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'Operational Limitations' In Tesla Model S Played a 'Major Role' In Autopilot Crash, Says NTSB (reuters.com)
Mr D from 63 writes from a report via Reuters: The chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Tuesday "operational limitations" in the Tesla Model S played a "major role" in a May 2016 crash that killed a driver using the vehicle's semi-autonomous "Autopilot" system. Reuters reported on Monday that the NTSB is expected to find that the system was a contributing factor because it allows drivers to avoid steering or watching the road for lengthy periods of time. The NTSB is also expected to find that Tesla Inc could have taken additional steps to prevent the system's misuse and will fault the driver for not paying attention. "Today's automation systems augment, rather than replace human drivers. Drivers must always be prepared to take the wheel or apply the brakes," NTSB Chairman Robert Sumalt said. The system could not reliably detect cross traffic and "did little to constrain the use of autopilot to roadways for which it was designed," the board said. Monitoring driver attention by measuring the driver's touching of the steering wheel "was a poor surrogate for monitored driving engagement." At a public hearing Tuesday on the crash involving Brown, NTSB said the truck driver and the Tesla driver "had at least 10 seconds to observe and respond to each other."
As autonomous cars get better and better, we'll see more and more accidents attributed to driver inattention
Not if we can have a system which is better at driving than a human. In fact, other than the "cool factor" I'm not sure I see the point of a semi-autonomous system which requires me to watch the road all the time since it is no different from driving myself and potentially a lot more annoying. Frankly, it sounds more like paying to debug a final system which will drive itself.
How would you monitor their engagement? Eye tracking? Manual corrections to the car's path/speed?
Well, with any automobile . . . the biggest mechanical danger is . . . "The Loose Nut Behind the Wheel" . . .
"Autopilots" are probably something that most "normal" drivers should not be using anyway. Hey, driving is a privilege, and not a right.
Hey, take someone who can't read the traffic signs and is abysmally clueless as to traffic laws . . . no wonder that stuff like this will happen more often. We'll just have to wait and see how the American lawyers will deal with this. They could kill self-driving cars . . . but then again . . . it would be more lucrative for them to milk the industry.
More and the weather at eleven . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The NTSB is also expected to find that Tesla Inc could have taken additional steps to prevent the system's misuse
Of course they could have taken additional steps to prevent the system's misuse before the crash because that's exactly what they did right after the crash.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
You can't have it both ways. Really, you can't. Either the car is driving or the person is driving. Expecting that a person will let the car drive AND ALSO stay 100% ready to take over is just not reality. If you are not the one in control, then your mind will not focus on it. Driving is boring enough as it is, expecting someone to babysit a semi-autonomous car is way beyond what we can expect people to do.
Just as an example, 9 years ago when I got my fully loaded Infiniti G37S with technology package, it was one of the first vehicles to have laser-controlled intelligent cruise control. It can match speeds of the cars in front and actively adjust, even brake if necessary. And just that ONE feature of driving assistance sounded like it would be very useful. OMG no. I tried many times to use it and found that just fully automated speed control was enough to disengage me from being an active driver. I could not adapt to it and ultimately decided I would never use it again. It was simply unsafe! Regular cruise control- no problem, I have to pay attention and I bump the speed up and down manually with the thumb control and take other action when necessary. But as soon as that was taken away from me, it became nearly impossible to stay attentive, even though I still had to steer!
Now, maybe different brains work differently and some people can handle semi-automation, but I know I can't. So don't even TRY to give me a car that can sorta drive itself and expect ME to be the ultimate failsafe... that just isn't going to happen. And I expect I am far, FAR from alone in this.
Yes, eye tracking is the obvious way. And the Tesla Model 3 has a camera in the rear view mirror area that faces back towards the inside of the car. AFAIK it's not used yet, but it's obvious use case is monitoring driver attention. They could deliver that in a future software update.
It's not quite so easy to spot a flock of birds taking off as you reach the critical speed from which you can no longer abort a take-off. The pilot flying the airplane (captain or F/O) does have his or her eyes outside during the take-off roll until lift-off, as this is a completely manual and visual phase. The other pilot is looking at engine parameters, airspeed and a few other instruments and just taking a few occasional glaces outside.
But once you're above the abort speed (v1), there's little you can do about birds. You can't just yank the airplane left or right to avoid them when you're doing 150 knots. We are actually advised not to change our flight path because the birds act in unpredictable ways and violent maneuvers may actually increase the chance of a bird strike with birds dashing off precisely in the same direction you decided to turn towards. Also, it's easier to react to an engine failure if the plane's path is nice and stable rather than while you're violently banking or pitching.
That semi-trailer is illegal Europe due to a lack of side impact protection which prevents cars from submarining under the trailer taking the car's roof off. Therefore, the crash was not a fluke but was due to poor trailer design because this crash is impossible in Europe.
Had side impact protection bars been fitted to the trailer then:
1. the Tesla's radar system would have had a better chance of detecting the trailer and triggering an emergency stop
2. on impact with the trailer, the Tesla's front crumple zone and air bags would have deployed helping to protect the driver
The driver still may not have survived due to the high deceleration but at least the safety systems (separate from auto-pilot) would have been used.