago
      If safety is the objective we should be prioritizing public transit(automated even better) and not discussing agent/human driving a personal vehicle, here we value freedom[1] over safety, my comment is only a reflection of that ethos. [1]Whether we like it or not individual freedom reflects in everything from gun safety(unique in the developed world) to the state of public transport in the richest country in the world.
      - wat10000 18d ago
        We could do both. We can make cars safer and push on public transit.
  - 19d ago
- fbrncci 19d ago
  At least we can hold them directly accountable by the law.
- Footnote7341 18d ago
  In many jurisdictions you can run people over and kill them and as long it was a normal lapse in judgement or mistake they cannot charge you. Only if you intentionally drive recklessly, for example speeding and racing, is it easy to charge a driver for manslaughter.
mrbuttons454 19d ago
[flagged]
- ishouldbeatwork 19d ago
  Plenty of facts in the article, an ad hominem attack on it because AI may have been used to write some of the text doesn't dismiss the findings.
- bradleyjg 19d ago
  > there’s a second possibility worth putting on the table, and we’ll be clear that it’s a theory 100% Claude
t0mas88 19d ago
AI slop to the max, what a bad article. Now on the issue itself: Why doesn't Tesla report the version and whether it was FSD or Autopilot?
- woodgala 19d ago
  Because for some reason Tesla is exempt from reporting specifics about their safety reporting. Can’t possibly imagine why…
  - XorNot 19d ago
    It's because Musk fired his PR department. Tesla have no ability to damage control stories like this because it's no one's job at the company. A normal firm would have a heads up warning when requests for comment hit their media inboxes and internally could start collecting data and developing a response: thanks to Elon they don't. The story hits first and goes completely unchallenged until investigators get involved. Regardless of what you think of Tesla or Musk, they repeatedly kick own goals on basic product brand management.
  - jerlam 18d ago
    According to https://fuelarc.com/news-and-features/redacted-tesla-asked-for-redactions-on-every-self-driving-crash-reported-to-the-nhtsa-since-2021/ https://fuelarc.com/news-and-features/redacted-tesla-asked-f... The redactions have the note: “[REDACTED, MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION]” So any company has the option to redact information if they feel like it. Tesla has chosen to provide as little information as possible, claiming business secrecy, and no one can compel them otherwise.
- kcb 18d ago
  It's electrek, 95% chance any front page Tesla negative story is from them.
dmix 19d ago
[flagged]
delichon 19d ago
Tesla now has ~40 level 4 automated taxis in operation with no pedals or steering wheel. When these have an accident they can't blame a non-existent driver for mashing a non-existent accelerator pedal. And they are their own insurance company. A few fatalities in the Cybercab could squelch the whole rollout, even if the stats show it's safer than human drivers. As a human driver with declining capabilities who will need level 4 autopilot before long to stay independent, I'm rooting for FSD.
- jijojv 19d ago
  If they hadn't scammed millions into paying for the FSD scam starting Oct 2016 (see their "Driver is just there for legal reasons" video) - then there would be no headlines for a driver assist system occasionally failing like this.
  - etchalon 19d ago
    Scam or not, "Robot kills human" was always going to be news.
popularonion 19d ago
> Reading a stop sign and deciding whether to stop is a City-Streets function, and that’s FSD. Basic Autopilot is built as a highway lane-keeping system, and it does not respond to stop signs. So a driver-assist car verified engaged as it ran a stop sign was, most likely, running FSD. This just isn't true, "Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control" is a feature of basic autopilot on Model 3s. https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/2017_2023_model3/en_eu/GUID-A701F7DC-875C-4491-BC84-605A77EA152C.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/2017_2023_model3/en_eu/GU...
