Self-Driving Tesla Owners Share Videos of Reckless Driving (nytimes.com) 440
An anonymous reader writes: The driver killed in a Tesla car accident "celebrated the Autopilot feature that made it possible for him to cruise the highways, making YouTube videos of himself driving hands-free," reports the New York Times, adding that one of his videos of a near-miss went viral just 11 weeks before his death -- after it was shared on Twitter by Elon Musk. But USA Today reports that Tesla drivers have also filmed themselves playing Jenga and Checkers or sleeping while using the autopilot feature. "Even though Tesla tells drivers to 'keep your hands on the wheel at all times and stay alert,' the temptation to test a no-hands drive is just too much."
In April, a Volvo driver had criticized Tesla for releasing a dangerous "wannabe" Autopilot system. But when Tesla introduced the self-driving feature in October, Elon Musk argued that "Long term, it'll be way better than a person. It never gets tired, never has something to drink, never argues with someone in the car." He had also said that within three years Tesla cars should be able to drive a sleeping driver in to work -- but that that functionality is not currently supported.
In April, a Volvo driver had criticized Tesla for releasing a dangerous "wannabe" Autopilot system. But when Tesla introduced the self-driving feature in October, Elon Musk argued that "Long term, it'll be way better than a person. It never gets tired, never has something to drink, never argues with someone in the car." He had also said that within three years Tesla cars should be able to drive a sleeping driver in to work -- but that that functionality is not currently supported.
Assholes (Score:5, Insightful)
Assholes don't know they're assholes. Film at 11. Brought to you by frosty piss!
Re: (Score:2)
Remind me who's the current chess champion?
Re: (Score:2)
Magnus Carlsen [wikipedia.org]
You've confused exhibition games with actual championship competitions.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, sure. I'm the fastest sprinter in the world! -- When I exclude everyone who runs faster than I do.
As an AC very correctly intuited, by excluding computers from championships they are not selecting for the best chess player but only the best human chess player. As computers can now reliably beat even the best human chess players, those that claim that "computers cannot outsmart humans" are living in the past.
Re: (Score:3)
1) AC asked who the current chess champion is. I gave the correct answer and explained his misunderstanding.
2) I made no claims about computers not being able to outsmart humans in my post, so bringing that up is a bit stupid and strawman-ish.
3) Any idiot on a motorcycle could win the Olympic cycling events, but it doesn't make the idiot a better athlete. Competitions are divided into categories and the rules limit the competitors order to create fair and interesting competitions. Only a dumbass wouldn'
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Outsmart (Score:2)
Yes, definitely assholes (Score:5, Interesting)
Elon Musk, in the person of his company, explicitly said this was not a hands-off system. The only assholes here are the people moaning about the moron who used it hands-off and got himself killed, Darwin-award-style.
1) Tesla: "Do not drive hands-off, maintain attention"
2) [Moron drives hands-off, or worse, attention off] FATAL ACCIDENT
3) Moron elements of society: have meltdown over perceived shortcoming, "investigation launched" by moron elements of government
The only useful thing that can be learned here for those of us who didn't already know, yet are able to learn, is that there are some morons out there with enough money to buy a Tesla and kill themselves by directly going against the manufacturer's instructions for safe use.
Well, okay, also, for those of us who didn't already know, yet are able to learn, there are other morons out there who are so blindingly stupid as to try to place the blame for this at Musk's / Tesla's feet. Some of those morons are in government.
I'm not entirely sure how, exactly, anyone could not already know these things unless they've been locked in a windowless room without human contact all their lives, or suffers an IQ less than their shoe size, or both, but... yet it is so.
