Tesla Self Driving Car in Control When It Crashed and Killed Driver

Tesla Autopilot is a very good driver's aid, however it is far short of a self driving car. If you're looking for a self driving car, you should be looking at Waymo.

I don't wanna die.... wrote:

Automatic vehicles will be prolific by 2025 and deaths will drop substantially starting 2020 as self driving vehicles become the norm.

I would love to see the current version of Waymo be used today. It is a better and safer "driver" than 99% of the drivers on the road. Maybe more.

ONE person killed by automation and it's unsafe.

THOUSANDS killed by human error and it's just an accident.

zzzz wrote:

Dril wrote:

Do you have any facts or statistics to backup any of these statements up?

Toyota backed down from using their Lane Keeping Assist (option in high end 2010-2015 models, thinking Prius 5 with Advanced Technology Package), moving to Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist (2016+ Prius for example). Their Lane Keeping Assist would steer the car, keeping it between lane lines, kind of like the Tesla system. The newer system has the same hardware, but only bumps the steering wheel in away from the lane lines.

The only reason I can think that they backed off is for safety and liability reasons. The more active steering system (LKA) was leading to disengaged drivers.

That's what I'm saying. The Tesla sort-of-autonomous-but-still-watch-the-road system encourages drivers to not pay attention.

They don't need to steer, they don't need to brake, signal or do anything.

Yet they are told that the system is not fully able to take over driving and so they should always watch and be ready to take over controls at any time.

In practice, humans get bored if they have no task to do and so people start to day dream or play on their phones instead.

If you are forced to steer the whole time, you know that if you don't steer and don't watch the road then you will crash, it's a certainty.

If the system is 100% capable of dealing with all possible situations, maybe talks with all the other cars on the road and never needs driver input, perhaps doesn't even have a steering wheel, then that is ok also.

But encouraging drivers to not watch the road when they are legally supposed to be in control of the vehicle and are also required to act as a failsafe for the computer system, is simply a recipe for disaster.

driverless wrote:

I don't wanna die.... wrote:

Automatic vehicles will be prolific by 2025 and deaths will drop substantially starting 2020 as self driving vehicles become the norm.

I would love to see the current version of Waymo be used today. It is a better and safer "driver" than 99% of the drivers on the road. Maybe more.

ONE person killed by automation and it's unsafe.

THOUSANDS killed by human error and it's just an accident.

Yes but what is the deaths per mile rate? Humans are obviously driving many more miles than automated cars. But I think it really comes back to the idea that people are reluctant to put their lives in the hands of a computer. In most accidents, the driver at least had the opportunity to do something. That wouldn't be the case in a fully automated car.

Count Chocula wrote:

driverless wrote:

I would love to see the current version of Waymo be used today. It is a better and safer "driver" than 99% of the drivers on the road. Maybe more.

ONE person killed by automation and it's unsafe.

THOUSANDS killed by human error and it's just an accident.

Yes but what is the deaths per mile rate? Humans are obviously driving many more miles than automated cars. But I think it really comes back to the idea that people are reluctant to put their lives in the hands of a computer. In most accidents, the driver at least had the opportunity to do something. That wouldn't be the case in a fully automated car.

Please please please, Tesla Autopilot is not an autonomous system!

Lane departure and auto braking are nothing more than driver assistance features. A truly automated system has lidar, Tesla does not.

A recent study reviewed the 19 autonomous car systems and Tesla's ranked DEAD LAST!

driverless wrote:

Count Chocula wrote:

Yes but what is the deaths per mile rate? Humans are obviously driving many more miles than automated cars. But I think it really comes back to the idea that people are reluctant to put their lives in the hands of a computer. In most accidents, the driver at least had the opportunity to do something. That wouldn't be the case in a fully automated car.

Please please please, Tesla Autopilot is not an autonomous system!

Lane departure and auto braking are nothing more than driver assistance features. A truly automated system has lidar, Tesla does not.

A recent study reviewed the 19 autonomous car systems and Tesla's ranked DEAD LAST!

Sorry, my wording was unclear. I was talking about the hypothetical case of a fully automated car.

But to my first point, I suspect that there would be more Tesla crashes if there were as many Teslas on the road as there are other cars. So it's not really fair to say "Tesla had one fatality this year and human-operated cars had one million"

driverless wrote:

Count Chocula wrote:

Yes but what is the deaths per mile rate? Humans are obviously driving many more miles than automated cars. But I think it really comes back to the idea that people are reluctant to put their lives in the hands of a computer. In most accidents, the driver at least had the opportunity to do something. That wouldn't be the case in a fully automated car.

Please please please, Tesla Autopilot is not an autonomous system!

Lane departure and auto braking are nothing more than driver assistance features. A truly automated system has lidar, Tesla does not.

A recent study reviewed the 19 autonomous car systems and Tesla's ranked DEAD LAST!

Exactly. So calling their system 'Autopilot' and encouraging drivers to not use the wheel or watch the road is just dangerous.