- InvertedRhodium 19d ago
  It differs based on when you purchased the car and package. I have “Advanced Autopilot” (which is no longer for sale in my market) that does not stop for stop signs or traffic lights. Earlier this year they stopped selling Autopilot altogether in the US and Canada. Too much variation to make a call on whether their version sips have been stopping under these conditions.
- deleted 19d ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 19d ago
  My 2024 Model Y has "Autopilot" mode that does not stop for stop signs. It just keeps the car in the lane and maintains distance from the car in front. The article is pretty clickbait-y, acknowledging it is unknown whether or not the car was using FSD or Autopilot, and then going on to speculate it probably was FSD, and then again saying "That's not a certainty". >Because Tesla redacted the software version, we can’t say for certain whether this was basic Autopilot or “Full Self-Driving.” I would like to know why Tesla (or any automaker) is allowed to redact this information.
  - bdangubic 18d ago
    > I would like to know why Tesla (or any automaker) is allowed to redact this information. That's an easy one, donate enough money to elected officials who would be the only ones that could prevent this from happening :)
throwaway2037 19d ago
This part is wild to me: > Subject vehicle (Tesla) pre-crash speed: 4 mph If true, how could the driver of the other car have been killed?
- delichon 19d ago
  And all 4 Tesla occupants were injured. Something doesn't add up.
  - etchalon 19d ago
    It's almost like, and hear me out, Tesla's internal diagnostics might have been manipulated.
    - maerF0x0 19d ago
      No one outside Germany would ever do that ! /s
    - simondotau 18d ago
      Or, and hear me out, a crash has to occur before an event is logged as a crash. To be clear, I haven’t even read the article yet so I don’t know any of the details, but that’s not a conclusion we can draw without understanding how the data is logged.
- adgjlsfhk1 19d ago
  possible if it accelerated after crashing
- cucumber3732842 19d ago
  2-way stop and the other guy hit the Tesla at 40-60 no seatbelt? That would track with the injuries in the Tesla as well. Gotta come up with the energy somehow. If the Tesla doesn't have it the other car needs to.
  - throwaway2037 18d ago
maerF0x0 19d ago
I can't help but think we need a more extensive "Flight Data Recorder" sort of object for, at least, self-driving cars if not all of them. Event Data Recorder's are coming and mandated for 2021+ but I think they need to go further, IMO. Police in my area already do not bother responding, and insurance just does 50/50 unless theirs dash cams. Why not just make them integrated and mandatory along with other telemetry?
- jasomill 18d ago
  Or better yet, non-integrated and mandatory, and only accessible with the owner's consent or a court order, connected to the rest of the car's electronics through a strictly one-way pipe.
rco8786 19d ago
I don't know anything about this specific case but this exact thing will be a major barrier for autonomous vehicles to overcome. Instead of benchmarking AVs against the current, human-caused number of vehicular deaths - people will naturally benchmark AVs to 0 and treat every instance of death as a failure of AVs, even if the reality is that AVs end up 99% safer than human controlled vehicles.
- TNWin 19d ago
  As it should be. “Safer on average” is not a defense for failing something as basic as stopping at a stop sign. The bar for not running one and killing someone is not unreasonably high.
  - ImJamal 19d ago
    Humans fail to stop at stop signs all the time. Their failure to stop kill people as well.
    - unrented7977 19d ago
      And we take away people's ability to drive when they kill people.
      - criddell 19d ago
        Often we do not. The Freakonomics podcast had an episode titled The Perfect Crime where they basically say if you want to kill somebody, hit them with your car because that’s often not punished beyond a ticket.
      - lotsofpulp 19d ago