Re: Yes, definitely assholes (Score:2)
Is competitor google's car software meant to be truly autonomous? Honestly, I'm confused here - I thought these products were specifically intended to drive your car for you and statistically do a safer job of it. Perhaps Tesla has implemented a differently targeted product, but no matter what this particular product as described by the company is bullshit! What is the purpose of something that requires you to watch it work and be constantly alert for failure other than to tempt Darwin or cause you to fall
Re: Yes, definitely assholes (Score:4, Informative)
Autopilot killed 1 person; ever. And it did so on a location where it was not intended to be used. The safety record doesn't mean nothing, but there is still room for improvement. The difference is now the improvement can be shared to all cars via an update. In a standard fatal accident, the improvements are much harder to act upon. Reference: http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHT... [nhtsa.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
It's called "attractive nuisance" and there is plenty of legal precedence for manufacturer liability, let's start with yard darts and extrapolate just how much more dangerous a self-driving Tesla is.
Re: (Score:2)
Elon Musk, in the person of his company, explicitly said this was not a hands-off system. The only assholes here are the people moaning about the moron who used it hands-off and got himself killed, Darwin-award-style.
1) Tesla: "Do not drive hands-off, maintain attention"
2) [Moron drives hands-off, or worse, attention off] FATAL ACCIDENT
Make it easy for morons to do something, and they will do it, even if it's fatal. This isn't all that different from Buckyballs, which were banned despite warnings about not swallowing and to keep them away from children, or Lawn Darts that had a warning not to toss them in the direction of people.
As far as I can tell from how the CPSC operates, is that if you have reason to believe that purchasers of your product will use it against the recommendation, causing harm to themselves or other, you are partly r
Re: (Score:3)
In those instances where the stupid use of a product would cause injury only to the stupid user, I agree with you.
About 30 years my State passed a mandatory seatbelt law, by voter initiative. When the debate started, the public was strongly against it: "let people decide for themselves!"
Then the argument was made, "When an accident starts, if the driver is wearing a seatbelt they are better able to control the vehicle and prevent crashing into other cars." And public opinion switched to, "OK but lets only require it for the driver."
Then the argument was made, "When an accident happens, passengers not wearing seatbelts
Re: (Score:3)
1) Tesla: "Do not drive hands-off, maintain attention"
2) [Moron drives hands-off, FILMS it and uploads to YT
3) Musk personally retweets video of said moron driving hands free
4) Moron, now encouraged by praise of Tesla CEO himself keeps pushing the limits by watching harry potter while driving
5) Moron receives Tesla Decapitation(TM)
6) Musk is shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU, that anyone would drive hands off using their AUTOPILOT system
Re: (Score:3)
You can't fix stupid yet (genetic engineering will eventually, but not yet), and I don't think you should try. Yet. So I think the government's correct role (not that they would actually do this, of course) would be:
1) Person injured / dies doing X with Y
2) Check to see if X was explicitly ruled out as correct / safe by manufacturer of Y
3) Additionally check if X was blindingly obviously stupid (for example, shoot self in face with gun or follow GPS off cliff)
4) If 2 or 3 is true, issue closed, no investiga
Re: (Score:2)
"You can't fix stupid yet"
But somehow / sometimes physics and genetics have a way of thinning the gene pool.
Re: (Score:2)
> 2) It's called Autopilot.
Clearly you don't understand what that means. Is that Elon's fault your your fault?
Re: (Score:3)
Plane autopilots are roughly the exact same thing as Tesla's autopilot. They maintain the course and altitude and speed, and that's about it. It does NOT auto-prevent mid-air collisions or bird strikes, etc. You need to be paying attention in order to stop that.
I know what autopilot means. It ain't what YOU think it means, obviously.
Re: Yes, definitely assholes (Score:5, Informative)
Fact is they have a driver assist system called "autopilot" where autopilot is a fairly well defined term.
Autopilot is a fairly well defined term, yes... in the aviation field. And, even then, pilots are required to remain at the controls in case something goes wrong and they need to react.
Are you a pilot? No.
How do I know? Because I know actual commercial pilots and I've asked them (out of prior curiosity) what they can and can not do with autopilot.
A pilot would never, for example, turn on autopilot and take a nap at the same time as their copilot; they'd get fired for that, or worse. Yes, a pilot can take a nap during a flight, while autopilot is engaged and their copilot is awake, alert, and able to control the plane. There are always at least two entities in control of the plane, lest one of them fuck up.
