Tesla FSD ignores school bus lights and hits 'child' dummy in staged demo Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Ys on the streets of Austin, Texas. But according to the automaker's bête noire, the Dawn Project, kids should keep clear. The self-proclaimed self-driving gadfly posted a video this week showing a staged event in which a Tesla running the latest version of its self-driving software …
> "The car identified the pedestrian, but didn't stop after hitting it and carried on down the road."
The article does talk about the use of cameras as opposed to LIDAR as a factor but it also says that the pedestrian was correctly identified, but mown down regardless.
I wonder how many actual incidents are caused due to the use of cameras rather than software glitches.
The Mk. 1 human eyeball isn't perfect (not able to see in the infrared for one) - but its dynamic range, autofocus and autoaperture are a heck of a lot better than modern cameras.
Then there's the Mk.1 human brain. Again, it has many faults (really quite pants at repetitive tasks or working for many hours straight), but it's a whole lot better at coping with the unexpected.
The Mk. 1 and good auto focus? I see way too many glasses around, way too many people where, even with glasses, the sight is only marginally better since the mechanical properties of the eye can be very far from the optimum. The cornea, for example, can be deformed and saggy like an old tit, and only an operation can improve. The projection on the back of the eye can be slanted instead of cleanly centered, you you can never have perfect focus.
Dynamic range better? Totally agree. Better colour ability (you forgot to mention): Totally agree. Autoaperture: Agree only until you get older :D. Human Brain? As long as its attention priority is right: 1. drive, 2. navigate, 3. communicate.
Human Brain ...
and 4. It has learnt/remembered the necessary skills adequately.
All too often there are examples of drivers who appear to have lost (or never really had) key driving skills. A pet hate of mine is coming across another car in the country lanes and the driver is incapable of reversing up 10m to the nearest passing place. It is not a high pressure skill, the cars have already stopped and you can go slowly and even stop and drive forward to re-correct your road positioning and alignment. And for the love of god, do not try and reverse into the passing place - you clearly do not have the skills, back up past it and drive in forwards.
Mind you, dealing with the vagaries of country lane driving is going to be very challenging for AI.
"Mind you, dealing with the vagaries of country lane driving is going to be very challenging for AI."
It's not vagaries so much as a whole other etiquette along with some unwritten rules. Perhaps they are written, but not taught or tested.
A peeve of mine is people that drive fast along dry dirt roads in residential areas in a vehicle that stirs up a ton of dirt/dust due to aerodynamics.
b) the magic roundabout
First time I encountered the Swindon one it was a dark, rainy winter evening. Couldn't see the lines or the paintspot roundabouts so just pointed the car at where I wanted to go and drove over most of it without bothering about roundabout stuff.
Fortunately, no other cars around (it was 11pm ish so not surprising).
I've got a bit better at it since then.
Been there here in the Highlands. My best one was I had to reverse round a bend and quite a way back to a passing place on a single track road in snow because the idiot drive going the other way could not reverse back 20 yards. We also have a few who will, rather than reverse a bit, drive onto the verge which is sometimes quite soggy and often has a bloody great ditch a few inches in. I don't mind them doing it but I really don't like those who expect me to do it. I especially dislike those who will shout and scream at you for not risking your car in the ditch.
Haven't seen a road like that since visiting grandmas place in Maine back in the '60s. Dirt road maintained by the coastguard as it was the only access from the highway to the lighthouses and passed through her property. Do you have to dodge road apples or cow pies? Even rural places generally have wide enough roads for two buggies to pass.
...which means that such roads may have been in use for millennia.
Once wide enough for an ox and cart and at the same level as the surrounding fields they have, bit by bit, been eroded until the now asphalted road lies a metre or two below the level of the surrounding fields. The roads have also widened to the width of about one and a half cars. The habit in the UK of marking the edges of fields with hawthorn hedges means that on top of the one metre high earth bank there is a dense hedge of at least a metre high. Often these roads are winding so that you cannot see round the next corner.
So you have to keep track of potential passing places behind you as you round each corner. As well, of course keeping in mind that vehicles driving in the opposite direction could be moving at such a speed or with a sufficiently distracted driver that the car will not stop quickly enough to avoid a head on collision as you both round the next corner.
Road markings are entirely optional on such roads.
These things coupled with the British traditions of expecting one party in such situations to do the right thing and reverse to the nearest passing place and the habit of outraged silence should this not happen leads to levels of stress unseen since Marathon bars were brutally renamed to "Snickers".
I don't think that a Tesla in FSD* mode would stand a chance on such roads.
Still at least it would not have to deal with the rural winter roads here in my bit of Scandinavia with metre high snow plough banks on either side of the road and white out conditions.