        This trial just happened where there was no punishment: https://www.macombgov.org/node/55/news/former-warren-police-officer-found-not-guilty https://www.macombgov.org/node/55/news/former-warren-police-... >According to evidence presented from law enforcement at trial, on September 30, 2024, Burke was operating his patrol vehicle at a high rate of speed without emergency lights or siren activated when it crashed with another vehicle. Burke's partner was injured in the crash, and 34-year-old Cedric Hayden Jr. and 33-year-old Dejuan Pettis were killed. Then there was this one a couple years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jaahnavi_Kandula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jaahnavi_Kandula https://www.theriolindanews.com/2025/04/22/529861/license-to-kill https://www.theriolindanews.com/2025/04/22/529861/license-to... https://calmatters.org/investigation/2025/04/license-to-kill/ https://calmatters.org/investigation/2025/04/license-to-kill...
Footnote7341 19d ago
We do not generally hold drivers responsible for slips in judgement when driving. Only in cases of extreme recklessness is it normal for a driver to be 'held responsible'. It is silly that we hold self driving cars to an astronomically higher standard. We all know they are safer than human drivers. And that is true even if they kill 50 people a day.
- malfist 19d ago
  Ah yes, we would never hold a driver accountable for running a stop sign and killing someone. It doesn't meet the bar for seriously reckless
  - Footnote7341 19d ago
    Plenty of examples of this. In many jurisdictions even accidentally rolling through a stop sign does not even come close to 'serious recklessness'. https://www.gulfcoastnewsnow.com/article/12-year-old-dead-after-vehicle-hits-3-people-outside-del-prado-blvd-walmart/46747729 https://www.gulfcoastnewsnow.com/article/12-year-old-dead-af...
    - dghlsakjg 19d ago
      Yeah, but you asserted that we do not hold drivers responsible for slips in judgement. We regularly hold drivers responsible for minor infractions that are otherwise consequence free.
- devindotcom 19d ago
  what an assertion
  - simondotau 18d ago
    You can disagree, and I do too, but it is the basis of an interesting discussion. Personally I think that fully autonomous vehicles need to be at minimum 100x safer than humans in order to maintain a social license to operate. I’m not saying the law needs to codify that. I’m saying that society could never accept a system which was merely 10x safer than humans. Imagine every vehicle in North America was replaced with a robotaxi and road deaths absolutely plummeted from 40,000 to just 1,000 per year. That’s still an article every day about “Elon Musk's river of blood”. Supervised systems do not need such extreme safety, because the human driver remains responsible. But here’s an idea: if you want to use supervised FSD, that’s fine, but every collision gets automatically uploaded to a repository that is searchable by law enforcement and insurance companies.
ankithg 19d ago
[flagged]
tzs 19d ago
> Reading a stop sign and deciding whether to stop is a City-Streets function, and that’s FSD. Basic Autopilot is built as a highway lane-keeping system, and it does not respond to stop signs. So a driver-assist car verified engaged as it ran a stop sign was, most likely, running FSD. I don't understand this part. My understanding is the basic Autopilot is very similar to the what on other cars would be adaptive cruise control plus lane finding/lane keeping. If so, isn't the expected behavior that if you do not manually intervene at stop lights and stop signs it will remain engaged and drive right on through?
- giancarlostoro 19d ago
  > most likely, running FSD. "most likely running FSD" so was it running FSD or are we speculating?
- IncreasePosts 19d ago
  Yes, that's what autopilot will do. Even though I knew that with my tesla, I thought it could be confusing because the visualization does show traffic lights and stop signs and other cars/pedestrians. So a driver might think that if the computer obviously knows about the stop sign, it would stop there.
ModernMech 19d ago