Re: Yes, definitely assholes (Score:5, Informative)
Not so fast here... What appears to have happened, is this driver found a corner-case that a collision detection system actually may not have been designed to detect.
Yes, and they should add that capability.
While remembering the fact that this Tractor trailer made an unsafe and illegal turn cutting through a highway, thus being responsible for the accident. Given the white background against white sky, the driver probably would not have seen it until too late; even if they were paying attention.
So this is still a pretty darn good track record for the Tesla.
Re: (Score:3)
what sophisticated AI????? Tesla repackaged LANE FOLLOWING technology from MobilEye under their AutoPilot(TM) _brand_
Wrong approproach (Score:5, Insightful)
We should make our public transportation better, then we can all just sleep on that on the way to work.
Only works in big cities (Score:2)
Re: Only works in big cities (Score:2)
True, but most people world wide live in densley populated areas.
Re:Wrong approach (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
That's because the criminals are still asleep after the previous night's activities. It's the same reason I go out and take pictures early in the morning. The chances of being attacked are greatly reduced when the criminals are still in bed.
Re: (Score:2)
While the robbery explained is an exaggeration. However someone who fell asleep with their phone dropped beside them could be easily snagged and not noticed by people. Or the thief could sit next to you and just get up with your laptop bag.
However the real problem with public transportation is the fact enough people don't live in cities that will keep the damand up. I live 30 miles away from my office. On my commute there is a 1/6 the car in front of me or behind me will go to the next urban center I a
Re:Wrong approach (Score:5, Funny)
But what about all those incidents of Japanese schoolgirls being groped (or even worse) by strangers while nobody else in the wagon or bus says a thing? Hundreds of those cases are documented on pornhub.
Re: (Score:2)
That's just Japan though, no one will interfere until someone asks for help. The moment the girl shouts "Chikan!" you bet your ass the entire train car is going to be on that guy, and the police waiting at the next stop.
Re: (Score:3)
https://ismetroonfire.com/ [ismetroonfire.com]
That's entirely because the system was poorly planned and underfunded though. A proper train/subway system, like in say Tokyo or Seoul, is amazing in how efficiently it can move people around the city.
Re:train is a very good option... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I have been using public transport here in Australia for years (bus, train, ferry and tram) and with a couple rare exceptions I have never seen anything that would make me worried about using it.
Well there WAS the one time when I was waiting for the train and some idiot teenagers tried to run off with my bag/wallet/phone/keys/etc (they were unsuccessful) but that was my own fault for not paying attention to my bag (now I hold onto it more closely and dont put it down where someone could try to grab it)
Re:Wrong approproach (Score:4, Insightful)
It's your fault someone tried to rob you? Are you, the victim, blaming yourself instead of the criminal? How screwed up is that?
Re: (Score:3)
In the same way that it is one's fault for leaving a bag of chips open at the beach, only to be attacked by seagulls. Naturally it's not really the victim's "fault", but the result of their actions is inevitable nonetheless.
Re: Wrong approproach (Score:2)
If you live in a third world country. Robbery in public transport are rare. At least in northern Europe, Germany, the Netherlands. Most likely also in other European countries, but I do not have any stats on them.
Re: (Score:2)
My, how entitled you must feel yourself to be...
France isn't third world yet they had to change the train schedules so that trains between Paris and CDG airport were direct with no stops to put an end to the growing problem of thieves living in the rough areas between Paris & the airport hopping on board stealing tourists blind and then skipping out and disappearing into their neighbourhoods.
Crime on public transport isn't only a third world problem.
Re: (Score:2)
There's LOTS of tourist pickpocketings in Paris and Berlin. The touristic areas of both cities are riddled with young people with clipboards that use some excuse (like taking some poll) to distract you while they rob you. In the Paris Metro there are lots of ingenious ways to get robbed as well, including fake tourists asking for directions, people who throw up on you, people that throw their cell phones at your feet, cell phones stolen through the metro window, etc. I can also attest that there's a problem
Tesla's Autopilot is in the "uncanny valley" (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean it is almost like having a self-driving car that you do not need to pay attention to the road most of the time and the car will not go into a ditch or rear-end another car.
