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Tesla Model S In Fatal Autopilot Crash Was Going 74 MPH In a 65 Zone, NTSB Says (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Los Angeles Times: The Tesla car involved in a fatal crash in Florida this spring was in Autopilot mode and going about 10 miles faster than the speed limit, according to safety regulators, who also released a picture of the mangled vehicle. Earlier reports had stated the Tesla Model S struck a big rig while traveling on a divided highway in central Florida, and speculated that the Tesla Autopilot system had failed to intervene in time to prevent the collision. The National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report Tuesday that confirms some details of the May 7 collision, along with a photo that shows the car with its windshield flattened and most of its roof sheared off. The federal agency also included a photo of the big rig, circling an area on the right side of the tractor-trailer that showed the light damage the truck received from the collision. The 2015 Model S was moving at 74 mph, above the posted 65 mph speed limit, when it struck a 53-foot trailer being pulled by a Freightliner Cascadia truck. Tesla's semi-autonomous Autopilot driving feature was engaged, the report says.
So... it was going 74 mph at the time of the crash... was this after any kind of braking? What was the speed before any braking was applied?
(I'm going to take a guess it was a LOT over 74mph)
I typically drive 10 mph over the posted speed limit, both on freeways and on roads. IMHO, the posted speed limit is for either A) the driver with dementia who shouldn't be driving anyway, or B) some government that needs the speeding fines to balance their budget.
// please don't run over my cat
Go Los Angeles and there are some freeway offramps marked 25 MPH and, goddamit, they farking mean it oh holy shit will I make it. But as time goes on those honest speed limits get replaced with better intersections, but the speed limit stays the same.
Freeway speed limits should be 80. Non freeway speeds should be a good 10 MPH over what they are already.
/ my comment doesn't count for the road in front of my house
Traditional cruise control allows you to pick a constant speed, so I would expect it at least can do that. I would also expect the car has no way to know the posted speed limit of the road, thus the driver controls the speed of the car (that said, we have most of the pieces needed to make that work, and in fact I bet self-driving cars in testing do this, but for "semi-autonomous" I expect it's not worth the trouble to implement since any way you do it you need a bunch of extra equipment on the car to figure out what the speed limit is, which makes the feature more expensive... or the user can just set the proper speed himself for free.)
In the end it's the driver who is responsible for the actions of his car, as far as he can control them. The only things I can see wrong with autopilot with everything I've heard so far is the name, which may tempt a driver to assume it does more than it actually does, and the fact that giving a driver less things to concentrate on while driving can be dangerous in some cases if they still need to be able to react.
Why does this one death cause everyone to panic?
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I remember reading something from Tesla saying they found autopilot was not on, and had it been it would have stopped the car.
Different incident. There have been three in recent weeks. This is the fatality, where autopilot was on, didn't detect the truck, and the jackass was watching a Harry Potter DVD in the driver's seat. Hopefully he didn't have children, for their sake and for ours, so no one has lost their father and we get a Darwin Award nominee.
No I get it - my point is how can you call this an "autopilot" if it doesn't even read road signs or figure out speed limits from GPS location or something. It's more of a "tries keep the car in your lane" device. I know it's just a detail, but lawyers have won lawsuits for less.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So, did the truck turn in front of oncoming traffic? If so, why is this the Tesla's fault?
No I get it - my point is how can you call this an "autopilot" if it doesn't even read road signs or figure out speed limits from GPS location or something. It's more of a "tries keep the car in your lane" device. I know it's just a detail, but lawyers have won lawsuits for less.
Autopilot is exactly what it is ...
Wikipedia: An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of a vehicle without constant 'hands-on' control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not replace a human operator, but assist them in controlling the vehicle, allowing them to focus on broader aspects of operation, such as monitoring the trajectory, weather and systems.
and slows or stops if the vehicle in front of you decelerates.