Germany thinks so also:

Imagine if they banned manually driven or cars (or banned guns) because of a few fatalities.

X-Runner wrote:

Imagine if they banned manually driven or cars (or banned guns) because of a few fatalities.

Imagine the mass slaughter of people of 100 Tesla cars drove past that crash barrier with Autopilot running.

Car Mechanics wrote:

Imagine the mass slaughter of people of 100 Tesla cars drove past that crash barrier with Autopilot running.

They are only Tesla owners. No big loss.

Count Chocula wrote:

driverless wrote:

Please please please, Tesla Autopilot is not an autonomous system!

Lane departure and auto braking are nothing more than driver assistance features. A truly automated system has lidar, Tesla does not.

A recent study reviewed the 19 autonomous car systems and Tesla's ranked DEAD LAST!

Sorry, my wording was unclear. I was talking about the hypothetical case of a fully automated car.

But to my first point, I suspect that there would be more Tesla crashes if there were as many Teslas on the road as there are other cars. So it's not really fair to say "Tesla had one fatality this year and human-operated cars had one million"

Yes, and moreso than that, what is shocking about the well publicised accidents that Tesla's and self driving cars like the Uber accident have had, is that the car made mistakes that the driver very well might have not made if he was paying attention to the road like all the other cars around him were. They weren't subtle errors such as someone suddenly veering into their lane for example.

There's no way that a man drives through a crash barrier if he is paying attention to the road at all.

There's no way a man slams into the side of a lorry that is crossing the junction as if it wasn't there, if he is driving the car normally.

There's no way that Uber would have killed the woman with her bike if the driver was simply looking out of the window (it was dark but not as dark as the dash cam made it seem).

These autopilot cars are expected to be far better than human drivers; else there is no point in them. They should not misread signs, be unable to see lorry's or crash barriers, exceed the speed limit or anything else.

They should either be perfect or require the driver to take his life in his own hands at all times.

heartless wrote:

Car Mechanics wrote:

Imagine the mass slaughter of people of 100 Tesla cars drove past that crash barrier with Autopilot running.

They are only Tesla owners. No big loss.

To err is to be human. To really screw up requires mass production of Tesla cars and a narrow crash barrier.

Since self driving cars operate the exact same way every time, you are guaranteed to get a 100% kill rate repeated ad naseum. This is the crux of the problem.

ex-runner wrote:

These semi-autopiloted cars are overall much less safe than either an entirely driverless car or a manual vehicle. Not due to fault of the vehicle per se, but because of the false security they give the driver.

They are not designed to be fully in control of the driving experience, as seen in this incident, but they encourage the driver to pay less attention to the road than they might otherwise do.

Cars should either be fully manually operated, or designed to be entirely self driving without fault.

The medium ground we have at the moment is stupid.

So we should ban cruise control?

I'm all for self driving trains. Let's beta test this whole idea there for a decade, then we can decide if this is possible for cars. I just think everyone is getting ahead of themselves on this thing.

raymondy wrote:

ex-runner wrote:

These semi-autopiloted cars are overall much less safe than either an entirely driverless car or a manual vehicle. Not due to fault of the vehicle per se, but because of the false security they give the driver.

They are not designed to be fully in control of the driving experience, as seen in this incident, but they encourage the driver to pay less attention to the road than they might otherwise do.

Cars should either be fully manually operated, or designed to be entirely self driving without fault.

The medium ground we have at the moment is stupid.

So we should ban cruise control?

Cruise control requires steering and braking. The driver knows he must be focused on the road.

I'm absolutely in favour of driving aids such as automatic emergency braking to avoid collisions, reacting faster than the driver could. Cruise control is great also.

If there was a 100% autonomous car that the company can guarantee me will not make any mistakes and the only way I'd end up in an accident is if someone ploughs their car into me, I'd buy it.

But a car that tells you it's ok to surrender driving for a while, the car will do it for you, but it's actually might not do it all for you so still be ready to take over controls at any point; just pointless and dangerous.

ex-runner wrote:

raymondy wrote:

So we should ban cruise control?

Cruise control requires steering and braking. The driver knows he must be focused on the road.

I'm absolutely in favour of driving aids such as automatic emergency braking to avoid collisions, reacting faster than the driver could. Cruise control is great also.

If there was a 100% autonomous car that the company can guarantee me will not make any mistakes and the only way I'd end up in an accident is if someone ploughs their car into me, I'd buy it.

But a car that tells you it's ok to surrender driving for a while, the car will do it for you, but it's actually might not do it all for you so still be ready to take over controls at any point; just pointless and dangerous.

Just pointing out that this claim, "Cars should either be fully manually operated, or designed to be entirely self driving without fault", is poorly worded at best as it would mean we should have no driver assists. It seems like you've backed down from that wording now and have a more reasonable stance.

Finally Tesla's stock is crashing, much like their cars.

I still stand by the sentiment that steering controls should be left to humans or computers that are entirely capable and much better than humans

joedirt wrote:

Finally Tesla's stock is crashing, much like their cars.

touché!