*Full Self Denial
No, the horse sh*t tends to be in the middle so you drive straight over it (cattle tend to be kept off the roads, but sheep can be found on the roads in some places).
In these parts of the old country the lanes are just wide enough for one, but have irregular passing places. In the more refined parts the passing places are somewhat official, mostly they are places where the sie of the road has been worn away.
> good auto focus? I see way too many glasses around
Just want to point out, "auto-focus" as opposed to "fineness of focus".
As we're comparing with mechanical cameras, I have a camera with rather naff general focussing (the images are always soft and there is bad chromatic aberration) BUT it has really good auto-focus, in that it always finds the best focus that the lens can manage. Conversely, I have another body with a gorgeously sharp lens, flat field, colour-corrected within an inch of its life and totally unable to auto-focus at all ('cos it ain't got the wibbly bits to connect the focus motor across the lens adapter, if you want to know the reason).
So, as you point out out, the absolute quality of the human eye varies between individuals and across our lifetimes, as the mechanical bits break down, but the auto-focus gets the best out of what is available.
"The car identified the pedestrian, but didn't stop after hitting it and carried on down the road."
Exactly as intended by the manufacturer no doubt. As they were just a small-scale meatsack (aka child) rather than a "High Net Worth" individual the car's FSD no doubt calculated that their life wasn't worth saving as they would probably be on welfare if they were to reach adulthood.
""The car identified the pedestrian, but didn't stop after hitting it and carried on down the road."
Exactly as intended by the manufacturer no doubt""
Nah, it identified it as a Dummy and also realised that it was on a demo drive aka dieselgate.
Well my one year old Volvo is only 50% accurate on road signs. Sometimes that’s not its fault because signs are often overgrown with trees and/or filthy dirty. It has no idea what to do with a National speed limit applies sign.
Some VWs will link the cruise control to speed signs, which is bad news when the camera spots a speed limit sign on the back of a truck (20) and slams on the brakes.
In some countries in Europe there are also implied speed limit changes as you enter or leave a municipality which a car would have to be taught about.
I feel that the base data should be on the mapping software, such as Google Automotive on newer Volvos, but it needs more frequent updates as local councils change limits. Yes there will be temporary signs, but the car should be thinking ‘is this reasonable (eg sudden 20 limit in a 70 zone)?’ and ‘have I seen more signs confirming what I last saw, and why is the human driver not slowing down?’.
Still quite a way to go ……
Matrix signs usually warn of upcoming "traffic flow" issues and display reduced speed limits although I've yet to see on show 20mph when approaching at 70mph. At most, the initial drop might be to 40mphm more usually 60mph or 50 mph and if required, later signs down the road reducing it further.
As above, my car also picks up speed limits from road signs, but also from the built-in satnav. It does not affect the cruise control settings. And while it usually picks up painted temporary speed limit signs, it's (so far) never picked up a limit from a sign on the back of a lorry or, and a bit concerning, from the LED matrix signs either above the lanes or the old style ones in the central reservation.
"never picked up a limit from a sign on the back of a lorry or, and a bit concerning, from the LED matrix signs either above the lanes or the old style ones in the central reservation."
Standard metal signs are easier to recognize and parse. Signs over lanes aren't uniform across the world so development of software and camera field of view would wind up needing country by country manipulating. A digital sign might be warning of high wind speeds or be faulty so a car just looking for numbers might ingest some odd data.
As technologies emerge, more standardization of signage and road markings needs to be formulated. I saw a new "no bicycles" sign that was the image of a bike with a red circle around it rather than the circle and diagonal line. Did anyone stop to think that somebody with red/green color impairment would see the sign as "Bikes ok"? Same for peds. The moronic thing is that the diagonal line through something is now very universal. You don't have to read the language to understand what's being prohibited. Cartoon of cigarette with circle and line across, "курение запрещено".
Signs over lanes aren't uniform across the world so development of software and camera field of view would wind up needing country by country manipulating
That's equally applicable to human drivers, learning the signs in your country is part of learning to drive. In the UK the matrix signs over lanes mimic the metal signs exactly, precisely to avoid that confusion.
I saw a new "no bicycles" sign that was the image of a bike with a red circle around it rather than the circle and diagonal line. Did anyone stop to think that somebody with red/green color impairment would see the sign as "Bikes ok"?
Not in Europe, because a red circle around a sign means "forbidden", and no signs have green circles for exactly that reason. When you have to deal with a dozen languages it's well worth standardising on the same pictorial representation to avoid confusion. We did that decades ago. Countries have some specific signs to allow for unique situations (like the French 'priority road') but the general signs are clear even in monochrome.