But not, apparently, if a brick wall suddenly appears in front of you. Yes I agree that "autopilot" is a horrendous choice of name because "auto" and "automatic" imply autonomy, no matter how many clickthrough EULA's you shove in front of someone. I'm all in favor of Tesla but Musk should have realized that people can be really, really, REALLY stupid and this system needed to be idiot-tested a lot more before being released. I don't think an EULA or even a signed contract will save him when people have died.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The machines are already trying to kill us all - *runs away screaming*
The truck had been going the opposite direction and was making a left turn, so the car was travelling perpendicular to it.
Because it was the first in an "autonomous" car and it was in a situation that was trivial for a human to avoid.
I expect it's not worth the trouble to implement since any way you do it you need a bunch of extra equipment on the car to figure out what the speed limit is, which makes the feature more expensive
The car already has cameras and GPS, and uses both machine vision and mapping to determine the local speed limit. As of the beginning of this year, speed limits are enforced for residential and undivided roads. US27 is a divided highway, and thus the software only warns that you're speeding.
I think people are missing a rather big point here.
The NTSB is investigating the accident, and will post a reasonably fair and accurate assessment of what happened.
Tesla will make some changes to ensure that this type of accident is avoided in the future, and push at the next update.
All teslas will become safer because of the analysis. In effect, the collective software will have "learned" from a mistake and corrected. This is not something that the driver of a fatal accident can do, nor other non-involved drivers.
With enough data, enough mistakes and near-mistakes corrected, the software will quickly evolve to be safer than any human driver.
From a machine-learning perspective, this has enormous benefits.
I can see how the car could fail to see the rig since it sits high off the ground and might appear to be clear, especially when the trailer color is gray.
No higher off the ground from the side than it is from the back. I still think their algos needed serious amounts of work before being released. It's 2016 not 1916, there are consumer safety laws now, you can't get away with "it's your own damned fault, you were doing it wrong" anymore. Not as much, anyway. Yeah I know the driver has a big role in the blame game, but if you were allowed to get away with that then nothing would have safety features. Got caught in the industrial machinery? His fault for being a dumbass and putting his hand there... doesn't fly anymore.
And hiding under a technicality "oh he clicked an agreement and agreed to become a tester for our experimental software". OK. How many hours of training did he receive? What do you mean, none? The state rests.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The only problem with the terminology is that there is a disconnect between what the common person on the street thinks the capabilities of an autopilot is versus its actual capabilities. An actual autopilot is not much more than an airplane cruise control that maintains a preset altitude, heading, and airspeed, while the common perception is that it is essentially an autonomous robot pilot that can do everything up to and including dogfighting while the human pilot takes a nap.
Because soon there will be tens of millions of these cars on the road.
If there is a flaw in the system or the software, you now have tens of millions of malfunctioning missiles on the road.
It's 2016 not 1916, there are consumer safety laws now, you can't get away with "it's your own damned fault, you were doing it wrong" anymore.
See, that's the problem with people. We honestly need to expect a certain level of competency from people. There is something to be said for safety features, but you need to set an expectation on the user as well. You cannot expect the company to cover for every possible idiot.
FYI, there are now many maps showing what happened as well.
There's a good one here:
http://electrek.co/2016/07/01/...
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
citizen, we need to dissect you for the benefit of others; please report to the vivarium immediately.
You're referring to forced sacrifice, I was referring to accidental death.
There's no difference, in your view?
We honestly need to expect a certain level of competency from people.
No. We honestly need to expect a certain level of competency from ENGINEERS. People are allowed to be stupid. Way back in the days of the first air-brakes, they used air pressure to apply the brakes. What happened when the system failed and air pressure was lost? The brakes failed. Nowadays you design a system where you need air pressure to REMOVE the brake. Now if your system fails, the brakes are applied - orders of magnitude safer than no brakes. Electrical devices are grounded. Commercial jets can fly with only a single engine. Etc.
Fail safes are necessary because the universe and people don't always co-operate. So when the shit hits the fan, you try to kill as few people as possible. Just hacking something together and throwing it out to the public isn't good enough - that's irresponsible design. If a guy kills himself with your product you need to be able to show that he went to extreme lengths to do so.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Seriously, who cares if it was going over by 9 mph? How does that significantly impact anything (other than the car and the trailer)? This is red herring that is being chummed right now. This is not a significant data point, or shouldn't be. They should just shut the fuck up until the report is complete.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Stupid people are why my daughter's scooter has a single warning label on it: THIS PRODUCT MOVES WHEN USED.