So you can get bored by having absolutely nothing to do, so the temptation of doing something is just too great. And it works most of the time, the autopilot keeps the car on the road and avoids danger.
Except for that 0.01% when it fails and you have to react as quickly as if you have been driving all this time.
When driving regular car, you have to make frequent minor adjustments to keep the car on the road (the road isn't straight after all), so there is less time to get as bored as when you have nothing to do.
My grandfather worked as a bus driver for a while (driving between cities), he told me that the road from Kaunas to Vilnius (in Lithuania) was too straight for him and he had trouble not falling asleep at the wheel (so he used to talk to the passengers etc and never actually fell asleep), while driving to other cities was easier because the road is not as straight.
Using the autopilot most likely looks like driving on a completely straight road with a car that does not veer to any direction by itself.
Re: (Score:2)
I think perhaps some suggestion that this can happen also comes from the much higher traffic death rate (corrected for miles driven) for the US than the UK. In the UK most people drive manual/stick shift vehicles, whereas in the US most drive automatics. It seems to me (having lived/driven in both places), that driving a stick shift forces you to continually pay rather more attention to your driving environment.
Although of course there are a huge host of other things that affect traffic death rates. It's in
Re: (Score:2)
AFAIK the long highways in the US are very straight compared to various inter-city roads in Europe, the curving roads also force the driver to pay more attention to the road and gives him something to do (correct the trajectory) so he is less tempted to let go of the wheel and browse the net..
Re: (Score:2)
In Europe most highways are even curved at places where they could be straight, for exact the reason you mention. The curves are not easy to see, but if you pay attention to what you are actually doing while driving you realize that you are driving in very long alternating curves.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the much higher standards for getting a driving license in Europe do a lot as well.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why in the Netherlands, highways are designed to be not straight but with gentle curves. Just enough to keep the long distance driver occupied, but no nearly enough for a twisty turny stressfest.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed - after they found out the very straight roads of the Noordoostpolder gave rise to many casualties - straight and inviting speeding well above the 80 km/hr speed limit.
Re: Tesla's Autopilot is in the "uncanny valley" (Score:2)
I remember a quote from google selfdriving car team that there is no point in having a steering wheel in a self driving car, because the "driver" would never be able to take over in time to avoid any danger. Which makes sense. We should not switch to automated driving before we are ready to surrender all control.
Re: (Score:2)
Useful if you need to takeover for navigational purposes; however, because the car does not have a clue of how to get from Point A to Point B for locations off the map, or when GPS is down due to radio interference.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this autopilot legal? It sounds like one of the most dangerous devices created, inviting distracted driving.
Cell phones are banned in many states for causing distracted driving, how is this not treated the same?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> How is this autopilot legal?
Because no one has banned it yet. But honestly, I have no idea. My guess is that it is mostly rich people, and they are few in numbers. There's also the "sense of inevitability" that they have pressed hard for with articles and such.
And it is true- eventually this sort of thing will be something that will be everywhere and it will be good.
But lets go over some situations that will probably occur on this long journey:
1- People will probably find that there's some situation
Re: (Score:2)
It may be more than low contrast in this accident, as Tesla also mentions using radar (where colour is not an issue), which filters out stuff that looks like overhead road signs (and a trailer does somewhat look like that) to prevent unnecessary braking. Obviously there is an issue with clearance measure in the latter case, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure how Tesla can shield liability. Gun manufacturers are being sued for their product's misuse. One could even make an argument, Telsa is encouraging users to break the law by making driving "hands free."
Company I work for makes power equipment. There's literally a label for every possible safety scenario, and any potential situation where a problem could arise, the company must design the product in such a way to be safe. This seems the exact opposite, creating a device to aid in breaking the law (si
Re: (Score:2)
How is this autopilot legal? It sounds like one of the most dangerous devices created, inviting distracted driving. Cell phones are banned in many states for causing distracted driving, how is this not treated the same?
