Tesla that killed motorcyclist was in Full Self-Driving mode Washington State Patrol investigators have found that the Tesla involved in the death of a motorcyclist on Friday, April 19, 2024 was operating in Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode. According to state patrol communications director Chris Loftis, the case is still being actively investigated. "But our criminal investigative …
"Despite wishful-thinking terminology like "Full-Self Driving" and "Autopilot," any such system presently active in commercially available vehicles on US roads is intended to assist a human driver."
Mercedes has a system which is SAE level 3 under certain limited circumstances: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23892154/mercedes-benz-drive-pilot-autonomous-level-3-test
I said nothing about the Musk marketing hype! And it goes beyond 'offering to assist' - it's offering to 'completely take over' responsibility for driving the car.
But in the real world, yes, level 3 automation (computer drives car, unsupervised) does exist in certain limited circumstances, and Mercedes and others will be working to expand those circumstances and range of speeds it works at etc.
I have serious doubts whether Tesla will ever get to level 3 (at least with existing vehicles) because of some of the hardware decisions they've made.
And - absolutely regardless of anything the car or manufacturer claims it can do - the driver is still responsible unless it explicitly says otherwise in the local law.
Pretending that just because Mercedes/Tesla/BMW/Ford/whoever says it's autonomous makes it fine to just "not drive" when in control of a vehicle is a nonsense that feeds into Musk's rhetoric.
Until the law clearly says that you cannot be held liable, that death is on you as a driver.
Are you a lawyer?
Because that strikes me as an interesting take, but not a legal one.
The law is sometimes pretty ambiguous, and this is one of those cases. If you're sitting in a car with a system that's been advertised as capable of driving itself with no driver attention required, you may very well legally NOT be a "driver" at all, and therefore not liable for any accident. The car manufacturer would assume liability in that case, whether they wanted to or not.
Like most questions of law, the real answer is "it depends" - and your absolutist take is unhelpful. Given how rarely the law "clearly" says anything, your assertion is unlikely to ever be valid.
I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV. However, I DO drive a Tesla and have tried the FSD system. The technology is impressive, but Tesla makes in clear IN THE APP that it's SUPERVISED self driving.
No matter what system the car has the driver is solely and wholly responsible for what its doing.
No one needs to be a lawyer to know that they remain legally required to be in full control of their vehicle.
And if they enter the vehicle and and activate it they are that driver.Irrespective of which country and legal code you are in ( the the best of my knowledge anyway, but certainly USA and European nations)
In the same way that ignorance of the law is not a defence, you are expected to be aware of the laws that relate to your conduct.
I do not need to be. I'm a licenced driver and understand the laws by which I'm held. There is no ambiguity here, not in any jurisdiction I'm aware of. Unless you have it in law that you're NOT the responsible driver in such a vehicle, then you are.
And there is no law or case-law in the vast majority of the world (some small test areas for certain vehicle which even then have human oversight and intervention, and no, Tesla "FSD" is NOT one of them) to suggest that a human driver is NOT ultimately responsible. There are times where the accident is "unavoidable", for both, but the responsibility is always on the driver.
The acid-test? Put a 10-year-old in the driving seat, have them turn on "FSD" to navigate to the police station, ring ahead to get them to press the button to send him back, and then explain to the police/courts afterwards.
No licence? Then you can't drive an "FSD" car. Why are you needing to be licenced if you don't have responsibility?
No insurance? Same.
If it was THE CAR'S RESPONSIBILITY, the above would be a perfectly legal and viable method, because the person in the seat would not be responsible, nor need to be responsible.
Until it's legal for you to press a button and a send a empty car with a pizza box out on delivery, or a small child to school on their own, it's entirely the responsibility of the driver and, thus, not self-driving.
To my knowledge, only small tests for things like Waymo (which ultimately stopped testing after a fatality WITH a responsible human "safety driver" in the driving seat), in limited areas, for limited periods, for limited models, for limited purposes have ever allowed self-driving cars, and they come under entirely different laws.
For reference, Tesla "FSD" has none of the above exceptions in law, they expressly tell you that you're responsible when driving them. Even their "Boring Tunnel" cars have a human driver.
I never said it was "full self-driving" nor did I define what that term means.
I simply said - correctly - that the Mercedes system takes full responsibility for driving the vehicle, under a limited set of circumstances. While it's doing so, the driver is free to play games, watch videos, read a book, and generally cease paying attention to the road. And as the article I linked describes, it doesn't require the driver to intervene "at a moments notice"; rather, it offers an escalating series of alerts when it gets outside the parameters for level 3 automation, as it's supposed to do.
I don't understand the negativity and number of thumbs-downs my comments have attracted here - I'm just pointing out a minor error of fact in the story.
I think the problem people are having with your post is that while the Mercedes you mention might indeed be capable of taking full responsibility for driving, the driver is not legally free to "generally cease paying attention". As others have said, just because the technology can do it, that doesn't make it legal.
There is a general principle in countries that derive their legal system from common law, and that is present in most 'relatively free' countries:
That which is not explicitly illegal is legal.
What defines a "driver" can be pretty ambiguous, and whether someone is "driving" isn't generally as simply defined as "the person sitting behind the steering wheel".
Except there's nothing strawman about it.
Take your hands off the wheel of most cars on a curve, physics takes over and the car will almost certainly crash. That's no longer true. The "who was driving?" question has been muddied, it's now "who or what was driving?"
At least in many states in the US, the law is at most ambiguous. There are a few where a human would be explicitly defined as driving even if the car was in control, but there are lots of others where any even vaguely competent lawyer could show that the person behind the wheel was not, in fact, legally responsible for the behavior of the car.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want Turdlas out there killing bikers, particularly as I'm one of the bikers. But I DO want the appropriate party held responsible, and it's not the human behind the wheel, it's the neo-Nazi running the Turdla company.
> What defines a "driver" can be pretty ambiguous, and whether someone is "driving" isn't generally as simply defined as "the person sitting behind the steering wheel".
No, it isn't ambiguous. There is plenty of case law around it.
For example, a Pilot on ship (as in a harbour pilot) is the one legally in charge of the navigation of that ship, and bears the responsibility for the 'steerage' of that vessel, despite an normal crew-member actually manning the 'wheel' and doing the actual course inputs into the controls under direction of the pilot.
The captain of an airplane is legally responsible for the 'piloting' of that aircraft whether the 2nd officer (co-pilot) is flying, or the autopilot is turned on, or the captain is actually the one at the controls.
Another example, if there is a learner-driver in the drivers seat, the licensed driver supervising them in the front passenger seat is legally the 'driver in charge' of the vehicle. They can be charged with any violations made by the learner-driver - speeding, reckless driving, etc. If the supervising driver has above whatever the local BAC limits specify as 'drunk driving, they can be charged a DUI despite the fact they aren't behind the wheel, the learner-driver is the one behind the wheel.
There is no ambiguity under the law as to who is in charge of a vehicle. The ambiguity only enters when non-lawyers use common-use language terms in casual english (or whatever your language is) such as 'the driver'.