People are in an automobile that doesn't drive itself, but for some reason think an autopilot will let them sleep during the trip. It's a sad part of reality that people with enough money to buy a Tesla can be so stupid as to not listen to any instruction or learn about the unique features of their purchase. Darwin Award indeed.
However, can we all agree that it is also incredible stupidity on Tesla's part to call this "Autopilot"?
As a Tesla owner, I do not agree. Tesla makes it abundantly clear what the capabilities and limitations are. Nobody that is actually using it has been misled.
No, I'm intimating that the Wikipedia definition is not the one used if you were to ask the general public.
No. It's the definition you would probably find in the manual for an airplane. It's called reality. Go ask a pilot if they sleep while autopilot is on. They could lose their license. And if that isn't enough, when you activate autopilot on a Tesla, you are warned that it requires an alert human driver. And if even that isn't enough, perhaps you might get the hint when the car keeps reminding you to keep your hand on the wheel if you haven't touched it in two minutes.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Why does this one death cause everyone to panic?
Who has panicked? Unless by "panic" you meant "engage in intense debate about the potential risks and rewards of a new and relatively unproven technology", but that's not a very common definition of that word.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
"if a brick wall suddenly appears in front of you."
It wasn't sudden. Look at the scene photos and the impact points on the vehicles. There were clear sight lines and the truck had to pull out over half it's length, which was quite a distance and trucks aren't exactly fast accelerators.
The crash avoidance system simply either didn't see the siltation developing from far enough away, or didn't recognise the situation as dangerous for many reasons that have to do with the limitations of the sensors used. Volvo had previously said that those sensors weren't good enough in all situations, and being the manufacturer with the most R&D into safety, and a history of sharing safety technologies and design guidelines with competing manufacturers, I'm inclined to believe them.
If the Tesla had a LIDAR system installed, it is entirely possible that this accident could have been avoided. Likewise if the driver had been paying attention the accident may have been avoided. However there is lots of research that shows that if people are merely passive monitors of technology, their attention wanders and their reaction times slow, so this situation was entirely predictable, and probably inevitable with the current Auto Pilot system as it stands today.
You either need to give the driver more to do, or need to be able to handle more situations automatically, which is the problem with Auto Pilot. It's in a kind of uncanny valley of driver assistance. It provides enough assistance, most of the time, that the driver starts to rely on it, but doesn't handle enough edge cases to be worthy of this trust when the driver needs it most.
I typically drive 10 mph over the posted speed limit, both on freeways and on roads. IMHO, the posted speed limit is for either A) the driver with dementia who shouldn't be driving anyway, or B) some government that needs the speeding fines to balance their budget.
Go Los Angeles and there are some freeway offramps marked 25 MPH and, goddamit, they farking mean it oh holy shit will I make it. But as time goes on those honest speed limits get replaced with better intersections, but the speed limit stays the same.
Freeway speed limits should be 80. Non freeway speeds should be a good 10 MPH over what they are already.
Lucky you're not in Australia.. I have been booked (via hidden camera) for doing 64km/h in a 60km/h zone (39.8mph in a 37.2 zone).
Police generally will pull you over if you're doing 10km/h over the limit (6.2 mph) as the fine doubles at that point.
15km/h over (9.3mph) triples the fine.
And I'm not just talking about police on traffic duty - any police car will pull you over if you're speeding.
If you get caught doing 25km/h over (15.5mph) that's an immediate loss of license.
Our highway / freeway limits (apart from some isolated stretches on interstate highways) are all 100km/h (62mph).
No. We honestly need to expect a certain level of competency from ENGINEERS. People are allowed to be stupid.