Semi-automated cars aren't distracting the driver, they just reduce the burden of driving just like automatic transmissions, ABS brakes, automatic windshield wipers, cruise control, intelligent cruise control, lane keeping etc. and so far nobody has said that it is too much of a good thing.
Google has taken the high road of "we'll release it when it's ready to drive itself not before" while Tesla has taken the low road of jus rolling it out and I'm sure they know this would happen. They're just hoping the le
Re: (Score:2)
None of those things you mentioned take the driving from you and do it for you. Silly to argue wipers and other things you mentioned have the same distracting effect as no longer having to pay attention to the road.
Re: Tesla's Autopilot is in the "uncanny valley" (Score:2)
Because it has fewer fatalities per driven-mile than the statistical norm for HUMAN-driven cars, perhaps?
The driver's main judgment error was using autopilot on a road that wasn't a freeway & had cars crossing the road.
Realistically, we're already at the point where it's safe to have autopilot driving on a limited-access road in reasonable weather conditions. The problem is, automakers' lawyers won't allow them to openly say, "autopilot is safe under these specific conditions...". They pretend that safe
Re: (Score:2)
I await the autopilots 100 question written exam results.
Private property is not an immunity shield, check out drunk driving laws. You're not allowed to drive drunk in most states even on your private property. Hurting yourself is costing society, hence you're not allowed to do it. I don't see why autopilots should be held to a different standard.
Re: (Score:2)
- Morgan: Regarding last week's delivery, why did it take twice as long as usual?
- Bender: Martini drinking contest with the autopilot. I would have beat him too this time, but we ran out of olives.
- Leela: Look, I can explain.
- Morgan: Do you really think you can explain why you left port without a full compliment of olives? I think not.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is when we get these features we get lazy. Now I would love my car having such a feature. On the long trip I can relax for a second when I see it is safe keep at a constant speed and say in the lane. Because fatigue makes it so you can't do that easy task so easily causing more fatigue. Not to sleep or even take your eyes off the road but to let your nerves relax a bit to continue driving safely.
Re: (Score:2)
And it works most of the time, the autopilot keeps the car on the road and avoids danger. Except for that 0.01% when it fails and you have to react as quickly as if you have been driving all this time.
The quality of a system is always measured in how well it handles exceptions. (Control question: Try to come up with a single example of a good system that handle exceptions badly. Hint: give up because such systems do not exist)
So a autopilot driving car will handle the normal case extremely well, but when something unexpected happens a human driver is much better capable of performing a sensible action.
It's not that good (Score:5, Informative)
I drove my Tesla with autopilot for a month. It works great in 2 situations: 1) wide open road, good lane markings, light traffic and 2) stop and go in traffic jams.
It truly is horrible in the following situations:
1) where lane markings are faded or confusing (road construction, lanes have been moved)
2) where traffic is moderately dense, and there are curves - the system cannot see far enough ahead to anticipate the curves, so you wind up with abrupt maneuvers
3) where someone is merging from either side - sometimes it works , sometimes it freaks out
4) on twisting mountain roads, with good lane markings
5) where you are right next to the median barrier (e.g. carpool lanes)
In the latter case, small lateral changes in the barrier position (e.g. from a overpass column embedded in the median barrier) can trigger *exciting* steering wheel inputs as the car attempts to avoid running into the barrier. If one is commuting in the carpool lane at reasonable speeds (>40 mi/hr), one had best keep one's hands on the wheel and one's eyes open waiting for the "ding dong" that tells you the autopilot gave up and it's "Jesus take the wheel" time.
I found it more stressful to drive with autopilot on than with it off.
The big flaw is that the forward looking system isn't smart enough - it does not anticipate turns far enough ahead - this is really obvious on a mountain road with lots of turns: it goes into the turn fast, realizes that the road bends, and tromps on the brakes to get the speed down so it can make the turn. Then it speeds up coming out of the turn. You're never sure if it's going to be able to do it.