No matter what driver-aids are in use, the legal driver (i.e. a human) who holds the license to operate such a vehicle and is thus the one 'in control' whether physically touching the wheel and pedals or sitting in the passenger seat supervising a non-fully-licensed (e.g. a learner-license) driver or sitting in their living room using a remote-control to control the vehicle, is responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle.
If the licensed person in charge of the operation of a vehicle doesn't want to take the responsibility of a supervisee's mistakes (e.g. a learner), then the they are free to choose to never supervise a learner-driver. In the same way, if the operator in charge of the vehicle doesn't want to take the responsibilty of the operation of the driver aids in the vehicle, they are free to not engage those driver aids - just leave them off - or to not operate a vehicle in them if they can't be turned off.
Ah yes, because ACTUAL maritime law is so incredibly similar to driving law.
You're full of shit, and you're making up more shit.
Now, it's not impossible that UK road vehicle law is maritime law, I'm not an expert. But US road laws are not even remotely related to maritime law. And the only people who bring up maritime law when it comes to cars here are the sovcit idiots.
No, there's no "driver in charge" like the concept of "pilot in charge" in the sky. It's simply NOT part of the law in the US. A car is not a ship or plane, the rules evolved more from horse law than ship law, and... shocker here... horses are somewhat self driving. In many US states you can't get a DUI on a horse, the 'conveyance's' capabilities are taken into account.
> > No, there's no "driver in charge" like the concept of "pilot in charge" in the sky.
Some may be surprised to find themselves being charged with a DUI offense if they allow their child with a driver’s permit to safely drive home if they’ve consumed too many beers or had too many glasses of wine at a dinner party. ...
Before reaching their destination, the underaged driver crashed, crushing Abbagail. The father was subsequently charged with criminal negligence and spent six months in jail. ...
Found in N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-12.1(a), it’s been determined that it’s unlawful for a licensed driver over the age of 18 to act as a supervising driver under G.S. 20-7(l) or G.S. 20-11 while having a blood alcohol concentration over 0.08 percent or under the influence of an impairing substance.
Note the use in the law of the phrase "supervising driver", which in casual-english-speak would be interchangeable with the phrase "driver in charge".
For example, a Pilot on ship (as in a harbour pilot) is the one legally in charge of the navigation of that ship, and bears the responsibility for the 'steerage' of that vessel, despite an normal crew-member actually manning the 'wheel' and doing the actual course inputs into the controls under direction of the pilot.
In fact, as the case of the boat that got stuck in the Suez Canal demonstrated, the captain is still ultimately responsible too. They can/should override the pilot's decision. In theory.
Well, as the article points out, it's legal in the states where it's currently offered - California and Nevada. Although there are quirks there - it's legal to read a book, for example, in California, because that's not specifically outlawed - but it IS illegal to make a phone call there, because the current cellphone law in CA doesn't provide an exception for 'but the car was driving itself!' - I expect quite a few of these oddities to come up as technology progresses.
To be "Musked" means to be hoodwinked.
Musked Definition:
Simple past tense and past participle of musk.
Musk Definition:
A substance with a strong, penetrating odor, obtained from a small sac (musk bag) under the skin of the abdomen in the male musk deer.
Yea, that works as it stinks.
God forbid that there might be consequences for driving your two ton high speed battering ram in a way that results in someone being killed. Vehicles are dangerous and it is up to the driver to make sure that it is being used safely. If there were real consequences for dangerous driving, fewer people might do it, but the public (and often the courts) seem to see being a driver as a get-out-of-jail-free card for any carnage inflicted by them.
Well the trouble in this case is that the human was led to believe that the machine could handle most if not all of the driving activity itself, and apparently had no idea what its limitations were. Maybe it performed well in most situations and he gained confidence in its ability and eventually (erroneously) thought he could take his own eye off the road (after all, what else is the point of the tech)
Ensuring safety by supervising a driver is hard thing to do, much harder than driving the car yourself - there are humans (driving instructors) trained to do it, but even they would struggle if they cannot see where the student is looking, what actions they are beginning to take, cannot talk to them, etc.
No. In this case the driver is attempting to avoid consequences for *his* decision.
It's illegal to engage that mode in the state of Washington. Regardless, the driver engaged it. He's responsible for the death.
The marketing from Tesla says what it does because it's available in a number of jurisdictions. No doubt some jurisdictions have different laws on this.
Which is why there's also the legalese saying you still have to follow the law wherever you are, and it's *your* job to find out what the law is.
I suspect a lot of this is setting up for the "wrongful death" civil lawsuit from the heirs of the motorcyclist. With "joint and several liability", as long as Tesla is found even 1% liable, Tesla would have to pay out on whatever enormous sum the suit is for while the Tesla driver skates.
I'm of the opinion that the frequent Musk mantra of "go fast and (don't worry about when you) break things" is actually a bad idea when said things are moving at highway speeds. Tesla continuing to sell it as "Full Self-Driving" is at least a factor in the decision-making process of bad drivers who thought they bought a car that's better at driving than them.
FSD's available in many jurisdictions, but isn't any more truly "full self-driving" in legal jurisdictions than elsewhere. It can't be, there are not enough of the right kind of sensors on a Tesla to do it safely. (see... this crash and several others, for examples).
"Well the trouble in this case is that the human was led to believe that the machine could handle most if not all of the driving activity itself"
If that is the case (rather than the driver simply going rogue by their own volition), then Tesla should also be prosecuted. The analogy is a person in the passenger seat convincing the driver to do something illegal and them therefore being jointly responsible for the consequences. In this analogy, Tesla is the passenger encouraging the driver.
I'll be flamed for this (as usual, see: icon flamesuit) but for me it's not that at all.
[grump mode, activated]
By now, especially if you are a Tesla owner, *certainly* you must have heard / know that to believe "Autopilot" in fully autonomous is a joke. How many accidents, how much media coverage, how many people have to DIE before people accept the personal responsibility of clicking "Autopilot" on a Tesla dashboard but believe you don't have to oversee, pay attention, and still drive the damn car when required??
For me, it's like the people still suing Phillip-Morris for their tobacco-induced cancers. The U.S. Surgeon General started saying that tobacco was hazardous in 1964
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/health/surgeon-general-warnings-history.html
but you *still* want to claim ignorance?! My own father quit smoking when his children were born in the '60's because he wanted to be around for us.
Take some damn personal responsibility - you made the choice, live [or die] with it. RTFM the Tesla manual even states that you must still be active in driving but oh no, you want to believe otherwise. Now someone [else] is DEAD, you can *never* take that back, and yes, the advertising says "Autopilot" but the fine print doesn't, as well as pretty much every media outlet on planet Earth.
Ignore at your (and everyone else's!) peril. Stop pointing fingers, you've heard the truth about Autopilot but personally chose to ignore it all, because.
What should the courts do? Force Tesla to stop calling it "Autopilot", for a start. Fraudulent claim, for one. Then, expect anyone who does otherwise to accept that *they* made the decision to read a book while they drive.