Will be talking about this in my robotics class. Here's my current indictment of FSD, hasn't been updated in a year but I'll add this one to the list: 2016 - Self-Driving Tesla Was Involved in Fatal Crash, U.S. Says - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/self-driving-tesla-fatal-crash-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/self-driving-tes... 2016 - Tesla working on Autopilot radar changes after crash - https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2016/07/16/tesla-autopilot-radar-elon-musk/87177204/ https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2016/07/16/tesla-auto... 2017 - NTSB Issues Final Report and Comments on Fatal Tesla Autopilot Crash - https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15339472/a-tesla-crash-but-not-just-a-tesla-crash-ntsb-issues-final-report-and-comments-on-fatal-tesla-autopilot-crash/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15339472/a-tesla-crash-bu... 2019 - Tesla didn’t fix an Autopilot problem for three years, and now another person is dead - https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18629214/tesla-autopilot-crash-death-josh-brown-jeremy-banner https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18629214/tesla-autopilot-... 2021 - Inside Tesla as Elon Musk Pushed an Unflinching Vision for Self-Driving Cars - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilot-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilo... 2021 - Tesla announces transition to ‘Tesla Vision’ without radar, warns of limitations at first - https://electrek.co/2021/05/25/tesla-vision-without-radar-warns-limitations-first/ https://electrek.co/2021/05/25/tesla-vision-without-radar-wa... 2022 - Former Head Of Tesla AI Explains Why They’ve Removed Sensors; Others Differ - https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2022/10/31/former-head-of-tesla-ai-explains-why-theyve-removed-sensors-others-differ/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2022/10/31/former... 2022 - Tesla Dropping Radar Was a Mistake, Here is Why - https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/tesla-dropping-radar-was-a-mistake-here-is-why/25619 https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/tesla-dropping-... 2023 - Tesla reportedly saw an uptick in crashes and mistakes after Elon Musk removed radar from its cars - https://archive.is/mL7zy https://archive.is/mL7zy 2023 - Elon Musk Overruled Tesla Engineers Who Said Removing Radar Would Be Problematic: Report - https://insideevs.com/news/658439/elon-musk-overruled-tesla-autopilot-engineers-radar-removal/ https://insideevs.com/news/658439/elon-musk-overruled-tesla-... 2023 - How Elon Musk knocked Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ off course - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/19/elon-musk-tesla-driving/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/19/elon-mu... 2023 - The final 11 seconds of a fatal Tesla Autopilot crash - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/tesla-autopilot-crash-analysis/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/t... I teach Tesla FSD as a cautionary tale of malicious business practices, how to deploy robots in the least safe way possible, and an anti-example of how to be a good engineer. It should be a crime to have as little a grasp on engineering and to have as much input as Musk does.
jhu247 18d ago
How the hell is Tesla (or any other car co) allowed to redact fields in a safety report as “confidential business information"? and how the hell are they still allowed to call this "FULL SELF DRIVING"
m3kw9 18d ago
so they allow auto drive in non-approved areas?
prmoustache 18d ago
Why didn't the driver stop and why does it say "a Tesla ran a stop sign" and not "a driver in a Tesla ran a stop sign" ?
- simondotau 18d ago
  Because media isn’t a charity, it’s a profit-seeking business model. Outrage is profitable.
YeGoblynQueenne 18d ago
@dang @tomhow can you please de-flag? Also can you please check whether articles about Tesla with FSD or Autopilot tend to get flagged a lot? It seems so to me but I can't tell for sure.
- red75prime 16d ago
  Fred Lambert is very biased against Tesla to the point of forsaking journalistic integrity. I fact checked a few of his articles and found a number of omissions that benefit his narrative.