In traffic, it tends to "follow the car in front", which is good if the lane markings are poor, but if there's a bend in the freeway, it's not so good - again, it's the abrupt "I've got to turn now" action.
The adaptive cruise control is awesome - smooth handling of speed in heavy traffic from 0 mi/hr all the way up to 70-75 mi/hr. The lane guidance not so much.
Re:It's not that good (Score:5, Interesting)
If you drive on the same road over and over again, it will actually learn how you go into the curve and also how other Tesla drivers do it. Eventually after you drive through it enough times, the auto-pilot will be driving just as smooth as you are. I would suggest to read up a bit on the Fleet Learning feature.
http://mashable.com/2015/10/14... [mashable.com]
http://www.teslarati.com/upcom... [teslarati.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
They should probably add an eye-tracking feature to this. And if your eyes are away from the road for more than 5 seconds, then initiate a forced hand-control-back-to-driver event.
Re: (Score:2)
What I'm saying is that when driving a regular car- it's years between incidents like the one that killed the tesla driver. Short of taking a defensive driving class annually, you will not be in peak driving shape when your moment comes. I agree that auto-driving might make you more careless. But without autodriving you might have died in a prior accident a few months or years before anyway,.
As a motorcyclist, I have to keep very mentally active during the whole trip. Your trance like state you describe is pretty accurate for automobile drivers. As in one case a fellow blew through a stop sign, and I had to jump on the sprags hard. He stopped to apologize, saying he could have sworn he saw my turn signals on - which were my equivalent of parking lights - and I was going to turn right and he could blow through the stop sign with impunity.
Fortunately, with my practice of constant awareness, I
Re:Tesla's Autopilot is in the "uncanny valley" (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been driving for 40 years now.
In that entire time, I've had only 5 (maybe 6) occasions when I had to pay attention to the road.
You need to pay attention to the road the whole time. I think you mean you've had only 5 or 6 occasions when you've needed to take emergency evasive action. I'm intrigued as to where you live. I've been driving a similar length of time in the UK and would reckon on incidents such as you describe happening 5 or 6 times a year. My most recent one was when I was driving a mini-bus last week, and a lady coming out of a side road just decided she could pull across my path right in front of me. Cue emergency stop and people nearly sliding off seats.
If you aren't paying attention to the road all the time, then you won't be ready to respond when these things happen.
In fact, most the time driving home from work people are in a semi-trance like state.
Now there I have to agree with you.
Re: (Score:2)
He probably got the distance wrong a bit but I can see his scenario being accurate. The fatal flaw in your reasoning is that you worked through the problem he mentioned chronologically as presented. With 40 years of driving he has likely encountered similar situations where a vehicle pulled out in front of him and he had to brake because they didn't get up to road speed before he approached an assured clear distance limit. This happens a lot more often than a car pulling across two lanes and stopping to tur
You can't defeat stupid. (Score:2)
Car manufacturers are criticising Tesla for it's Autopilot feature while at the same time their own autopilot features accomplish the same feat only with less sensors. Their systems are identical but they consider them safe because it disables if people take their hands off the wheel, .... except it is defeated with something as easy as strapping a can of coke to the steering wheel.
Tesla owners doing stupid shit with self driving cars was inevitable, and they are far from the first car makers to be plagued
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like the several warnings you have to click through to enable an auto-pilot feature on a Tesla?
Call me crazy but I like it when the car doesn't automatically disengage autopilot when it is perfectly capable of controlling a situation due to some stupid thing like me changing hands on the steering wheel. At least the people who fell asleep at the wheel of a Tesla lived to tell about it. Good luck doing that on a competitor's "safe" system.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem with car autopilots (Score:2)
isn't that they're limited, it's that the user can't know exactly where the limitations are. When you know where the limits of a system are exactly, you subconsciously plan its usage to stay within its perimeter of competences. When you can't fully rely on a system to perform in certain conditions, and not to perform in other conditions, 100% of the time, you have to stay alert all the time to take over in case it craps out.