A world full of children, can't even take the responsibility to keep driving when they need to. Take a damn bus if it's too hard for you.
I'm inclined to agree. The driver is at fault for the accident. Tesla and Musk are at fault for making misleading and false claims about FSD, but AIUI the Tesla owner's manual explicitly says the driver has to be attentive and ready to take control at all times. This driver wasn't, and so is at fault.
Tesla and Musk might be separately prosecuted for false advertising, but if the owner's manual says you have to pay attention while using FSD, then the driver has no excuse. (And, no, "I didn't read the manual" is not an excuse.)
IMHO this is a critical point. You can put whatever you like in a manual / agreement / etc... It is still over-ruled by local laws and regulations. The mere fact that these clauses are not explicitly isolated requiring a specific signature for each restriction make's Tesla's legal position precarious.
As bullies the world over have discovered, by the time the legal process gets to them, they have long skipped the jurisdiction.
Take some damn personal responsibility - you made the choice, live [or die] with it.
If the Tesla driver was the only casualty, fair enough. in this case the Tesla driver walks away, and an apparently innocent motorcyclist is in a box. And in terms of taking responsibility, It's no help to the motorcyclist or their friends or family if the Tesla driver is sent down.
Having said that, I'm a bit conflicted in my thinking. As reported it seems a clear cut case that Musko's self driving car is not as safe as we might want and no one round here is surprised. But to advance technology, you can't let perfection be the enemy of the good. Look at vaccines - proven to save lives, yet almost always with rare adverse effects on a minority. In this case I'd have thought that regulators should have by now established where and when self driving is safer than meatsacks, and if that is the case then it's probably acceptable (albeit only at a societal level) that self driving cars could be a good thing.
I think self-driving cars can be a good thing. I expressed so yesterday in these forums. However, what Tesla has, and for that matter all the other things that an individual consumer can buy, are not self-driving and it's important that we make this clear. There may be a time where some cars are safe enough to be driven by software, but that time is not now. Right now, the perfect isn't being the enemy of the good. The perfect and the extremely bad are teaming up to be the enemy of the good. If people keep seeing the stories of supposedly "full self driving" vehicles killing pedestrians, passengers, child-sized mannequins, and everything else that Teslas can't prevent themselves from hitting, then the public is going to believe that self-driving vehicles are a misnomer and never will be safe. This means that we should do two things.
The first is preventing anyone from saying, suggesting, or implying that their car can drive by itself when it cannot. That means that level 4, I.E. the user's attention is not required at all during automated driving, at least, is required before using any of these terms. Perhaps this will need to be extended to level 5. Second, that people who enable features that are not self-driving should be as liable for damage caused as anything else. They can turn around and sue the manufacturer if they want, though they'll probably find it hard because they now have a manual full of paraphrases of "yes, we lied about the self-driving", but they can try. The manufacturers should be liable for selling a product using deceptive tactics, but the driver needs to be liable for using them in a dangerous way.
All the human did was say "ok, you drive now".
..and they are responsible for the consequences of their decisions. No-one is claiming that Tesla have implemented a self-aware conscious entity therefor the driver has simply switched on a machine. A machine cannot be responsible for its actions therefore the driver is.
If you pick up a gun and pull the trigger you can't blame the gun if someone is injured or killed.
Human made the decision to to run the risk of driving with that feature. Human knows they are responsible for what their property does in any way it effects others and the property of others. Human should receive vehicular manslaughter as there's no intent and it was an accident but Somebody died from his property and poor judgment operatimg under his drivers license.
It just had a software update, and by the feel of it, OFF for Lane Assist now actually means 'switch to lane assist light' as -despite ALWAYS being disabled by me- I can now still feel it react when I cross a white line (which I have to as it's kinda hard to get off a motorway otherwise).
Time to ring the garage and register it as a fault.
And get them to accept responsibility for RSI.
The vehicle shouldn't 'encourage' the driver to indicate - it should be a conscious decision to do so, or not, based on observation and circumstance (as Roadcraft and advanced driver training teach). It shouldn't be a reflex action. As I was told on a ROSPA assessment, "why indicate when entering a motorway from the sliproad - where else would you be going?".
The driver in the lane you're pulling into may not know whether the slip road terminates or becomes an additional lane (or just unaware that it's a junction at all), so they may assume that as you're not indicating the lane must continue and that you're staying there.
Yes, people are stupid. It's best to drive assuming that all other drivers are stupid and give them as many clues as possible.
It's best to drive assuming that all other drivers are stupid, too
Here, corrected that for you. Even though I do consider myself as an above-average driver (as as least 95% of all drivers do...), I don't know how many times I had the luck to encounter other, more attentive drivers to react well to whatever stupidity I was pulling off.
Joining a motorway is legally the same as turning left when you join another road from a T-junction - it's going from (slip) road A onto (motorway) road B.
The increased speeds involvedmay require everyone within quarter of a mile approaching the merge point to react to any of the vehicles in front doing something 'odd'. So yes, I also indicate when joining a motorway because the point of indicating is to warn other drivers of your intent to do something and as we all know - sometimes s*** can happen really fast.
"I also indicate when joining a motorway because the point of indicating is to warn other drivers of your intent to do something"
And in addition to warning the attentive, the flashing amber indicator draws attention, so that there's a better chance for an inattentive driver to spot the joining vehicle. Simply because there's no other likely option than you joining the carriageway doesn't mean that all other drivers have clocked your presence or your intentions.
II doubt RoSPA would publicly associate themselves with the idea that drivers joining a motorway shouldn't indicate.
Indicating gently on a slip road alerts the driver holding right of way on the motorway that you are there - they may then choose to make it easier for you to merge onto the motorway. But it's their right of way, not the car entering, who is required to wait, just as at any junction. Any half way decent human being on the motorway, approaching a junction will make it easier for approaching vehicles on the slip road to merge.But they don't all. Some can't. or won't. So you wait.
The driver in the lane you're pulling into may not know whether the slip road terminates
They damn well ought to! It's part of the basic motorway driving craft [1]. Likewise, (if able) moving to the middle lane to allow people to merge onto the motorway. Likewise, when coming onto the motorway, make sure you are up to speed so that you are not doing 50mph and pulling into a stream of traffic doing 70+.
And, while we are at it - looking 100m+ ahead to see what the traffic situation is up ahead rather thamn zooming up being a lorry then pulling out into the next lane without looking.
It's best to drive assuming that all other drivers are stupid and give them as many clues as possible
Speaking as an (ex) motorcyclist that's largely a futile effort. I idicate when it's appropriate (ie if there is anyone that my manouver will affect) rather than robotically doing it "because the highway code says so"
[1] I still firmly believe that motorway access shouldn't be an automatic right when you pass your test. It's a quite different set of skills to standard urban driving.
It was one of two things that I disagreed with when I did my Advanced Motorcycling. I see no reason why indicating should not be a reflex action. It does no harm to indicate unnecessarily, and it caters for the times that you do not realise that there was someone there to see it. It also means that it is one fewer thing to think about when driving, as it is automatic. Surely that is a sensible idea?
