Tesla Owner in Autopilot Crash Won't Sue, But Car Insurer May (bloomberg.com)

Dana Hull, reporting for Bloomberg: A Texas man said the Autopilot mode on his Tesla Model S sent him off the road and into a guardrail, bloodying his nose and shaking his confidence in the technology. He doesn't plan to sue the electric-car maker, but his insurance company might. Mark Molthan, the driver, readily admits that he was not paying full attention. Trusting that Autopilot could handle the route as it had done before, he reached into the glove box to get a cloth and was cleaning the dashboard seconds before the collision, he said. The car failed to navigate a bend on Highway 175 in rural Kaufman, Texas, and struck a cable guardrail multiple times, according to the police report of the Aug. 7 crash. "I used Autopilot all the time on that stretch of the highway," Molthan, 44, said in a phone interview. "But now I feel like this is extremely dangerous. It gives you a false sense of security. I'm not ready to be a test pilot. It missed the curve and drove straight into the guardrail. The car didn't stop -- it actually continued to accelerate after the first impact into the guardrail." Cozen O'Connor, the law firm that represents Molthan's auto-insurance carrier, a unit of Chubb Ltd., said it sent Tesla Motors Inc. a notice letter requesting joint inspection of the vehicle, which has been deemed a total loss.

Comments

It seems pretty clear who to blame

[hawguy]

"he reached into the glove box to get a cloth and was cleaning the dashboard seconds before the collision"

The Tesla has a clear warning that "autopilot" is not "self-driving", so the driver should have been paying attention to the road, not digging through the glovebox and cleaning the dashboard.

Re: It seems pretty clear who to blame

[Ralgha]

Actually, airplane autopilots are capable of navigating an entire route, both vertically and laterally, without input from the pilot (after programming and engaging it of course). The difference is that pilots don't blindly trust it like some of these car morons do.

Re:It seems pretty clear who to blame

[hawguy]

So, how does the Tesla autopilot differ from a regular car that does not have such feature? In both you need to pay attention to the road, presumably the same. So why use autopilot at all?

I asked a guy I know who drives a P90 the same question - he said he uses it for several reasons. One, he feels that it gives him a level of safety above his own capabilities, if he sneezes or is otherwise distracted, he likes knowing that the car *may* be able to take over (which is quite a bit better than a standard car which cannot take over at all), also he said that as he ages, he feels that his reflexes are getting slower, so he likes that the car is watching over his driving. Second, his uncle died after a stroke while driving with his wife, the stroke didn't kill him, but running off the road killed both him and his wife, if he'd been in a self driving car, it's likely that the car would have just continued driving until it sensed that he was no longer in control and pulled off the road. And last, he likes that his use of auto-pilot gives Tesla real-world feedback on the system so they can improve it, so that by the time he's ready to give up driving, his car will be fully auto-drive capable. He said that due to this last point, he enables auto-pilot as much as possible.

And he added that anyone that thinks it can drive the car unattended is an idiot.

Lol

[waspleg]

"But now I feel like this is extremely dangerous.

No fucking shit, it always was.

It gives you a false sense of security.

Sounds like wealth redistribution - Darwin style.

I'm not ready to be a test pilot.

Well, obviously you should have been since wanting to be an early adopter of a nascent technology that hasn't been thoroughly vetted at all to DRIVE YOUR FUCKING CAR sure sounds like test pilot to me.

Probably get modded down. Don't give a fuck. I think this shit will/has been pushed out the door too early because money. Wait til it kills someone else.

There are lawyers with erections they're not even sure how they got right now.

Re:Lol

[Aighearach]

But Elon promised us it was safer than human driving!

It can both be safer than humans while still not being perfect. I only expect that over time self driving cars will reduce accidents, not eliminate them. Anytime you're moving at high speed there's an element of risk.

Actually it can be buggy as hell and still be safer than these humans, because outside of the mistakes the feedback loops will be fast and accurate. Only a small percentage of human drivers have fast, accurate reflexes that are engaged for the same percentage of the time.

Re:Driver or Autopilot?

[Nethemas the Great]

Not certain. The guy claimed he was reaching into the glove box. It's not inconceivable that he accidentally bumped or held the steering wheel thus overriding the autopilot. Tesla might have some more black box goodness forthcoming to entertain us.

Re:Splitting Musk's Pubic Hairs Pretty Fine There

[geek]

What makes you think that "autopilot" will drive your car with no input from you? .

Because the "auto" in "autopilot" stands for "automatic" as in, done automatically without user interaction. Bitch all you want, thats just the fucking facts. It's also not an airplane, it's a car that might hit fucking guardrails and other vehicles in midair. Musk is a fucking idiot to think people wouldn't use it like this. Period.

Re:Driver or Autopilot?

[wonkey_monkey]

He's not going to sue. I find that highly suspicious. In America, everybody sues over things like spilled hot coffee, poodles in microwaves and confusing the gas and break pedal. So if he is not going to sue, he has something to hide.

Or maybe, just maybe, he's an honest person who's already admitted that he wasn't paying attention which Tesla tells you to do while using auto-pilot.

If the accident was his fault, he can't afford that to happen.

It was his fault. He's practically admitted as much.

Feedback Loop

[brunes69]

I am getting really sick of the media and others bashiing self-driving technology when they can't see the forest for the trees - no new technology is ever perfect. When commercial air travel first started in the 20s, crashes happened all the time - it was extremely dangerous by modern standards, and even more dangerous than current car travel. Air travel is now by orders of magnitude the safest way to travel on earth - how did that come to be? It came to be because the regulation ensured that accidents were investigated, root cause analysis done, and whatever deficiency was found was addressed.

This is the exact same thing that will happen with self-driving technology, except that it will happen at an EXPONENTIALLY faster pace.

Yes, people will get into accidents with self-driving cars. Yes, people will die. Anyone who does not think this is going to happen is living behind a reality distortion field. However, what happens with self-driving technology is that every single accident gives the opportunity to push software updates out to make EVERY CAR instantly safer. This is simply not the case with human drivers - when a human driver causes an accident, there is no feedback loop that makes all other human drivers safer.

Re:Feedback Loop

[rch7]

Nobody bashes self-driving technology. People bash swindlers who sell adoptive cruise control as cutting edge "self-driving", so that they would be able to sell new stock for billions each year. There is nothing "self driving" in it, but some brainwashed fanboys still imagine that they are getting close to "self driving" with this technology and play Russian roulette with people lives around, that is the whole problem.

Re: Driver or Autopilot?

[gzuckier]

Slightly reminiscent of those "sudden unintended acceleration" cases a while back, the audi ones, before drive by wire confused things. When the driver claims he was standing on the brake pedal but the car just leapt forward, and there is no way the engine could overpower the brake, and the gas pedal is bent from being stood on forcefully and the brake pedal isn't, you kind of have to entertain the possibility of driver error, no matter how certain the driver is of his innocence.
in this case he's not disputing the possibility.