Slashdot Mirror
A Tesla on Autopilot Crashed Into a Parked Police Car (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
A Tesla vehicle in Autopilot mode collided with a parked police cruiser in California, authorities said. The Tesla sedan was driving outbound when it struck a parked Laguna Beach police car, the Laguna Beach police department said Tuesday. According to police, the driver in the Tesla sustained minor injuries. The police cruiser was empty of officers at the time of the crash. Laguna Polic1e Sgt. Jim Cota told the Los Angeles Times the police car "is totaled."
The police sergeant also told the Times that it was the same area where a Tesla crashed into a semi-truck last year, adding "Why do these vehicles keep doing that? We're just lucky that people aren't getting injured."
"Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn't make the car impervious to all accidents," Tesla responded in a statement, "and before a driver can use Autopilot, they must accept a dialogue box which states that 'Autopilot is designed for use on highways that have a center divider and clear lane markings.'"
Record producer Zedd also responded to the news by sharing on Twitter what he calls "the other side": I once fell asleep driving home late at night on the highway (w/ autopilot on) and got woken up by it beeping + turning off music to wake me up. Would have prob been dead without it... I didn't touch the steering wheel for a couple minutes and then it turned off the music and started beeping. Elon Musk responded to the tweet, "Glad you're ok!"
The police sergeant also told the Times that it was the same area where a Tesla crashed into a semi-truck last year, adding "Why do these vehicles keep doing that? We're just lucky that people aren't getting injured."
"Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn't make the car impervious to all accidents," Tesla responded in a statement, "and before a driver can use Autopilot, they must accept a dialogue box which states that 'Autopilot is designed for use on highways that have a center divider and clear lane markings.'"
Record producer Zedd also responded to the news by sharing on Twitter what he calls "the other side": I once fell asleep driving home late at night on the highway (w/ autopilot on) and got woken up by it beeping + turning off music to wake me up. Would have prob been dead without it... I didn't touch the steering wheel for a couple minutes and then it turned off the music and started beeping. Elon Musk responded to the tweet, "Glad you're ok!"
Fords have killed tens of people today and do every day. On any typical day, more than 100 people die in the U.S. from auto accidents while riding in brands other than Tesla. In contrast, a handful of people have died in Teslas.
There are presumably a lot more Fords on the road than Teslas.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
How many humans crashed into parked cars on Tuesday?
How many human drivers safety passed that cop car without ramming into it?
You can let a plane or a boat follow a heading and most of the time everything is fine. Autopilot simply keeps you from drifting off course due to winds or currents.
What Tesla is selling clearly isn't autopilot in anything like that sense. They're using 'autopilot' as a 'high tech' marketing term and letting people believe the car can do things it really can't. To make matters worst, Tesla is also letting 'drivers' not pay attention to what's going on for long periods of time, reinforcing the idea that the car do more than it really can. So as far as this specific crash is concerned, it likely wouldn't have happened if not for Tesla's negligence.