169 points by FabHK 19d ago

thewanderer1983 19d ago

Do you know how humans run stop lights and kill people, how does it compare?

grim_io 19d ago
We hold the driver accountable.
b40d-48b2-979e 19d ago
You're right, we should ban cars.
- maerF0x0 19d ago
  Their point, presumably, was that we shouldnt be anti-tech but we have to compare the statistics.
  - b40d-48b2-979e 19d ago
    Their point is whataboutism to somehow defend autonomous deaths as acceptable.
    - maerF0x0 19d ago
      I think, pragmatically, we have to accept that death is the outcome for us all, and trending towards fewer avoidable deaths and longer fuller lives is approximately the aim. Nonetheless deaths from a technology is inevitable. I believe what you're trying to talk about are excess deaths when a technology is less capable than the incumbent? I'm not sure the stats, but I'd suspect FSD is already superior to the often distracted, sometimes drunk, phone in hand driver that is the norm today. If chatgpt is to be trusted, Waymo and Tesla FSD are already massively safer than human drivers.
      - b40d-48b2-979e 19d ago
        [flagged]
      - maerF0x0 17d ago
        For the haters: https://spectrum.ieee.org/are-self-driving-cars-safe https://spectrum.ieee.org/are-self-driving-cars-safe
    - wat10000 19d ago
      It’s not whataboutism when you’re comparing the exact same actions and the two things can be substituted for each other. Whataboutism is “how dare you complain about our gulags when you treat your black people like slaves.” It is not “our system kills people but it kills fewer people than what we currently have.” Especially when killing people is a result of being on the bleeding edge of what’s possible rather than being a deliberate choice to hurt people.
    - mianos 19d ago
      It's not 'whataboutism'. It's an identical situation, and the statistics relate to the same events.
manquer 19d ago
Humans can go to prison [1], and depending on the state there are specific vehicular homicide laws or they are could be charged under normal homicide laws, specific statutes exist because vehicular laws can have higher punishment than typical negligence/reckless standards. In California the charge can be anything from vehicular manslaughter to second degree murder, that means 15 years-to-life without parole, depending on other factors such prior(murder) convictions or if the victim is a peace officer and so forth. In comparison self-driving systems do not have any punishment mechanism in the penal code. There is not even a well established liability standard, or ban/suspension threshold or any regulatory body equipped to audit a self driving system specifically [2] [1] if found guilty - we may disagree on the mechanisms, effectiveness ,conviction rate and other details, nonetheless there is enforcement and there are going people in prison for this type of crime everyday. [2] yes NTSB can do investigations but only for accidents (and give recommendations) and also has just 400 employees and $150M budget to cover everything from aviation to marine or pipeline and rail accidents.
- wat10000 19d ago
  Oh good. I may be put at unnecessary risk because people have higher standards for automation, but at least the guy who killed me will go to jail, maybe.
  - manquer 18d ago
    If safety is the objective we should be prioritizing public transit(automated even better) and not discussing agent/human driving a personal vehicle, here we value freedom[1] over safety, my comment is only a reflection of that ethos. [1]Whether we like it or not individual freedom reflects in everything from gun safety(unique in the developed world) to the state of public transport in the richest country in the world.
    - wat10000 18d ago
      We could do both. We can make cars safer and push on public transit.
- 19d ago
fbrncci 19d ago
At least we can hold them directly accountable by the law.
Footnote7341 18d ago
In many jurisdictions you can run people over and kill them and as long it was a normal lapse in judgement or mistake they cannot charge you. Only if you intentionally drive recklessly, for example speeding and racing, is it easy to charge a driver for manslaughter.

mrbuttons454 19d ago

[flagged]

ishouldbeatwork 19d ago
Plenty of facts in the article, an ad hominem attack on it because AI may have been used to write some of the text doesn't dismiss the findings.
bradleyjg 19d ago
> there’s a second possibility worth putting on the table, and we’ll be clear that it’s a theory 100% Claude

t0mas88 19d ago

AI slop to the max, what a bad article. Now on the issue itself: Why doesn't Tesla report the version and whether it was FSD or Autopilot?

woodgala 19d ago
Because for some reason Tesla is exempt from reporting specifics about their safety reporting. Can’t possibly imagine why…
- XorNot 19d ago
  It's because Musk fired his PR department. Tesla have no ability to damage control stories like this because it's no one's job at the company. A normal firm would have a heads up warning when requests for comment hit their media inboxes and internally could start collecting data and developing a response: thanks to Elon they don't. The story hits first and goes completely unchallenged until investigators get involved. Regardless of what you think of Tesla or Musk, they repeatedly kick own goals on basic product brand management.
- jerlam 18d ago
  According to https://fuelarc.com/news-and-features/redacted-tesla-asked-for-redactions-on-every-self-driving-crash-reported-to-the-nhtsa-since-2021/ https://fuelarc.com/news-and-features/redacted-tesla-asked-f... The redactions have the note: “[REDACTED, MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS INFORMATION]” So any company has the option to redact information if they feel like it. Tesla has chosen to provide as little information as possible, claiming business secrecy, and no one can compel them otherwise.
kcb 18d ago
It's electrek, 95% chance any front page Tesla negative story is from them.