That's precisely what's self-defeating in today's fledgling autopilot systems. A rea
Re: (Score:3)
It reminds me of Asiana flight 214 [wikipedia.org], where the pilots changed the autopilot and thought the auto-throttle was still on, when in face th
Re: (Score:2)
Afraid that she'll think tapping the brakes will only turn off the adaptive cruise control, while leaving the auto-steering operating.
How did people get so fucking bad at thinking that this became a reasonable assumption? I share it with him, but it's sad.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that's the problem with autopilot.
"Oh, over there's a tractor-trailer combo crossing the road. Probably clears well before I'm there. Autopilot on, so car will slow down and stop if needed."
"Mmm.... Trailer still there. Shouldn't it start slowing down by now?"
"WTF it's not slowing down!"
Slams on the brakes while crashing into trailer...
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it braked at all. The car went another 900 feet before ending up in a guy's front yard, going through two fences and taking down a utility pole on the way. At the stated 65 mph, that's almost 10 seconds, and I'm sure the car wasn't going that fast after hitting the truck. I'm kinda wondering why the car didn't notice a sudden deceleration (too sudden for anything but a collision) and didn't stop right then and there. Also of note - the [techinsider.io]
Re: (Score:2)
I was "role-playing" the situation Tesla wants: a driver at the wheel that is actually paying attention, while relying on the autopilot to do the driving, then reacting way too late to a situation because the too late realisation that the autopilot does not react. That's the problem of an incomplete autopilot: is the driver expected to break and steer to avoid obstacles? And if so, which obstacles?
Very well possible that the victim in the actual case didn't even see it coming.
Requiring people to pay attention is futile (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe self-driving cars will eventually take over. However, this accident does highlight one fallacy, namely the idea that a human driver can be expected to supervise a near-perfect self-driving car.
Just think about it: If your car has been driving perfectly for a whole year, would you find it easy to keep your eyes glued to road and your hands to the steering wheel, just in case the car’s computer has a nervous breakdown? Wouldn’t you start playing with your smartphone, eat a sandwich or ev
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You got that right. Just yesterday, a truck attempted to occupy my lane, apparently oblivious to the fact that I was there. About an hour later I got cut off by a limo that blew a stop sign without even slowing down.
I think a large part of the problem is that a lot of people don't have the situational awareness that they should, aren't doing things like checking their mirrors regularly, and i
This is BS (Score:5, Informative)
Go see the videos for yourself
...adding that one of his videos of a near-miss went viral.
Context mincing BS, the near miss was a truck haphazardly changing lanes without looking into the teslas lane... the tesla avoided the accident, but this is phrased to be intentionally interpreted as the exact opposite.
His other stupid video showing "reckless" driving is pretty stupid looking and cringeworthy but it's actually on a private road. I think the autopilot is actually pretty dangerous and incorrectly interpreted as "self driving" as others here have stated, but that's no reason for this crude BS article that reads like it's been paid for by the defence lawyers.
Re: (Score:2)
Cars have to change, policy has to change, culture has to change and people have to change.
And 18 wheelers have to change. If the truck in this latest incident had one of those vanes under the trailer that improve fuel economy for pence, then it would not have happened. Because trucking companies are throwing away fuel and thus money, and hiring shit new truckers because they aren't willing to pay the old ones enough to stay in business, someone died. It's not because of autopilot. A human driver could have come to the same end.
Re: (Score:2)
Why should everyone change because Tesla can't make a self driving car work?
That's not what I said nor suggested, and that is an idiotic response. Absolutely everyone benefits if these are implemented, and they are already required in some places. As usual these days, the USA is sadly, badly behind.
Telsa: monitor the driver, not just the road (Score:2)
This comment [slashdot.org] says it like it is - the Tesla autopilot lulls the driver enough that when he must intervene, he is unprepared (And intervene he must -- the Tesla autopilot does not use LIDARs [9to5google.com], as Google's cars do. Musk pooh-poohed that approach as unnecessary and went with a cheaper camera and computer vision based approach.).
