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Tesla Owner Attempts Autopilot Defense During DUI Stop (arstechnica.com)
It turns out driving drunk is still illegal, even with a driver-assistance system active. "On Saturday, January 13, police discovered a man in his Tesla vehicle on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge," reports Ars Technica. "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that 'the man had apparently passed out in the stopped car while stuck in the flow of busy bridge traffic at 5:30pm, according to the California Highway Patrol." From the report: When police woke the man up, he assured officers that everything was fine because the car was "on autopilot." No one was injured in the incident, and the California Highway Patrol made a snarky tweet about it. Needless to say, other Tesla owners -- and people who own competing systems like Cadillac's Super Cruise -- should not follow this guy's example. No cars on the market right now have fully driverless technology available. Autopilot, Supercruise, and other products are driver assistance products -- they're designed to operate with an attentive human driver as a backup. Driving drunk using one of these systems is just as illegal as driving drunk in a conventional car.
My fear is that once cars are fully automated, cops will still claim you need to be sober to operate them, and being near your car with the keys will still be worth $25,000 in fines and legal fees.
Yes, he was passed out and the car wasn't moving. Under California law, that's still drunk driving. A friend of mine had his car conk out just as he left the Bay Bridge. He was able to roll it over to the curb, park it, and call a tow truck. A CHP officer beat the tow truck to the scene, though, and determined my friend had been drinking. Because he was still sitting in the car while he waited for the tow, he was charged with a DUI in a car that was motionless and would not even start if he tried.
So don't drink and drive, m'kay?
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"Autopilot saves drunk drivers' life". Assuming he would have driven either way (drunks usually do), if he hadn't had autopilot on when he passed out, the car wouldn't have driven for a few minutes on its own, then pulled slowly to a stop and put the blinkers on. He would just have crashed. Possibly into another car.
Santa Ana Winds: Like the Dustbowl, but with awards shows.
But there will be cars that can drive unattended in some conditions and locations, but not everywhere, and I'm curious how it will be treated.
They'd be treated as the laws and courts decide. Laws and courts can be arbitrary, but they often are reasonable.
I'd expect that:
* If the self-driving algorithms are recognized as smart enough to pull over, safely park, and insist a driver take over if things are getting to hairy for them, letting the auto-pilot run the car while you're impaired would be fine (provided you don't try to take over if the autopilot doesn't trust itself, or launch it into a situation where you should have known that the algorithms might fail.)
* Riding impaired when a "reasonable and prudent" (and non-impaired) person would trust the autopilot would be OK.
* Letting the auto-pilot take you to a medical facility when you're too out-of-it to drive yourself, as well, would not just be OK but in some cases would let your case win on the "necessity defence" even if the law prohibits it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Just like your typing 'assistant'
Having an automated system doesn't mean you don't have to use the preview function before posting.
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A system which functions to assist the driver ("pilot") should instead be named after a person capable of driving (flying) without assistance from the driver (pilot)? Perhaps you should rethink that. Or possible, just think.
Co-pilot suggests it helps, autopilot suggests it does it for you.
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