Also, as a pedestrian, can drivers bloody indicated at junctions please! Just because there are no cars there, doesn't mean that other people don't want to know where the hell you think you're planing to go. I can often guess from road positioning, but drivers who don't indicate are also likely to be shit at that too.
Yes, that's part of it. Indicate if it could benefit someone - pedestrians included. it's about thinking about doing things, and the implications. I walk, cycle, drive and used to ride motorbikes, & try (not always sucessfully) to not mislead other people.
You still can't trust indicators though - there's a road near here where people come off a dual carriageway having gone right at the RB on it. Some indicate left (good) before they come off the RB during their right turn, but don't cancel the indicator as they approach the left-junction ~20 yards after the RB they've just vacated. They then don't take that left junction, but carry on. I've seen several near misses there, where people assume that the left-indicating ex-RB person is in fact going to turn left, when they don't.
I see no reason why indicating should not be a reflex action. It does no harm to indicate unnecessarily,
The problem is that can lead people into the mistake of 'I indicated therefore I can go'. By requiring the driver to first assess the need for indication you are making them pay attention as to whether it's actually a safe manoeuvre rather than them seeing it as part of a 'box ticking' exercise.
Or put another way: 'Indicate then move' can become a habit for some people.
That's what I was taught when I did the Advanced test many, many years ago. I have to reluctantly concede it made 19yo me a better driver then and since.
Indicate when it will provide assistance to another road user, or words to that effect. It demonstrates you have evaluated the situation including how your actions will affect those other road users. Indicating every time you turn the wheel merely demonstrates that you intended to turn the wheel.
No impact on other users, no signal. Only one conceivable (and valid) course of action (joining motorway from slip road), no signal.
Of course this assumes that everyone else shows a modicum of attention to the situation whilst in charge of the lethal weapon, it doesn't cater to the typical road user nowadays who just target fixates and goes for it.
Personally I can't wait for self-driving cars -- for everyone except me .... They will 1) stay in lane at roundabouts, 2) stay on own side of road on curves, 3) not tailgate, 4) obey speed limits, 5) signal their intentions. I'm fully prepared for disappointment though.
Of course this assumes that everyone else shows a modicum of attention to the situation
Whoever put that in an advanced driving course was fucking stupid then!
It sounds so incredibly arrogant too. Oooh I'm such a great driver I don't ever make mistakes and always make the perfect moves. Obviously having done an advanced course, and thinking about what you're doing is great. But to assume that you're always going to notice ever other road user and what they need is both ridiculous and imparts an extra burden of concentration that seems pointless.
It certainly sounds like a good thought exercise. What impact would my signalling really have here?
But to assume everyone else is paying equal attention is both stupid and dangerous. And to assumetht you'll never make a mistake and not see a pedestrian round corner who wants to know where you're going - or miss someone in your blindspot is also dangerously stupid.
Unless there's an argument that indicating is sometimes confusing or leads to risk, that I'm not aware of.
It demonstrates you have evaluated the situation including how your actions will affect those other road users.
It may demonstrate that you have forgotten to cancel the indicator, because you have the music up and can't hear the tick.
Or you are on a motorcycle with doesn't have self cancel and no audible feedback.
The number of times I've seen people indicating and nor acting in accordance, as a motorcyclist I quickly learned never to trust them.
And as a motorcyclist I've done the forgot to cancel thing too.
"It demonstrates you have evaluated the situation including how your actions will affect those other road users."
... that you happened to notice. There could well be other road users you didn't see, and failing to indicate might lead them to believe you intended to stay in the same lane, or not turn in front of them. Indicate anyway, just in case you missed something.
>> why indicate when entering a motorway from the sliproad - where else would you be going?".
As well as acting as an indicator (of intent), that bright flashing light also acts as a notifier - it helps notify that you are there as well as what you intend to do.
Absolutely this. The thing that my motorcycle instructor was always keen to drill into people was "Other drivers are looking for cars to a lot of them you might as well be invisible because they're not expecting to see you. Do everything you possibly can to remain visible"
It's much easier to see a flashing light in your peripheral vision than a relatively small moving object that you weren't actively looking for in the first place.
I actually have ALL driver licenses, and I have driven in many countries on the left as well as the right.
It means I also know what the road looks like from the perspective of other drivers. You will, for instance, not catch me going in front of a loaded HGV because that needs its braking distance. If I would come off a motorway it's going to be damn difficult to get between me and the side line, so even if I didn't indicate that would not be a problem because a good driver does not slow down until he is outside the flow of traffic.
So many spurious arguments avoiding the main issue: why is that facility still active if it was switched off?
"why is that facility still active if it was switched off?"
No idea but: "... If I would come off a motorway "
You are unable to effectively engage with a thread on a forum at a few characters per second, per hour. I hope you are better at 70mph on a road.
PS "I actually have ALL driver licenses" - no you don't. That's just silly.
It is an offence, to overtake someone who is indicating right. It is not an offence to overtake someone who is not indicating right. You want to pull in to that continuous stream of HGVs without getting creamed or runn of the end of the merging lane??? Politeness doesn't cost.
While it might be an offence to overtake someone who is indicating right, it's not an offense to pass someone who has their left turn signal on.
Yep, that's not a thing here in the US. It's generally legal to cut off a merging car, yield sign beside the onramp should have told you.
The signal, while not legally useful in that merge lane, is still a good idea. It helps the idiots around you notice that you're there, and when they do they don't generally try to cut you off. Oh, and those 18-wheelers are in every lane, so be careful.
"Oh, and those 18-wheelers are in every lane, so be careful."
Across the EU and UK, HGV (trucks) are not allowed in the outside lane if there are 3 or more lanes and some vehicles with some specific exceptions, such as rare occasions when, eg a 3 lane motorway has exist from lane 3). Trucks, have different speed limits to those for cars. Likewise cars with any form of trailer on tow has lower speed limits. It generally means the outside lane will be less likely to have slower moving vehicles in it. So, in the case of the USA, does this mean that all vehicles can drive at the posted speed limit, or is it just tough shit if all lanes have slow moving trucks in them? ;-)
"So, in the case of the USA, does this mean that all vehicles can drive at the posted speed limit,"
From my (Brit) observations from driving in the US of A - yes they can. There may be some state or county restrictions but in general, lorries seem get to run at the posted speed limit. From memory, Alligator Alley (Miami to Naples) I was overtaken by a lorry. That road is a bit special but it has a posted limit of I think 70mph and a minimum of 50mph. It is unusual in having a minimum speed limit. I think it is a private road but it still has to work within the state/federal legal framework.
At one point, Texas had different day and night speed limits on freeways, and they also varied depending on whether it was an HGV/18-wheeler (lower speed) or a passenger car (higher). There was also a posted minimum speed on most of them.
The posted minimum lasted longer than the day/night limits, but neither lasted for very long.
I indicate to wake up drivers who aren't paying attention, and almost ALL of my indication is for the purpose of attracting attention of inattentive drivers, and those vehicles who I do not know are there.