And so, with no automation at all (except an immediately over-rideable constant speed cruise control) I was yesterday able to drive over a thousand kilometers through three countries, with conditions varying from perfect to 50kph on the autobahn storm, safely and without issue. Including such changes as Switzerland, which uses green as a background for autobahn signs, and blue for local routes, the opposite to most (all?) Euro states.
>” I saw a new "no bicycles" sign that was the image of a bike with a red circle around it rather than the circle and diagonal line.”
That’s not new, that’s the official UK “no cycling” sign.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/highway-code-book-1960s.html
However, there is some confusion as I remember earlier this year Road.cc showing photos of a cyclepath that had been signed using the bike with a red circle around it, rather than use the white bike on blue signs…
"That’s not new, that’s the official UK “no cycling” sign."
Meaning nothing. Police have mostly given up enforcing any aspect of the law relating to cycling, other than perhaps the cycle prohibition on motorways. Every day I'm at work in one of Britain's largest cities I see twats on bikes* cycling on pavements, through no entry signs, wrong way down one way streets, etc etc even if they're on an e-bike that's powerful enough to require a driving licence insurance and helmet. Likewise for those e-scooters whose sole purpose is transporting criminal scratters from one crime scene to the next.
Lest that be seen as an anti-bike rant, much the same applies to enforcement of laws applying cars or vans.
* Mostly Deliveroo and the like, but sometimes normal cyclists, or even coppers on bikes.
>Police have mostly given up enforcing any aspect of the law relating to cycling, other than perhaps the cycle prohibition on motorways.
Over the years I have encountered cyclists riding the hard shoulder a couple of times, personally, I don't see the attraction of cycling along a motorway, unless its an over the fence style quick route between two places, such as the only bridge over a river/railway for a few miles.
So I suspect the police only enforce the cycling prohibition on motorways if someone calls them and the person is actually riding among the cars.
As above, my car also picks up speed limits from road signs, but also from the built-in satnav. It does not affect the cruise control settings. And while it usually picks up painted temporary speed limit signs, it's (so far) never picked up a limit from a sign on the back of a lorry or, and a bit concerning, from the LED matrix signs either above the lanes or the old style ones in the central reservation.
If my navigation software is similar to self-driving systems, I do not want any self driving cars anywhere near me. I have experienced being told the speed limit is 35mph on a country road where the (unposted) limit is 55. I have also been told on one stretch of country road near me that the limit is 65, illegal for any road in the state except certain freeways. And the camera-based systems would be utterly useless here where the fog line (the stripe painted to delineate the edge of the pavement) is worn through.
The recent VWs also use satnav information for speed limits.
The outcome is that you can be driving at 60 or 70 and for some insane reason it decides the 30 or 40 on a road that crosses your rout is the correct speed limit.
You really have to be aware because it will cheerfully slow up quite quickly. If the car behind hits you then the fault is yours. Braking for no reason "check braking".
If the person behind has a dashcam then there is no dispute.
Not correct. Mostly, it's the fault of the driver behind, but not in every circumstance. Doing an emergency stop without "reasonable cause" could make that driver liable for negligence. This could result in the driver in front being 100% liable or, depending on circumstances, a court may allocate blame proportionally between the two drivers, the balance varying depending on circumstances.
I driove into the back of a car and it was 100% their fault. This was before dashcams but as police were attending an incident… Basically they were overtaking (in a daft place), saw the incident so jumped on their brakes and pulled in front of me - taking my safe braking distance gap, so effectively reducing my braking distance to zero.
Actually it is not. If your car effectively "Emergency Brakes" in the middle of a motorway (or any other high speed road) for no reason then this is called "Check Braking".
If you are doing 70mph and then it decides there is a new 30mph due to a a road above the speed reduction is very aggressive.
If the car that hits you has a dashcam and the distance is reasonable you will have a very hard time proving that it is not your fault.
Sudden braking for no reason is as much a part of the fault of the person in front as it is the person behind.
I know this from personal experience and got stopped by an unmarked traffic car, breath test, searches, the lot.
They made it absolutely clear that this is part of "due care and attention".
"If the person behind has a dashcam then there is no dispute."
Only if the video shows that the person in front braked excessively to intentionally cause the accident. If they were braking to comply with a speed limit reduction or stopped traffic ahead, the person behind them is at fault for following too close.
last time I drove a hired VW in Germany with the "read speed limit signs" feature, it annoyed me a bit that it insisted on doing 130km/h.
I set my cruise control to 100km/h for a relaxed and economical pace, it enters a restricted zone (construction etc.) and dutifully slows down to 80 or 60 km/h, then when the limit is lifted it goes full-gas to 130 all on its own unless I intervene.
The recent VWs also use satnav information for speed limits.