dmix 19d ago

[flagged]

delichon 19d ago

Tesla now has ~40 level 4 automated taxis in operation with no pedals or steering wheel. When these have an accident they can't blame a non-existent driver for mashing a non-existent accelerator pedal. And they are their own insurance company. A few fatalities in the Cybercab could squelch the whole rollout, even if the stats show it's safer than human drivers. As a human driver with declining capabilities who will need level 4 autopilot before long to stay independent, I'm rooting for FSD.

jijojv 19d ago
If they hadn't scammed millions into paying for the FSD scam starting Oct 2016 (see their "Driver is just there for legal reasons" video) - then there would be no headlines for a driver assist system occasionally failing like this.
- etchalon 19d ago
  Scam or not, "Robot kills human" was always going to be news.

popularonion 19d ago

> Reading a stop sign and deciding whether to stop is a City-Streets function, and that’s FSD. Basic Autopilot is built as a highway lane-keeping system, and it does not respond to stop signs. So a driver-assist car verified engaged as it ran a stop sign was, most likely, running FSD. This just isn't true, "Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control" is a feature of basic autopilot on Model 3s. https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/2017_2023_model3/en_eu/GUID-A701F7DC-875C-4491-BC84-605A77EA152C.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/2017_2023_model3/en_eu/GU...

InvertedRhodium 19d ago
It differs based on when you purchased the car and package. I have “Advanced Autopilot” (which is no longer for sale in my market) that does not stop for stop signs or traffic lights. Earlier this year they stopped selling Autopilot altogether in the US and Canada. Too much variation to make a call on whether their version sips have been stopping under these conditions.
deleted 19d ago
[deleted]
lotsofpulp 19d ago
My 2024 Model Y has "Autopilot" mode that does not stop for stop signs. It just keeps the car in the lane and maintains distance from the car in front. The article is pretty clickbait-y, acknowledging it is unknown whether or not the car was using FSD or Autopilot, and then going on to speculate it probably was FSD, and then again saying "That's not a certainty". >Because Tesla redacted the software version, we can’t say for certain whether this was basic Autopilot or “Full Self-Driving.” I would like to know why Tesla (or any automaker) is allowed to redact this information.
- bdangubic 18d ago
  > I would like to know why Tesla (or any automaker) is allowed to redact this information. That's an easy one, donate enough money to elected officials who would be the only ones that could prevent this from happening :)

throwaway2037 19d ago

This part is wild to me: > Subject vehicle (Tesla) pre-crash speed: 4 mph If true, how could the driver of the other car have been killed?

delichon 19d ago
And all 4 Tesla occupants were injured. Something doesn't add up.
- etchalon 19d ago
  It's almost like, and hear me out, Tesla's internal diagnostics might have been manipulated.
  - maerF0x0 19d ago
    No one outside Germany would ever do that ! /s
  - simondotau 18d ago
    Or, and hear me out, a crash has to occur before an event is logged as a crash. To be clear, I haven’t even read the article yet so I don’t know any of the details, but that’s not a conclusion we can draw without understanding how the data is logged.
adgjlsfhk1 19d ago
possible if it accelerated after crashing
cucumber3732842 19d ago
2-way stop and the other guy hit the Tesla at 40-60 no seatbelt? That would track with the injuries in the Tesla as well. Gotta come up with the energy somehow. If the Tesla doesn't have it the other car needs to.
- throwaway2037 18d ago

maerF0x0 19d ago

I can't help but think we need a more extensive "Flight Data Recorder" sort of object for, at least, self-driving cars if not all of them. Event Data Recorder's are coming and mandated for 2021+ but I think they need to go further, IMO. Police in my area already do not bother responding, and insurance just does 50/50 unless theirs dash cams. Why not just make them integrated and mandatory along with other telemetry?

jasomill 18d ago
Or better yet, non-integrated and mandatory, and only accessible with the owner's consent or a court order, connected to the rest of the car's electronics through a strictly one-way pipe.

rco8786 19d ago

I don't know anything about this specific case but this exact thing will be a major barrier for autonomous vehicles to overcome. Instead of benchmarking AVs against the current, human-caused number of vehicular deaths - people will naturally benchmark AVs to 0 and treat every instance of death as a failure of AVs, even if the reality is that AVs end up 99% safer than human controlled vehicles.