Indicating "needlessly" costs nothing.
And that day when someone is just pottering along not noticing, or you are parallel to a car or bike that's in your blind spot and you nearly pull out on him because you don't know he's there and he thinks you've seen him when you haven't, it pays for itself a million times over.
I don't indicate for MY BENEFIT. Or even the benefit of a good, attentive driver. I indicate for the bike I could not see, the guy who thinks I'm taking too long as wants to undertake, the cyclist who thinks I've seen him, etc.
It should literally be a reflex action. Changing lanes, turning or otherwise deviating? Indicate anyway. You won't "confuse" anyone who wouldn't be more confused by you turning unexpectedly and without signals.
"why indicate when entering a motorway from the sliproad - where else would you be going?"
Why not indicate? Where else would you be going, and who have you hurt by doing so?
The slip road you are on might become a lane of the motorway. It happens a lot around me, where an entire lane leaves the motorway, and then the lane rejoins and also on complex junctions (like the M4/M5 interchange). So cars indicating that they are going to be joining my lane is very helpful. Seriously, how hard is it to always indicate, just in case there is something or someone you haven't noticed and who then gets some warning?
An excellent point. Many's the time I'm passing a slip road that becomes it's own lane and despite the signs telling the drivers that is what is about to happen, many will not be paying attention and move from an empty, now lane 1 into what is now lane 2, "just because". And yes, I've seen it so many times, I do watch for those drivers so I can avoid them! Likewise, the ones where the road is narrowing and lane 1 is for exit only, some people don't seem to notice and swerve out at the last minute as "their" lane becomes the exit slip.
As I was told on a ROSPA assessment, "why indicate when entering a motorway from the sliproad - where else would you be going?".
In my experience, the flashing amber light helps to grab the attention of the drives already on the motorway who may not be paying proper attention. If ROSPA are not encouraging defensive driving, then they are not doing their job properly. Using your indicators SHOULD be a reflex action.
My driving instructor, years ago: Indicating is to tell other drivers what you are doing. If there are no other drivers around, or it's obvious what you are doing, there is no need to indicate.
My son's driving instructor, this year: Exactly the same.
The lad passed first go, no minors.
k492 Which comment are you referring to?
If it's on a motorway it's to warn "drivers" -(though to be fair I'm including the riders of motorcycles in that since there is no generic term for both driving and motorbiking that I can think of) since nothing else is allowed on there.
In a way this sounds like preferences of whoever designed the system; sometimes you agree with how it works, other times you don't. It's like the difference between how Geany and VS Code do "select next word": VS Code does it in a fairly natural way, but Geany keeps going haywire on me. If you have a whole lot of whitespace in front of a word in VS Code, it selects all the whitespace in front of the netx word when you Ctrl + Shift + ➝. Do the same thing in Geany and it selects all the whitespace and the first word after that. Probably made sense to someone, but feels to me like it's doing unexpected things. Another Geany ill-design: the insert cursor caret is a block and the overwrite cursor caret is an underline. All my life I've worked with editors where it's the other way around. Drives me crazy. (I have not yet determined how to switch VS Code into overtype mode).
OP here: I don't know about you, but I maintain sufficient situational awareness to know if I must indicate.
Although I would agree with the observation that advance signalling is a must, I am also of the opinion that I must have a high enough situational awareness to decide if I want to do that or not. Classic example: indicting to overtake when you're being overtaken - it's better to wait.
Given that I have had quite a number of advanced driving courses (no, all different, not because I'm a slow learner :) ) I think my judgement is going to be more sound than a computer which only sees tactical data.
In addition: OFF should be OFF. There's no reason to lie to a driver about it unless you have something to hide.
But saying that you "maintain sufficient situational awareness to know if I must indicate" means that you consider yourself to be absolutely infallible, never going to make a mistake, never going to have missed something, never going to have an absolute idiot elsewhere do something silly, etc.
... which is an incredibly dangerous assumption to make.
I do remember my driving instructor many many years ago saying the same thing - "why are you indicating? Who are you indicating to?". But let me put it another way... What is the HARM in indicating? If there is a 0.000001% chance that doing so avoids an accident then surely it's worth doing unless you can demonstrate a greater chance that it causes harm?
Sure, there's a possibility that you forget to cancel the indicator (on that rare time when you indicated but didn't need to). Sure that's, annoying to other users, but it's not really causing harm. So what other harm can be caused, if you would otherwise have indicated if there was definitely a reason to?
But saying that you "maintain sufficient situational awareness to know if I must indicate" means that you consider yourself to be absolutely infallible, never going to make a mistake, never going to have missed something, never going to have an absolute idiot elsewhere do something silly, etc.
No, because if I meant that I would have said so (and I'd like to point out that I had good trainers who I've seen excise that notion from many a younger driver - IMHO, assumption 1 is that you WILL screw up at some point, but the idea is create enough safety margin so you will only feel an idiot afterwards instead of being somewhere between sorry and dead). The whole point of maintaining an as complete situational awareness as possible is to create and maintain safety margins. Oh, and thank you for that entirely unwarranted assumption based on no data whatsoever, but I digress.
If I suddenly have to make an evasive maneuver because something happens in front of me (which doesn't need to be anyone's fault), knowing what is where gives me more options to pick the least harmful course of action. It also requires keeping in mind that you have blind spots, which is why you need to keep this up (it's also why I utterly reject the Tesla FSD notion that you can go and do something else but quickly take over if the computer gives up - at that point you have zero status info, and it doesn't quickly put you back in charge if circumstances would not have become so adversarial that even Musk could BS his way out of the impending accident you're about to have).
And, again back to my original point, OFF should mean OFF. You can already only half trust this vehicle because it does things on its own that are not good, the fact that a function continues to yank at my steering wheel after I have explicitly switched it off is not exactly helping that trust. I'm getting to the point where I may put a case together for the authorities to investigate this mess.
"Jeff Nissen, 28, of Stanwood, Washington, was killed on April 19 when he was struck by a 2022 Tesla Model S."
"According to court documents cited in a Fox 13 Seattle report, the 56-year-old driver of the Tesla told first responders he was looking at his phone while the car was driving itself."
All seems pretty clear to me.
Of course this assumes that everyone else shows a modicum of attention to the situation
gnasher729,
You're right. Tesla's marketing department and Elon Musk himself are also partly responsible for this death. By consistently lying to their customers about how amazing their "Full Self Driving" system is, even though they haven't fucking got one. And yes, they put the weasel words in to try to cover their legal liability, but their consistent marketing lies are responsible for so many Tesla drivers risking other
peoples' lives everyday by puting their cars into "Autopilot" and getting their phones and laptops out.
The driver has most responsibility. What he admitted to doing is illegal and he should know better.
But Musk and Tesla have continually encouraged this kind of behaviour. And their Autopilot system seems to make an awful lot of errors for what should be a safety critical system. Drivers aren't professionals, unlike pilots - who are regularly trained in what to do when their autopilots crap out on them at short notice. And even pilots get it wrong sometimes. Anyone designing driver assistance aids, as a basic matter of common sense, needs to consider what they're doing to drivers' attention to the road by taking tasks away from them, and how they're going to take control back in an emergency.