People can be as stupid or drunk or tired or half-blind as they like, LICENSED DRIVERS who operate two tons of metal travelling at 70+ mph need to take some damn responsibility for that. Thankfully he only won a Darwin award but if he'd killed somebody I'd call that a clear case of vehicular manslaughter which can land you in prison for a very long time. Drivers that can't do their part should hand in their license and wait for the real self-driving cars.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Indeed, had the semi-truck had side impact protection as in Europe, then the front of the Tesla would have been able to use its crumple zone as intended in a frontal crash. This might have saved the driver's life because the safety systems would of deployed.
I recommend that the USA implements side impact protection on all their trucks like in Europe.
A car is a dangerous machine and risk should be measured in a similar way and minimized. If you are going to put an "autopilot" into a vehicle then you must first a) ensure it works as intended, and b) ensures / forces driver attentiveness just in case you're wrong about a). If both these conditions are met then the car should be safer than a driver by themselves and the risk is minimized. If a) doesn't work as intended and b) the human is away with the fairies then you get a fatal road collision.
This is a forseeable consequence of a bad design and Tesla have enjoyed the bad press that goes with it. And yes "autopilot" is a misleading term that only compounds the risk.
Look at the way the trailer took the top of the car off while barely slowing it down. This shows how trailer under-run bars would have prevented this death. In Europe they are required, and we basically don't have this sort of side collision decapitation horror accident.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
Looks correct to me as neither of thoise definition say anythign about automatic avoidance of other craft/vehicles.
Looks like stupid people are just stupid.
+----------------- | What is the question!
Hmmm both those definitions agree and almost perfectly describe how autopilot works both in a Tesla and and aircraft. I fail to see the issue.
Except that Musk is a South African, and those assholes are shadier than a giant oak tree at midnight.
Considering you need light to cast a shadow, wouldn't an oak tree create less shade at night?
80mph = 128.747km/h. That's so bad for fuel efficiency, there should be no other reason as to make it illegal!
Besides the significant figure issue with your conversion (where did all of that extra precision come from??), the fuel efficiency of modern cars is more affected by transmission gearing than air resistance (at the speeds that we're talking about). My 15 year old car gets better fuel efficiency at 80 mph than at 55 mph, mostly because the last shift point is around 60 mph and the engine rpm are lower at 80 mph.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
People are making the predictable error of thinking this very new technology should be perfect. That's not a reasonable expectation. Newsflash: the first truly autonomous vehicles (which this IS NOT) are going to screw up sometimes. They're going to get people killed. They should, as a minimum standard to be allowed for use at all, get fewer people killed, but it's not going to be zero, and it's going to be a different set of people.
A lot of people aren't comfortable with giving up control over their car. While I'm not one of them (the day I never have to drive again, I'll be thrilled!), allowing the driver to make the decisions when they want to may be a requirement of a commercially viable product.
That speeding is unsafe.
You do know where those statistics come from right? Police investigate collisions, and if the car was doing even 1 km/hr over the posted limit, they check off "speeding" as one of the causes of the collision. As a result of the fact that the vast majority of cars are travelling over the posted speed limit at all times on public roads, the vast majority of collisions "have speed as a factor". This doesn't actually mean that reducing speed limits, or stricter enforcement of them, will make it any safer, but it's great for PR, which gives a social license to the police to operate more speed traps and for cities to lower speed limits further, all in an effort to bring in more income from fines.
Of course actual studies that look in to the effect of lowering speed limits, or increased enforcement, have never found a conclusive link to increased safety (for every study that shows there is, another study shows there isn't) But the fine revenue is just too lucrative...
This is a forseeable consequence of a bad design and Tesla have enjoyed the bad press that goes with it. And yes "autopilot" is a misleading term that only compounds the risk.
A previous article on /. indicated that the driver was reading/goofing/whatever on a phone/tablet and not paying attention. Eyes off road completely. Tesla doesn't deserve bad press for something if that is indeed the case.
I guess that means autopilot will require monitoring of the driver by video and audio, as well as a jet-style black box for data recovery in future autopilot cars.
Plus, we all know that this is only the beginning. When an auto-drive (autopilot) system is perfected years from now, there will be experiments / hacks on a daily basis to attempt to override/fail it. History repeats itself. History repeats itself. Histo...