Totally inaccurate satnav as well. Around Oxfordshire it shows many 50 zones as being 60, some 20 zones as 30, a 30 zone near me as 40, and one stretch of a 60 zone as 40 for a few hundred meters.
Much the same in parts of SW France when I was there last year. It's a totally unreliable mechanism, completely inappropriate for a safety-related system.
Some VWs will link the cruise control to speed signs,
Should link to the speed limiter, not the cruise control. Either the driver sets the max cruise speed, or the driver aids do (like speed sign readers).
But a car in adaptive cruise doesn't brake hard unless there is an emergency. If you dial in a lower speed to the cruise control or it reads the a sign, it will not decelerate rapidly or dangerously.
It's not just VWs, most makers have a version of the same, including my Japanese car.
This is not true for VW group cars.
An example - I had a VW Golf as a hire care and was driving across Austria on one of their excellent motorways. In Austria you have rest areas off to the side like most countries - the speed limit is 30 kph and there is a sign relatively close to the entrance informing drivers of this. The motorway was not very busy so I was in the inside lane with cruise control set at the speed limit when the stupid cameras picked up the 30 kph speed limit from the sign in the rest area and slowed me really very sharply (I was shoved forwards in the seat). There was no one behind me so nothing bad happened, but it could have been dangerous. I switched off the cruise control for the rest of the journey
I have a skoda and it is similarly agressive to slow down, but have never had it pick up such a difference in speed limit in the UK (at most its 70 mph to 50 mph)
But a car in adaptive cruise doesn't brake hard unless there is an emergency.
Unless it's a VW, which can't tell the difference between a stationary vehicle in your lane and one slowing or stopping to turn in an adjacent lane. It will merrily slam on the brakes with a screaming alert even when it's clear to the driver that there's no risk of a collection. There are roads near me where it is simply unsafe to use the cruise control for that reason.
"It has no idea what to do with a National speed limit applies sign."
That's such a useless sign that whomever came up with it should be sacked. There should just be a standard speed limit sign with numbers on. People visiting the country might not know, but should be able to parse numbers. What's more difficult are places where heavy vehicles and cars towing have a lower limit and places where there are day/night limits.
"Some VWs will link the cruise control to speed signs, which is bad news when the camera spots a speed limit sign on the back of a truck (20) and slams on the brakes."
That's an extreme, but what can be more usual are signs reading a construction area is ahead and to reduce speed or "XX limit ahead". There could be incremental reductions, but that can be a lot of signs and there are laws about how they are placed to be valid. I'm not so sure that there are laws about signs warning people about a construction limit ahead. There's a lot of work being done near me where the highway goes from 70mph to 55mph. I agree that cars should have some sort of deceleration limit for that sort of thing. Slamming on the brakes might be more dangerous than the speed.
My TomTom nav has speed limits on the screen, but in plenty of places it has no data and might default down to 25mph which isn't true. To get too reliant on digital services is an issue. I'd skip any car that has Google software installed, but I'd also not like one that has any other third party nanny software that's going to take control over the car at any point. I pay attention when I drive and I've been doing it long enough to know what an appropriate speed is if there are no signs evident. I'd fight a ticket for speeding if there were no signs and I was going as fast as the limit on comparable roads in the area are signed for.
What would be handy is a satnav that has a database of the number of tickets issued by segment of road to warn me of places where a municipality uses tickets as an income source.
>” What would be handy is a satnav that has a database of the number of tickets issued by segment of road to warn me of places where a municipality uses tickets as an income source.”
Trouble is the data, without context, doesn’t distinguish between “cash cams” (something I understand is quite common in Oz) and safety cams.
A local village regularly has a speed camera van, because it is on a “rat run”, so people habitually speed through the village. Thus the data would should this as if it were an “income source”.
>Why would this be a problem? You will either avoid it or slow down. Objective met.
I think most of the (UK) police think this way. They do tend to like to put themselves on Waze, because with their presence announced, drivers tend to behave better, which as you note is the real purpose of speed cameras.
This particular village wryly amuses me, they have a sign prominently displayed "check your speed"; if you are not doing below the 30mph limit when you are able to first see the sign (but not necessarily read it), you have already been caught by the camera van.
"Trouble is the data, without context, doesn’t distinguish between “cash cams” (something I understand is quite common in Oz) and safety cams."
I wasn't even getting into automated cams, but places where the cops spend most of their day writing speeding tickets for as little as 3mph over the limit. The reason is to catch people that live too far away to make fighting the ticket viable. In the US, most jurisdictions I know of require a person to physically appear in court to dispute a citation on the date and time written on the ticket. That will be in the morning on a week day so it can mean taking a day off work and driving to that particular court. If it's only a $100 fine, fighting it can cost several times that and most of the time you have to post the fine in advance before seeing the judge, and if you lose, you pay costs on your way out in addition to the fine. Out of State number plates are a flag and so is something such as skis on a roof rack if the highway is a major thoroughfare to ski resorts from a large city.