I hope he reverses course. Tesla needs inward-facing tech - cameras and FLIR sensors, gaze detection algorithms, steering-wheel grip sensors - to ensure the driver is 'driving'.
Arguement in the car (Score:2)
Elon Musk argued that "Long term, it'll be way better than a person. It never ..... argues with someone in the car."
But then :-
Tesla tells drivers to 'keep your hands on the wheel at all times and stay alert'
Because it can argue with you then.
People will get lazier and dumber (Score:2, Insightful)
..but I'll say it again, now, anyway: Too much automation will make people dumber, less skilled, and lazier overall. Some of them are practically chomping at the bit for the opportunity to become lazier and stupider. Should we just call this Evolution in Action? Or should we do something to save people from themselves? Oh, wait, it's not just the stup
Antilock brakes (Score:2)
People (Score:2)
Better tell snopes (Score:2)
This has to be updated: http://www.snopes.com/autos/te... [snopes.com]
The New York Times | Florida traffic crash (Score:4, Interesting)
Did anyone bother to look at the graphic (top of page here: http://www.nytimes.com/interac... [nytimes.com]) ?
I would assume that if there were traffic control at this intersection it would show limit lines. Without traffic control, it looks like the truck clearly failed to yield right of way. Many times unsafe truck drivers use their size as intimidation to passenger vehicles, failing to yield right of way and just being unsafe. Try to drive 10 miles over the posted speed limit on the Garden State Pky (even in the "slow" lane) without having a 9 ton tractor 1 foot off your bumper and you'll know exactly what I mean.
Situations where the opposing traffic makes a left hand turn (stateside) kills many, many human drivers No one can assume that even a human here could have avoided the collision except for the truck driver who clearly failed to yield right of way.
Smells like media bullshit to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Tesla's own fault (Score:2)
Tesla's self-drive mode must *force* the driver to hold the wheel and potentially do other actions to ensure their complete attention. And if they can't do that then they have no business putting such a feature into the car. And that's assuming the feature works as intended, which it clearly doesn't if it ends up hitting another
Re: (Score:2)
It uses forward radar (don't know the type) that sees about 600 ft ahead, forward facing cameras, ultra-high frequency sound waves (sonar) 360 around the vehicle, and GPS (though GPS is just for positioning and traffic map info, not pedestrian/vehicle info). I'm sure they can do better, but it doesn't just rely on the cameras.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It drove him into a truck and decapitated him. Based on that working perfectly fine, I can assume you work in software.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Bug Report #764392 : AutoDarwin feature working as intended. Closed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:you can only do so much (Score:5, Funny)
Next up: Tesla builts in a feature that disables the auto-pilot features for obvious idiots.
Re: (Score:2)
Next up: Tesla builts in a feature that disables the auto-pilot features for obvious idiots.
That's feasible. Sensors in steering wheels already exist, and it would be easy to turn on the klaxons and decelerate if both hands leave the upper half of the wheel for more than a second when the speed is higher than, say, 25 mph.
Actually, a dinger for that would be good for manually driven cars too.
Re: (Score:3)
Some cars already do this sort of detection already; and I recall a video of a guy who managed to defeat it by tying some sort of can or bottle in a manner where the detectors thought it was a hand/arm against the wheel.
People can be very creative, even while simultaneously being very stupid.
Re: (Score:3)
Does Slashdot's 'Anonymous Coward' feature count?
No, you can do more - you can have inward facing tech that ensures the driver is adequately involved in driving [slashdot.org] the car. Come to a safe halt if not (with blinkers flashing; horn blaring; and emergency services called).
Re: (Score:3)
Better if they use those resources to make the car fully autonomous instead.....
The custom inward-facing tech would be expensive to develop and get in the way of getting to level 4.
Re: (Score:2)
set on autopilot and fly 99% of the journey...
And, as we're finding out, pilot skills slowly atrophy.