TNWin 19d ago
As it should be. “Safer on average” is not a defense for failing something as basic as stopping at a stop sign. The bar for not running one and killing someone is not unreasonably high.
- ImJamal 19d ago
  Humans fail to stop at stop signs all the time. Their failure to stop kill people as well.
  - unrented7977 19d ago
    And we take away people's ability to drive when they kill people.
    - criddell 19d ago
      Often we do not. The Freakonomics podcast had an episode titled The Perfect Crime where they basically say if you want to kill somebody, hit them with your car because that’s often not punished beyond a ticket.
    - lotsofpulp 19d ago
      This trial just happened where there was no punishment: https://www.macombgov.org/node/55/news/former-warren-police-officer-found-not-guilty https://www.macombgov.org/node/55/news/former-warren-police-... >According to evidence presented from law enforcement at trial, on September 30, 2024, Burke was operating his patrol vehicle at a high rate of speed without emergency lights or siren activated when it crashed with another vehicle. Burke's partner was injured in the crash, and 34-year-old Cedric Hayden Jr. and 33-year-old Dejuan Pettis were killed. Then there was this one a couple years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jaahnavi_Kandula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jaahnavi_Kandula https://www.theriolindanews.com/2025/04/22/529861/license-to-kill https://www.theriolindanews.com/2025/04/22/529861/license-to... https://calmatters.org/investigation/2025/04/license-to-kill/ https://calmatters.org/investigation/2025/04/license-to-kill...

Footnote7341 19d ago

We do not generally hold drivers responsible for slips in judgement when driving. Only in cases of extreme recklessness is it normal for a driver to be 'held responsible'. It is silly that we hold self driving cars to an astronomically higher standard. We all know they are safer than human drivers. And that is true even if they kill 50 people a day.

malfist 19d ago
Ah yes, we would never hold a driver accountable for running a stop sign and killing someone. It doesn't meet the bar for seriously reckless
- Footnote7341 19d ago
  Plenty of examples of this. In many jurisdictions even accidentally rolling through a stop sign does not even come close to 'serious recklessness'. https://www.gulfcoastnewsnow.com/article/12-year-old-dead-after-vehicle-hits-3-people-outside-del-prado-blvd-walmart/46747729 https://www.gulfcoastnewsnow.com/article/12-year-old-dead-af...
  - dghlsakjg 19d ago
    Yeah, but you asserted that we do not hold drivers responsible for slips in judgement. We regularly hold drivers responsible for minor infractions that are otherwise consequence free.
devindotcom 19d ago
what an assertion
- simondotau 18d ago
  You can disagree, and I do too, but it is the basis of an interesting discussion. Personally I think that fully autonomous vehicles need to be at minimum 100x safer than humans in order to maintain a social license to operate. I’m not saying the law needs to codify that. I’m saying that society could never accept a system which was merely 10x safer than humans. Imagine every vehicle in North America was replaced with a robotaxi and road deaths absolutely plummeted from 40,000 to just 1,000 per year. That’s still an article every day about “Elon Musk's river of blood”. Supervised systems do not need such extreme safety, because the human driver remains responsible. But here’s an idea: if you want to use supervised FSD, that’s fine, but every collision gets automatically uploaded to a repository that is searchable by law enforcement and insurance companies.

ankithg 19d ago

[flagged]

tzs 19d ago

> Reading a stop sign and deciding whether to stop is a City-Streets function, and that’s FSD. Basic Autopilot is built as a highway lane-keeping system, and it does not respond to stop signs. So a driver-assist car verified engaged as it ran a stop sign was, most likely, running FSD. I don't understand this part. My understanding is the basic Autopilot is very similar to the what on other cars would be adaptive cruise control plus lane finding/lane keeping. If so, isn't the expected behavior that if you do not manually intervene at stop lights and stop signs it will remain engaged and drive right on through?

giancarlostoro 19d ago
> most likely, running FSD. "most likely running FSD" so was it running FSD or are we speculating?
IncreasePosts 19d ago
Yes, that's what autopilot will do. Even though I knew that with my tesla, I thought it could be confusing because the visualization does show traffic lights and stop signs and other cars/pedestrians. So a driver might think that if the computer obviously knows about the stop sign, it would stop there.