> pilots - who are regularly trained in what to do when their autopilots crap out on them at short notice
Well, airline pilots maybe, but plenty of pilots come to grief when their autopilot gives up, e.g. because of turbulence, and returns control to an unprepared pilot with the 'plane in a badly out-of-trim condition. The difference is that the autopilot of a 'plane is never going to command a "surge forward" and strike a motorcyclist on the same flight path. Driving and flying are qualitatively different, and "autopilot" was a term taken by the latter activity. It shouldn't be allowed to be used for motoring.
What I object to most is that OTHER road users are exposed to the risk.
I can't recall signing up to be putting my life on the line in Europe because some US based moron has decided he needs to BS his shareholders so he can waste more money on his personal version of Truth Social.
If people buy a Tesla and want to test FSD, fine - but let them do it where only they suffer the consequences when it goes wrong. It's this whole considering the rest of the planet as free to use test dummies that is IMHO simply criminal. I also hate the BS when it's demonstrated that the thing will happily mow down a child - don't give me waffle, fix it. Giving me BS means you damn well know about it but was hoping people would not find out.
So you've disabled the ABS?
No, you allow the car to take actions on your behalf then.
This is just a logical continuance... I'd be interested to know how many motorcyclists have been hit and killed this year - because without that this is just a cherry picked data point for clickbait.
ABS doesn't actually control the car or even get between you and operating the car all that much. There very definitely is a very structural difference between something like ABS (Which assists a driver in not "over-braking" when panic braking) and Autopilot (which takes away pretty much every task involved in driving, including the action of steering wheel or accelerator input and even braking itself)
Why would the ABS distract his full and total attention?
When driving you concentrate - whether braking, poor weather, bright sunshine, cruise control, stopped at lights, with automated assistance or otherwise.
Comparing "FSD" (*cough*) to ABS is a nonsense, like comparing lane-deviation to the little notch that stops you turning the steering wheel too far for the steering rack.
Having ABS on or off does not distract you.
Having "FSD" (*cough*) on and being on your phone should be treated as murder.
My car doesn't have driving aids, other than power steering and boosted brakes
Power steering? Luxury!
None of those fripperies on a 1966 Morris Minor - no sir!
(We have fitted servo assist and front disc brakes to it but only because the originals are actively dangerous in a fully-disk-brake world!)
That's just shocking whataboutism. Is it acceptable for Tesla's so-called self-styled "autopilot" in "full self-driving mode" to command lethally unsafe driving, just because some drivers do the same? Clue: NO, it is not.
Your ABS question is inappropriate, too. ABS is a mechanism, with predictable actions. Same as the power-assisted steering, and the automatic gearbox (if you have one). I don't think that even Tesla's engineers know why «autopilot» does what it does in any given situation.
It might be how you drive your car, but, well, someone has just been charged with trimming his beard while driving, so, not everyone behaves as laudably as you when behind the wheel.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cgr5j2qzne8o
"A motorway driver has been caught trimming his beard with no hands on the steering wheel in South Yorkshire.
The "shocking manscaping" was filmed by roads officers in an unmarked HGV, with the man among more than 240 people caught for driving offences over five days in July."
And, in the land of unlimited liability, it's unlikely to help them if anyone launches a civil suit about damages. They should be able to enforce the controls using geo-fencing and, for a company, that prides itself on enabling features by software, it would be difficult to argue against this.
That won't absolve Tesla from not taking "necessary steps to avoid inappropriate use" or whatever language the legal weasels tend to use. Unlimited liability includes such requirements to save idiots consumers from themselves and each other. Except when guns are involved!
"he was looking at his phone while the car was driving itself."
We are rightly roused to anger at such inattentiveness.
And I see on certain social media (can't speak for Twitter though) potential car buyers are in a spat over car manufacturers having their own interfaces rather than Carplay and Android Auto declaring these are deal breakers because they make dealing with [phone] messages easier. and I think this is just more of the same.
The issue with not having Carplay or Android Auto is it actually creates danger. The UK driving test covers using a satnav now, so would you rather drivers had a standard interface they knew across multiple vehicles, or had to prod and poke unnecessarily at the screen of some random and probably out of date interface (or at their phone in a holder, which is legal but even worse) to find the option to re-route past roadworks or whatever, rather than use one of the two industry standard interfaces via buttons on the steering wheel or whatever.
The issue is self-driving cars. What is the point?
"Reduce the workload of the driver" - free up the driver to do what? You still have to sit in the driving seat. You still have to have hands on the wheel. You're still legally obliged to not fall asleep, or tug yourself off, or watch youtube or play with facebook on your phone. You have to sit there, and watch the car drive itself, and be ready to step in at a moment's notice to stop it driving off a cliff, or into the side of a truck, or skittling a motorcyclist.
The self-driving tech might be 99.9% reliable, but when the 0.1% can kill people, it's not enough.
This is being done completely the wrong way around. The driver should be driving the car, and the technology should watch them. Make the driver do what they should be doing anyway, pay attention. But add the technology as an extra safety feature that can intervene if the driver makes a mistake, is going to jump a red light, is about to change lane when a car is approaching, etc. This way, drivers don't rely on it. Think of ABS brakes. Nobody goes around slamming hard on their brakes as a matter of routine, relying on the ABS to slow them down without skidding. People brake just like they always did, but in the *rare* occasions when you slam your brakes on, the system kicking in might get you out of trouble.
Distracted drivers was a bad enough problem, especially in the US, since most drivers learn on an automatic where you can drive one handed thumbing through facebook, unlike in Europe where most drivers pass very intensive tests on manual cars that require two hands and full attention. But introducing even more technology that (despite the lame disclaimers and warnings) only assists distracted drivers to be even more distracted, is a recipe for disaster.
One day, machines will be able to drive cars better than any human. We'rere not there yet, and probably won't be for many years. Until then, these systems do nothing to improve safety, they simply enable lazy distracted people to be even more lazy and distracted.
And I haven't even got into the legal liability issue of whether the lazy distracted driver, or the company that sold them a product which positively encourages lazy distracted behaviour, is responsible.
In my opinion, this driver should be held accountable for the death his stupidity cause, and the company that enabled him via such dangerous technology should be fined heavily, and perhaps held criminally liable too.
> The issue is self-driving cars. What is the point?
Wish I could upvote you more than once.
Complete loss of situational awareness , how the hell is the driver expected to take control in an instant? If I have to sit there watching everything I might as well drive it instead.
The self-driving tech might be 99.9% reliable, but when the 0.1% can kill people, it's not enough.This is being done completely the wrong way around. The driver should be driving the car, and the technology should watch them
I get what you're saying, but in a lot of ways the same problem applies. What happens when the driver is doing the right thing and the technology decides, incorrectly, that they're not? A lot of driving decisions have to be made quite extraordinarily quickly. We're all so used to it it doesn't seem weird, but when someone is joining a fast flowing road you're already on what do you do? Speed up and get past them? Slow down and let them in? Change lane to make space for them?
