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Self-Driving Tesla Owners Share Videos of Reckless Driving (nytimes.com)
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 don't know they're assholes. Film at 11. Brought to you by frosty piss!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We should make our public transportation better, then we can all just sleep on that on the way to work.
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.
I take the train every day to go to the office, and people often sleep in it. What you describe never happens. the vast majority of people are honest and don't steal from other people. Especially the kind of persons that takes the train at 7:30 in the morning. And even if a thief wanted to steal someone's shoes, many other honest people are in the train watching and prevent the thief from even trying. The train is way better than a car: it goes faster; I can read, sleep, or work; I have a power outlet for my laptop; the journey is much less painful for my back; there is no traffic jam, and it's way cheaper than the car.
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 even doze off for ten minutes?
What this accident shows is that Google’s model (where the car is fully autonomous and the passengers don’t even have access to a steering wheel) is correct, and Tesla’s is doomed. If a car is driving on its own, nobody should pretend that a human is ultimately in charge.
You can actually see that in one of the linked videos. The man filming (who seems to be more familiar with the system) keeps telling the driver that if she taps the brakes, the entire system will shut off and she will have to steer again. Afraid that she'll think tapping the brakes will only turn off the adaptive cruise control, while leaving the auto-steering operating.
It reminds me of Asiana flight 214, where the pilots changed the autopilot and thought the auto-throttle was still on, when in face the mode change and turned it off.
It drove him into a truck and decapitated him. Based on that working perfectly fine, I can assume you work in software.
In the Netherlands we have one of the most comprehensive public transport systems, but even here it's pretty rare to find door to door transportation. For a good while my commute was almost literally door-to-door, a single train journey with 3 minute walks on either end, which was brilliant. Then I changed jobs and had to take the same train a bit further, then ride the tram... As soon as you have to change trains or buses, public transport starts to suck, especially if you need to be on time. It easily adds another 15 minutes to your journey, and I found that on that second job taking the car, traffic jams and all, was the better option. Also because it lets you divert to do other errants on the way to or from work.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Bug Report #764392 : AutoDarwin feature working as intended. Closed.
Especially the kind of persons that takes the train at 7:30 in the morning.
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.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Next up: Tesla builts in a feature that disables the auto-pilot features for obvious idiots.
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.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
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 the car. Come to a safe halt if not (with blinkers flashing; horn blaring; and emergency services called).
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.
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.
lucm, indeed.
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.
Did anyone bother to look at the graphic (top of page here: http://www.nytimes.com/interac...) ?
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.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
But the context of the thread wasn't whole human intelligence, but being able to ever "outsmart" a human. Chess was given as an example of where a computer could outsmart a human. The counter was essentially if you gave the computer the equivalent of brain damage, it wouldn't be able to play properly except the person didn't see it as the equivalent of brain damage. The response was a bit vague, but what I got was that if you caused the human to malfunction, the human wouldn't be a good chess player either. Thus, your statement is irrelevant to the context of the thread. And I interpreted the reason the original poster chose "outsmart" is because computer driving can be considered a situation where the computer could outsmart human drivers.
I think it would help a lot of Tesla were to explain what the point is of putting a self driving feature in a car that you can't leave alone for a second. It totally baffles my mind what the point of this even is.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The other car manufacturers didn't put 'auto' in the name of the technology.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Unless you live in DC - then you have to make sure and check that the train is not on fire before you go in to work:
https://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.
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.
#DeleteChrome