ModernMech 19d ago

Will be talking about this in my robotics class. Here's my current indictment of FSD, hasn't been updated in a year but I'll add this one to the list: 2016 - Self-Driving Tesla Was Involved in Fatal Crash, U.S. Says - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/self-driving-tesla-fatal-crash-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/self-driving-tes... 2016 - Tesla working on Autopilot radar changes after crash - https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2016/07/16/tesla-autopilot-radar-elon-musk/87177204/ https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2016/07/16/tesla-auto... 2017 - NTSB Issues Final Report and Comments on Fatal Tesla Autopilot Crash - https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15339472/a-tesla-crash-but-not-just-a-tesla-crash-ntsb-issues-final-report-and-comments-on-fatal-tesla-autopilot-crash/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15339472/a-tesla-crash-bu... 2019 - Tesla didn’t fix an Autopilot problem for three years, and now another person is dead - https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18629214/tesla-autopilot-crash-death-josh-brown-jeremy-banner https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18629214/tesla-autopilot-... 2021 - Inside Tesla as Elon Musk Pushed an Unflinching Vision for Self-Driving Cars - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilot-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilo... 2021 - Tesla announces transition to ‘Tesla Vision’ without radar, warns of limitations at first - https://electrek.co/2021/05/25/tesla-vision-without-radar-warns-limitations-first/ https://electrek.co/2021/05/25/tesla-vision-without-radar-wa... 2022 - Former Head Of Tesla AI Explains Why They’ve Removed Sensors; Others Differ - https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2022/10/31/former-head-of-tesla-ai-explains-why-theyve-removed-sensors-others-differ/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2022/10/31/former... 2022 - Tesla Dropping Radar Was a Mistake, Here is Why - https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/tesla-dropping-radar-was-a-mistake-here-is-why/25619 https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/tesla-dropping-... 2023 - Tesla reportedly saw an uptick in crashes and mistakes after Elon Musk removed radar from its cars - https://archive.is/mL7zy https://archive.is/mL7zy 2023 - Elon Musk Overruled Tesla Engineers Who Said Removing Radar Would Be Problematic: Report - https://insideevs.com/news/658439/elon-musk-overruled-tesla-autopilot-engineers-radar-removal/ https://insideevs.com/news/658439/elon-musk-overruled-tesla-... 2023 - How Elon Musk knocked Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ off course - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/19/elon-musk-tesla-driving/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/19/elon-mu... 2023 - The final 11 seconds of a fatal Tesla Autopilot crash - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/tesla-autopilot-crash-analysis/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/t... I teach Tesla FSD as a cautionary tale of malicious business practices, how to deploy robots in the least safe way possible, and an anti-example of how to be a good engineer. It should be a crime to have as little a grasp on engineering and to have as much input as Musk does.

jhu247 18d ago

How the hell is Tesla (or any other car co) allowed to redact fields in a safety report as “confidential business information"? and how the hell are they still allowed to call this "FULL SELF DRIVING"

m3kw9 18d ago

so they allow auto drive in non-approved areas?

prmoustache 18d ago

Why didn't the driver stop and why does it say "a Tesla ran a stop sign" and not "a driver in a Tesla ran a stop sign" ?

simondotau 18d ago
Because media isn’t a charity, it’s a profit-seeking business model. Outrage is profitable.

YeGoblynQueenne 18d ago

@dang @tomhow can you please de-flag? Also can you please check whether articles about Tesla with FSD or Autopilot tend to get flagged a lot? It seems so to me but I can't tell for sure.

red75prime 16d ago
Fred Lambert is very biased against Tesla to the point of forsaking journalistic integrity. I fact checked a few of his articles and found a number of omissions that benefit his narrative.