You make those choices based on experience and normally have to do so in the space of a couple of seconds or the opportunity to make some of those choices goes away. Didn't decide to speed up fast enough? Can't now, there isn't time. Didn't decide to slow down fast enough? Now the guy behind you is too close and it's not safe. Didn't decide to move over fast enough? Well, now there's someone too close in that lane and you can't go there anymore without endangering them.
One of the last things I want when making a decision like that is the car second-guessing me. If I start to try and pull over and it goes all "Lane departure warning noise!" and tries to straighten the wheel back up because it wasn't expecting me to do it, that is not helpful because in the time it wasted that choice may now no longer be available to me.
When systems like this don't work 5-nine's of the time they're worse than not having them at all.
So, you're saying that all parts of the human vehicle interface should be standardised? By whom? Why should it be Android Auto or Apple Carplay? I don't know about Android Auto, but Apple likes to collect fees for this kind of thing so anything that mandates it would be subject to challenge. And what about if you don't have a phone? Or are in a rental car?
SWMBO's car doesn't does support Android Auto, but only via USB which is a bit of a faff. We know that the builtin VW maps have the odd problem and react to traffic slowly, so I normally have Here running on my phone on the navigator side, but the builtin software also works with the mini-display built into the cockpit, which is easier to see when actually driving.
Actually, Apple and Android work roughly the same in the car, with one MASSIVE difference: if you have Car Android, Google will want you to log in to have access to functionality and worse, it will force an age check on you. That is utter BS, all it means is that you're forced to confirm your identity and give Google even more data.
Oh, and forget installing actual useful stuff like en e-reader app when you're waiting to charge an EV because they can't lob advertising at you like they can when you use the built-in Youtube. Which doesn't work when you're on the move, because God knows you should not be able to entertain a passenger, oh no.
Apple does not export and steal quite as much data, nor is it as grievous an ad slinger, but the main functions don't differ much. Oh, wait, Goole monopolises the instrument cluster - that map (and its data snooping) cannot be disabled.
As for standardisation; you do know that the location of brake, clutch and accelerator was originally different for various brands when the car industry started? OK, it's a while back (the first time the current config appeared was in 1916), but before that it was not a standard. Neither was the H pattern for manual gear shifts as we have today, and we still find the reverse in manual cars in various locations, with different mechanisms to prevent accidental engagement.
I would rather have drivers not fucking with navigation, or messages, or anything else not related to actually operating the motor vehicle, while the vehicle is in operation.
If someone sends me a text message while I'm driving, I read it when the vehicle is parked. If that isn't for another couple of hours, too bad for the sender. For most of my life it was rarely possible to communicate with someone driving a vehicle (that you weren't also present in), and many of us survived.
On the rare occasions where I'm using navigation (as opposed to maps, or just knowing where I'm going because I have a measure of life competence), either it's in hands-free voice-directions mode,1 or I look at it when the car is parked. Same for entering the destination and so on: that happens only when the car is parked. If I need to stop briefly to operate it, then I stop briefly.
I don't trust Android Auto or Apple Carplay for a moment, and there's no way I'm ever giving a car's irritainment system that level of access to my phone.
1Still something of a distraction, but only briefly and sporadically, and less so than radio, conversation with passengers, etc. I think the risk is low.
"Washington State does not permit self-driving vehicles to operate, with the exception of companies that have entered into certified testing arrangements with the Department of Licensing."
The borders of Washington State being fairly well known, why doesn't Tesla use GPS positioning to turn off Full Self Driving mode availability inside the state? Or is that too complicated and difficult? Reg Boffins please advise.
It is not that complicated and difficult. All that has to happen is when the car crosses the border it could act as if the driver were not paying attention so the driver would have to turn off assisted driving within a certain amount of time or get a "forced disengagement".
So far with "incidents" like this Tesla simply claims that the driver is operating the vehicle outside the limitations it's set in the owners manual and therefore it's not their problem. Imho this argument just cannot last. Incidents like this are becoming structural and no longer incidents. The red thread between them is Tesla's "Autopilot" system and there must come a point when Tesla must be held liable for it's part in creating the circumstances. You can't just put hand grenades in the hands of monkeys and expect everything to work out fine.
“ As of June 2023, Tesla's Autopilot (a subset of FSD capabilities) had reportedly been involved in 17 fatalities and 736 crashes.”
That’s higher than negative impacts from Covid Vaccines”.
Where are the Anti-Tesla-er’s and conspiracy nutjobs on FB and Xitter.
Most people negative to Musk on here is largely because he is a douche-bag.
We're told that the motorcyclist was struck from behind. Without further evidence: No way is that the motorcyclist's fault. Tesla should have been sufficiently far behind the motorcycle to stop safely even if the motorcycle braked hard, whether it's on «autopilot» or not.
Also: let's NOT face it, that people will use FSD without paying attention. Let's make it as near to impossible as we can, and punish those that find a way.
"Use of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) will be suspended if improper usage is detected."
What does this actually mean? Does the car pull over safely until the driver takes manual control, or is it just "Beep!, hey meatbag, wake up and drive" and then disengages FSD while still barrelling along at 70?
Who actually WANTS their car to be self-driving? And is there a correlation between the answer to that and the likelihood of that person not giving a **** what happens while they are on board / on their phone / having a shave / doing something else entirely inappropriate? The world is going utterly mad.
I don't want *MY* car to be self-driving.
I would like a self-driving car to be available as a technology for certain people, purposes and areas.
For instance, I'd far prefer a self-driving car to pick me up and drop me off at Gatwick Long Stay Parking to get me to/from the terminal than waiting 15 minutes for a bus to arrive, fill up, and get moving.
It's really annoying that we apparently just SKIPPED OVER all those use cases and let people jump to "let it take control, but only on a motorway", which is the dumbest thing ever.
Why not self-driving golf carts? Self-driving airport baggage vehicles? Self-driving trolleys in ASDA? Self-driving kiddie rides around the shopping centre at 5mph? Self-driving Amazon delivery cars? Self-driving "tour buses" around cities that you can take and just plug in the attraction you want to see.
The number of things we COULD use self-driving cars, at less speed, less risk, in highly-mapped environments with extra sensors or barriers to curtail them running off, etc. is enormous.
You know what I don't want? A self-driving idiot on a phone in a personal car that's not able to self-drive, on a motorway, in a country where that's "their fault" if they crash. I don't want that to be possible at all, until it can take you and a buddy from hole 8 from hole 7 without intervention.
It would be lovely to think of self-driving Ubers, but it's not there. Several companies have tried that and still killed people. And, yes, I hold them to a higher standard than a human because - and get this - corporate liability cannot jail anyone because their product killed someone. Therefore they have less incentive (only monetary) to stop their products killing people. So they should be held to a higher standard.
I want to know why we just UTTERLY SKIPPED OVER perfect testing grounds and went immediately to motorway-death-speeds.
I do. I want that. A lot.