That's such a useless sign that whomever came up with it should be sacked.
That sign long predates the idea of a national speed limit. It originally meant "end of speed limit", i.e. after it you were literally on the "open road" and expected to use common sense to choose a safe speed. When the fuel crisis happened in the early 70s the government decided that there had to be reduced speed limits everywhere to save fuel and redesignated the meaning of that sign to avoid the cost of changing them all.
Unfortunately common sense is severely lacking today, and people seeing that sign on a country road assume that it means "60" (the national limit for such a road) even when it is manifestly unsafe to drive at anything like that.
People visiting the country might not know
People visiting the country should learn before travelling (see my common sense comment above). Try the "but I'm a visitor" argument with a French gendarme after having an accident when you ignore 'priorité à droite' and see how far you get...
I always thought it was after a spate of accidents on the newly opened M1 which became a racing track.
I think that influenced the 70MPH limit on motorways from 1967(?), but that was briefly dropped to 50 in 1973 during the fuel crisis. I remember the 60MPH single-carriageway "national limit" coming in in the 70s (although I wasn't old enough to drive then!) allegedly for the same fuel-saving reason.
"Unfortunately common sense is severely lacking today, and people seeing that sign on a country road assume that it means "60" (the national limit for such a road) even when it is manifestly unsafe to drive at anything like that."
It's been so long since I've reviewed UK driving laws I can't remember if there's a "basic speed" law as there is in the US. It states that it is an infraction to drive faster than safe in the current conditions. It could be zero in heavy fog or just a crawl in icy conditions if the car has suitable tires. It's not a ticket officers write a lot since it's more of an argument in court, but they will pull it out if the posted limit is 60mph and the conditions make 40mph excessive.
"People visiting the country should learn before travelling (see my common sense comment above). Try the "but I'm a visitor" argument with a French gendarme after having an accident when you ignore 'priorité à droite' and see how far you get..."
I do that, but I may still not know what the "national limit" is if there is one, instead relying on posted signs with numbers to tell me. It should be an easier sign to create as well.
It's been so long since I've reviewed UK driving laws I can't remember if there's a "basic speed" law as there is in the US. It states that it is an infraction to drive faster than safe in the current conditions. It could be zero in heavy fog or just a crawl in icy conditions if the car has suitable tires. It's not a ticket officers write a lot since it's more of an argument in court, but they will pull it out if the posted limit is 60mph and the conditions make 40mph excessive.
In the UK that would be covered under one of the following laws, depending on how badly things had gone wrong due to your driving:
* Driving without due care and attention (AKA "careless driving")
* Driving whilst under the influence of drink or drugs
* Dangerous driving
* Causing serious injury by careless or inconsiderate driving
* Causing serious injury by dangerous driving
* Causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving
* Causing death by dangerous driving
All part of sections 1 to 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988
As police officers commonly say when they stop people "the speed limit is a limit not a target"
> As police officers commonly say when they stop people "the speed limit is a limit not a target"
Hah yes! There are some regions in Germany (around here Ostalbkreis) which, if you are not prepared, you should take that seriously. It is a mountainous area, lots of up and down and curvy. Large parts allow you to drive 100 km/h, at least that is what the sign says. But a lot of it cannot be driven with more than 70, cause either you car will fly a few cm or you'll fly out of the curves. Mind you: At good weather conditions, good tires. And some for some of the curves even 50 is too fast. oh, and don't forget: There are tractors strolling around as well, you you've got to be vigilant about that too.
So this area forces you to learn how to assess your street the right way, and I like it for that! Don't rely on those speed signs...
"That's such a useless sign that whomever came up with it should be sacked. There should just be a standard speed limit sign with numbers on. People visiting the country might not know, but should be able to parse numbers."
National speed limit in the UK isn't a standard figure by either vehicle type or road, and it works for most of us. If somebody visits any country in which they aren't familiar with the local standards, then they need to check what the major road signs indicate, and bone up local driving protocols. I do that if I drive outside the UK, if other people aren't prepared to do that minimum, lazy fuckers shouldn't drive.
"If somebody visits any country in which they aren't familiar with the local standards, then they need to check what the major road signs indicate, and bone up local driving protocols. I do that if I drive outside the UK"
I do that, but there's only so much I can cram into my head and the more something deviates what I'm used to, the harder it can be to remember. For a multi-country trip, boning up on all of the traffic laws is going to have lots of fail built in.
The National speed limit can be different for HGV's and cars for the same road which is why it is not set to a speed limit number
The National Speed Limit sign is used to denote the end of a local speed limit and the start of the national maximum speed limit for the class of vehicle being driven...
