Online Videos Shame Two Sleeping Tesla Drivers (jalopnik.com)

Electrek reports: A Tesla Model S driver in Southern California was caught on camera seemingly asleep at the wheel while driving on Autopilot... Kevin Paschal from Southern California shared the video on Facebook and said about the incident: "Highlight of my day. Dude is passed out on the freeway in his Tesla and still driving better than 90% of SoCal, lol... Dude was perfectly centered in his lane the whole time and maintained a safe distance from all vehicles...."

In this case, it looks like the driver has at least one hand over the bottom half of the steering wheel, which could be enough to avoid any Autopilot alert -- thought that's not always the case. Paschal said that the driver was like that for "several miles" and when asked why he didn't honk to attempt to wake him or get him to pay attention, he wrote, "I'm not sure the car would have cared...."

You should definitely attempt to wake the driver up if it can be done safely. As for the driver falling asleep, there are basically two schools of thoughts here. One could say that the driver would have fallen asleep anyway, as drivers do, and Autopilot actually made the situation a lot safer. Others would argue that the convenience aspect of Tesla's Autopilot might have actually contributed to putting the driver to sleep.
BGR also reports on a second incident where "If anything, the Tesla driver in the video is so relaxed that he's not even at the wheel; he's full-on reclining."

"This is why I personally think Level 2 autonomy is a bad idea," warns Jalopnik. "If it's possible for a moron like this to sleep while the car is driving at highway speeds, that's a huge problem."

Comments

Auto driving will save lives

[Bruce66423]

Better that than dozing off without autopilot.

This is the fact that the populist human first sceptics should admit to. Given that, these sorts of stories aren't a problem; as the quote admits, the car was driving safely.

Re:Auto driving will save lives

[AmiMoJo]

While I sympathise with his situation, he could kill someone. In the UK he would have been banned from driving as soon as this condition was diagnosed. It sucks but at least in the UK there would be an obligation by his employer to try to accommodate him, e.g. by allowing him to work from home or allowing reduced working hours so that he could commute on public transport more easily.

AP wouldn't be that much help anyway, as you have to activate it. If he blacks out while it's turned off then it won't do anything beyond the basic forward collision avoidance that is pretty much standard (mandatory?) on all new cars.

Until we get to level 5 autonomy these technologies cannot be used as a substitute for safe driving.

Autopilot made this news.

[SuricouRaven]

If the car didn't have autopilot and he fell asleep, and crashed into another car at highway speed killing five people, then it wouldn't even make local news. Novel things make the news, and car accidents are routine - no-one cares about that continuous death toll any more, it's become background noise. But Tesla autopilot? That's new! Exciting! Scary! That gets covered.

Speed limits set too low cause similar problems

[olddoc]

On well designed, safe highways It can be very boring to drive at low speed limits like 55MPH or 100KPH. I feel more alert when I drive with the flow of traffic which is often 20% higher than posted limits in the eastern USA. When the job is too boring it's hard for humans to maintain alertness and vigilance.