Look, I love driving. I'm a firm believer that rear-wheel-drive is correct-wheel-drive, and that the correct number of cylinders for an engine must always be at least 6. I take my motorcycle out for weekends just for the fun of it. Back when I could justify having only 2 seats I drove a beautiful little roadster and I would take that out just for the fun of it too.
...But I also have to occasionally drive between Oxford and London and I do not want to because both of those places are absolutely fucking hateful places to try and drive in. Unfortunately between where I live and where I need to be the public transport sucks - doubly so given what they've now been doing to Oxford train station for what feels like the last 200 years.
I really, really want - on those occasions that driving is about to make me utterly fucking miserable because I'm going to be doing it in stop-start traffic at an average of 4mph - to be able to press a button on my dashboard and go "Ok, car, I'm going here, you take me and I'll get one with some light reading, ok?"
This. I think it's become quite apparent that the powers-that-be have no clue how to solve the traffic problem in cities. I believe they are hanging their hopes that self-driving will fix it before the transportation system completely breaks down.
I come from a relatively small city, Salt Lake UT, and the traffic is so bad that they can't add roads fast enough. Even the 12-lane N/S freeway has become saturated already. They are pulling out all the stops to implement novel traffic control(diverging diamonds, continuous flow, dynamic direction lanes, left turn after intersection), but it doesn't help much and are actually somewhat more dangerous as people are forced to understand them in situ.
I think it's become quite apparent that the powers-that-be have no clue how to solve the traffic problem in cities.
Oh they do! What they lack is political will. And public support, I guess in a democracy.
Congestion charging, improved public transport and decentralised employment.
You remove the need to drive and discourage the wish to.
FTA - "Tesla's Model S Owner's Manual states, "Like other Autopilot features, Full Self-Driving (Supervised) requires a fully attentive driver and will display a series of escalating warnings requiring driver response. You must keep your hands on the steering yoke (or steering wheel) while Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is engaged. In addition, the cabin camera monitors driver attentiveness (see Cabin Camera)"
I genuinely fail to see the point of using a "Self Driving" car if you have to essentially be sat alert at all times, with your hands on the wheel, ready to take over at a moments notice. I understand it from the point of view that the technology is not yet to a point where this is not required, as we have sadly seen in this case.
The part I don't understand is why anyone would want to use a "self driving" car when you can never fully relax, you might as well just drive the car. I don't see what benefits, in it's current supervised from it offers. Genuine question, other than providing testing data for Tesla, what are the benefits to the driver of using Full Self-Driving (Supervised) ?
I genuinely fail to see the point of using a "Self Driving" car if you have to essentially be sat alert at all times, with your hands on the wheel, ready to take over at a moments notice.
The point, I believe, is for Tesla to get more money from idiots, and for idiots to congratulate themselves on having extra shiny.
The point is to train the Tesla FSD AI. Without a flow of human-created data around disengagements, it can not progress. Much like Satan, AI cannot create; it requires the spark of the human soul. In my mind, it's quite a shame the results of such a large undertaking is all to the sole benefit of a private corporation (the safety concerns notwithstanding).
There should be a standardized, regulation-controlled, marker that can be placed on people or objects that these systems should be required to respond to. I don't care how hard or inconvenient that would be... we already have blinkers and brake lights... just add this. Or modify the brake light shape and require the update. There is no good reason for this person to have been killed by that system--I don't care what the capability is or is not. We can fix this and we should--there's no excuse for things being this dangerous and so easy to miss-operate and kill someone so easily with a small omission.
This takes us full circle with all this self driving autopilot crap.
I don't care what the situation or the stupidity of the drive is but Tesla needs to be prosecuted and named individuals taking the same legal penalties as another driver does. The driver also needs prosecuting as well.
Until we sort out the liability and responsibility so that there are named people at the manufacturer who can be prosecuted and if necessary jailed it it currently a wet dream for the likes of Tesla, they simply cannot lose and may get a fine or that is simply lost in the noise.
If C-Suite people were directly liable they would not be so keen to push crap out.
Previous cases have involved people who could have taken actions to prevent their own demise. i.e the driver, or an adult passenger who could have stopped the driver or gotten out.
This case will be a third party killed by the vehicles "driver" which is supplied by Tesla. It is a very, very different case if the widow goes after Tesla.
Consider this case. A car company, we'll call them X, so we don't defame an actual car company, finds it makes good money selling its GPUs and runs out. So they send the most junior HR person down to the labour exchange and employ a foreign bloke from Canada or Granada or somewhere. He has never held a drivers license. He has never passed any state mandated driving test. He says he has done "heaps of driving"
X gives him a silver spandex uniform with "Optimus" embroidered above the pocket, and charges customers $12000 dollars and $99 a month to have "Optimus" drive the car whenever they want to answer an email, apply Preparation H or whatever.
People notice that "Optimus" doesn't seem to see motorcyclists and bicycles and report this. Maybe X sends him an email about his driving or maybe they don't.
"Optimus" kills a motorcyclist when he is driving, and flees back to the third world shithole he came from.
Is X liable?
I'm sure the motorcyclist had previously signed a water tight legal document absolving tesla of any all liability for injuries or death resulting from tesla testing their alpha quality death machines on real roads.
We've all signed that. Don't you recall doing it?
At least that's what tesla's lawyers will tell the court.
My condolences to the motorcyclist's family.
Anyone who rides knows all about this type of crash where a vehicle pulls out in front of you and the driver says "I never saw them". It doesn't matter if its a human or a computer operating the car, the problem is that the motorcycle front area and apparently sudden appearance is very easy to miss. You as the rider have two choices, one being to say that "I've got the right of way" and trust the other driver (and to, effectively, luck), the other is to take what seems like premature and frequently unnecessary avoiding actions. Since we always come off worse if pays to be paranoid.
I'm not excusing the driver, note. They were negligent in that they weren't paying attention (they're on their bloody phone -- those things are a menace! and whether or not it was a Tesla or not is irrelevant except for one tiny detail -- Teslas take off way too quickly from a standing start, its a fruitful source of nailed pedestrians in parking lots. This take off combined with a driver not paying attention and a pretend self-driving mode is a perfect storm, an accident waiting to happen. It won't always happen but when it does it will be nasty.
(BTW -- Been riding for about 60 years, don't like falling off., it hurts.)
Why is it that cars and their drivers are exempted from the high standards we hold aeroplanes, trains, trams and even buses to?!
As for the case, the driver set out to use the car in a dangerous and illegal way. Much like speeding, this was premeditated.
Got a video from a client who had screen recorded a visit to a US site via VPN that is rather famous for showing various forms of hanky-panky. By 'various' I mean 'most'!
A very easy-on-the-eye blonde English girl was enjoying the full attentions of the 'driver' while sitting astride his 'lap' with her back to the windscreen. The car was a Tesla and he was certainly distracted for a considerable amount of time as he was also operating the camera at the same time, all the while being passed by or passing BIG TRUCKS and other cars and motorbikes.
I don't know about the driver but if I saw that going on in a vehicle I was passing I think I'd be distracted as well!
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