HGV speed limits on single carriageways
The HGV speed limit on single carriageway roads is set at 50mph (80km/h) for vehicles up to and over 7.5 tonnes maximum laden weight in England and Wales. In Scotland the single carriageway HGV speed limit is set lower at 40mph (64km/h).
Speed limits on dual carriageways
When travelling on dual carriageways speed limits for HGVs are set slightly higher, at 60mph (96km/h) in England and Wales for vehicles up to and over 7.5 tonnes maximum laden weight. As with single carriageways, the speed limit for HGVs is lower in Scotland, at 50mph (80km/h)
Source: https://mhf.uk.com/hgv-speed-limits-in-the-uk/
Could be worse, much worse. I was driving a Freightliner U-Haul truck that had GPS tracking matched to speed limits. While driving through a construction zone that shifted lanes a bit, I had to ride tight to the right side of the road on an overpass. The truck decided that Inwas trying to take the exit adjacent with a 20MPH speed limit which I was approaching at 60MPH, AND SLAMMED THE BRAKES ON, HARD! The car behind me almost ran into the back of the truck as a result, with much middle finger waving as he flew past a minute later. Down the road, out of construction, the same happened again. I wound up pulling off and disabling the system with some careful wire pulling. No GPS, no way of knowing where it is.
Screw that auto drive horseshit. They have a long, long, LONG ways to go before it'll work, and that includes making the system situationally aware of what is going on around it and not making a decision based on what Google Maps saw a year before on a quick driveby.
I have said this before - and been downvoted for it - but I will _not_ get in a vehicle where silicon is doing the driving.
I do not care that (allegedly) the silicon driver is 'better than average'; I do care that it has no skin in the game. I _do_ care that there is an increasing reliance by drivers on safety aids mandated by governments which are not necessarily fit for purpose: I have managed to drive for over forty years without requiring a little light in a wing mirror to save me looking over my shoulder (or better, being aware _before_ I start thinking of a lane changing manoeuvre) and nor do I require a device to centre my vehicle in a lane, and incidentally make the vehicle feel as though a mechanical failure to the front suspension has occurred when it does it. I expect to be aware of the speed of other vehicles both in front of me and behind.
I make the judgements about my driving, not someone else's ideas through software.
nor do I require a device to centre my vehicle in a lane
Especially a device designed to work on wide motorway lanes, and which is lethally dangerous on a narrow country road where approaching a bus or HGV coming from the opposite direction requires both vehicles to keep to the extreme inside edge of their lanes to pass safely.
It's only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt because that 'driver aid' tugs them into the path of an approaching 44 tonne lorry before they can react to override it.
"It's only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt because that 'driver aid' tugs them into the path of an approaching 44 tonne lorry before they can react to override it."
Recently I had to dodge some lumber in the roadway. If the car had pulled me back to the center of the lane, the car would have taken a bunch of undercarriage damage. I didn't have to leave my lane, just move to one side. On some roads, the trucks have gouged tracks in the pavement and if I need to be in that lane, I'll stay to one side to decrease the noise and save my tyres.
My '21 Corsa has speed limit recognition, a lot of the time it shows "---" if there are no recent limit signs and often picks up side road limits.
Thankfully it is old enough to only be advisory unlike newer cars that will slow down unless you defeat it every time you stop (Do they really "slam" on the brakes??"), I can press a button to set the cruise to the new level but it is not imposed. What I have seems a sweet spot to me.
SatNav using google often shows the wrong speed limits long after they have changed.
What I am still waiting for is the FSD car maker to be made responsible for any speeding tickets and accidents etc, unless that happens FSD should not be permitted.
"What I am still waiting for is the FSD car maker to be made responsible for any speeding tickets and accidents etc, unless that happens FSD should not be permitted."
Stands to reason. The software is driving the car so any transgressions are due to the software and not the person sitting behind the wheel (if there is one). Liability is one of the huge issues that has not been worked out. Insurance companies are going to demand that regulations are firmly in place so they can gauge their exposure and have the ability to set premiums properly.
I rented a brand new kia a few months ago from LHR and drove west to Richmond. All of the variable highway signs said 70 was the limit, but the car was convinced it was 50. It would beep incessantly when I drove over the speed limit, and there was no way to turn it off.
Needless to say, I will never buy a kia in the UK or the US.
"It would beep incessantly when I drove over the speed limit, and there was no way to turn it off."
When I was helping a friend move, I was driving the moving truck of stuff he didn't want to let the movers touch and it had a load of those beepy, buzzy noises for things. Given how massively we overloaded the truck, I had to keep my eyes firmly on the road so I couldn't sort out the icons that would light up on the dash for 3-4 seconds when it was beeping and the manual was not in the glove box so I wasn't able to figure out if I could deactivate them. I expect one of the noises was a blind spot noise which would be going off as I was going a bit under the limit and sticking to the slow lane so plenty of people would be passing me.
I attend an annual reunion which involves a journey through southern Oxfordshire; a 20-ish mile stretch generally limited to the national single-carriageway default of 60 mph, with numerous villages with the usual 30 mph limit. Last year (2024) the reunion was cancelled so there was a two year gap in making the journey.
Surprise #1 - this year, at the start of that section, a sign indicating a limit of 50mph;
Surprise #2 - at the first village a limit of 20 mph displayed;
Surprise #3 - at the end of that village 50mph limit displayed;
etc, etc, through something like six villages.
On my return home I did a search and discovered those new-to-me limits to be an ongoing safety programme for that county (not a complaint: their roads, their choice). When I found the official website showing the programme (for, it seems, the whole county), the village which I investigated showed completion of the relevant legal process and the change of signage 14 months before my trip.
Not one of those limits was shown by my mapping app: it showed the historical limits for the full length of that part of the journey.
> "And if we get everybody on quality software that's better than human drivers, like Waymo, we will save hundreds of thousands of lives per year. That's absolutely true. But it won't be Elon. It won't be Tesla."
In fairness, the self driving features are already statistically better than average humans at regular driving tasks so if all cars were using Tesla's tech then lives would already be saved. That's partly because a lot of human drivers are pretty inattentive and sometimes reckless.
The big problem is that it fails in incomprehensible and strange ways that makes us distrust it, and rightly so. I live on an island here where we also have the yellow school buses around in the morning and late afternoon. Meatbag drivers also sometimes do not stop when it is flashing its lights and has the STOP signs out. Tesla's self driving systems might be flawed but people are similarly stupid.
For those outside the Americas that are maybe not aware, traffic must stop *on both sides of the road*, and not pass the bus, when the it shows the red lights and sign so that kids can safely cross the road.
Yeah, statistically Tesla FSD is already safer than human drivers, but that's mostly because they cherry-pick the data. They're looking at overall accident rates for people vs. FSD which is overwhelmingly highway driving; their safety record wouldn't look so good compared to highway-only numbers for humans.
Also worth calling attention to one regulator's demand for statistics about how many accidents happen within a few seconds of autopilot automatically disengaging because it's realized it has no idea what it's doing. I own one of these and can tell you it will sometimes do that with zero warning, so if you weren't following directions and keeping your hands on the wheel, you'll probably get into an accident. That isn't currently counted against FSD for the safety stats.
When I was studying for a private pilot license, reading up on human performance and limitations was very much a thing. I recall a paper that reported that, in repeated testing, it generally took around 6 seconds for aircrew to fully appraise themselves of the situation if an autopilot was disengaged without giving them prior warning.
Car drivers are less frequently trained in dealing with emergencies (hell, they're mostly very poorly trained in general - and I include myself in that cohort) and, although they only have to worry about two dimensions - unless things have gone very pear-shaped - I very much doubt the average car-driver could take over control from a FSD system quickly enough to safely deal with a situation the software has been unable resolve in good time.
"When I was studying for a private pilot license, reading up on human performance and limitations was very much a thing."
I get several articles a month on pilot fatigue and attention issues from the FAA. Autopilot in aircraft is ADAS to offload the more mundane tasks so the pilot has the ability to plan ahead of the flight. It's also useful to input waypoints along with altitude and speed restrictions and let the confuser calculate glide slopes and throttle settings.
> it will sometimes do that with zero warning, so if you weren't following directions and keeping your hands on the wheel
AND maintaining your best level of full situational awareness (and haven't tucked your foot away under the seat, so it is ready to use the pedals).
In other words, doing everything needed to actually drive, except for the awfully tiring jobs of turning the steering wheel or pressing the pedal (assuming you don't use cruise control).
So if you have to be alert all the time, remind me, what is the value in FSD again?
I keep saying that - it's not just keeping your hands on the wheel, but knowing the road conditions, where everything else is on the road, like you say, all the situational awareness.
Indeed, I would think it's harder to do that if you aren't actually driving, so yeah, you may as well drive.
Yeah, statistically Tesla FSD is already safer than human drivers, but that's mostly because they cherry-pick the data.
It's also - says the NTSB - because human drivers are very good at coping with the stupid things "self-driving" cars do and avoiding accidents. Stick one toddler on a dance floor and it probably won't get hit. Fill a dance floor with toddlers and it will be collisions all the way.
"Fill a dance floor with toddlers and it will be collisions all the way."
I'm imagining that and seeing all sorts of collisions of toddlers who fall on their bums and start wailing. There's no way to anticipate what any toddler is going to do so know way to plan a route to avoid them. People do stupid things, but on average one can expect A driver to do a certain thing in a certain situation and if they don't seem to be lining up for that, you back off and watch them carefully as they do that stupid thing.
> In fairness, the self driving features are already statistically better than average humans at regular driving tasks
Hold it, you should state which country you use as reference. It is either USA or Thailand. I suspect US of A.
USA car casualty vs. German (no speed limit) casualty per 100000 people: Close to 4:1 (UK is close to 5:1, better than Germany in that statistic). Yep, the bastion of useless no speed limit craziness is a lot safer.
USA casualty vs. Thailand or Vietnam: Close to 1:3. So USA streets are multitude safer, but compared to what? Check videos on YouTube about the traffic insanity in those two countries.
> For those outside the Americas that are maybe not aware
Sounds like a lot of US defaultism, assuming the classical "only 'murica is number one at everything". You've never been to UK or Germany or Switzerland or Denmark or Norway or Sweden or Korea, not even virtually by watching youtube video where americans travel there.
I recommend watching James Bray, for example. An US-American living outside of the US bubble, and how it changes him. It also shows that US-Americans can learn, if they want to.
An US-American living outside of the US bubble, and how it changes him
There are many YouTubers who are ex-pat Americans now living in Europe. Common pluses of living in Europe include: Healthcare, public transport, active travel & work-life balance. Sure they note that they pay more in taxes, but they're happy to do that as they see the benefits that brings.
From what I've read, there may be higher direct taxation in Europe, but in the US, by the time you factor in monthly healthcare costs (which can be 15% for basic healthcare, far higher for comprehensive cover), you end up paying more and receiving less. This is especially true if you factor in pensions, social safety nets, higher education cost etc. Don't be fooled by simple tax percentages.
Anecdotally I find myself in the USA for a third week now of this month (lucky me). I've been driving in the UK for over 15 years and although there are some idiots, generally people are okay.
In the US? The roads are a madhouse that makes even London driving or the M25 seem sane. One of my colleagues is from Paris and even he finds driving here to be awful...!
I think these road behaviours can be localised. I have lived in various parts of the United States over the last three decades, and if anything, I have found ordinary USA drivers to be far more conservative than UK drivers. Both countries have individuals who have no regard for others, let alone highway regulations, but they are the exception. The USA is a big country, and it is always a mistake to assume the alleged characteristics are universally applicable.
"The rules for driving licences vary widely across the US, I am told."
Find somebody better at telling you things.
The standards for a license are fairly common across all states. They have to be since there is reciprocity of driving privileges. A license issued in one state is valid in all states with some very minor exceptions for minors. In a few places in the US, a 14yo can get a license for incidental driving on a public road in rural/farming areas. Under 18's can have other restrictions that vary by state. I'm not aware of any state that issues a license with no test and I'm very doubtful that it's true or other states would not recognized a license from that state.
Indeed without that qualification our US Vultures (Buzzards?) could have played the "But the US is soooo much bigger than Germany/Britain/France/Andorra) that it's just not a fair comparison.
I suspect a lot of the US still think of seatbelts as "Optional." Often the last thing going through their heads (apart from the wind shield of course).
Very simple. If someone does not use the seatbelt I wait for the moment to step fully on the brake at 15 km/h or less (10 mp/h or less). This very slow speed is suddenly not as slow as some may think. That usually converts them. Or they don't drive with me, which is fine too.
"That usually converts them. Or they don't drive with me, which is fine too."
It's a ticket to the driver if a cop pulls over a car for a passenger not wearing a seatbelt or sees they aren't after a stop for something else. They often don't write the driver up for that, but reserve it for those that "know their rights" and get mouthy on a stop. I've seen a few badgecam videos where people manage to talk themselves into a ticket or an arrest when the officer comments he was going to give them a warning and let them go unless he found something really bad such as drink driving or another serious offense. A couple of times it was a burnt out tail light or the number plate hanging by a screw and the idget goes on the offensive and causes the officer to take a closer look at why they are being so combative. Be polite, answer the questions asked, don't ask any yourself and be done as quickly as possible. Winning in court doesn't balance losing at the beginning. Impound fees are egregiously high.
In the UK if the passenger is over 18 then the no seatbelt ticket goes to that passenger (IIRC it's a fine and points if you have a license), if they're under 18 then it's the responsibility of the driver to ensure they're all belted so the driver gets the ticket and points.
shows that US-Americans can learn, if they want to
I once worked with some US "missionaries" who had been sent to a down-and-out South Wales valley to help local churches with outreach programmes. These people were very easy to get on with, friendly and well-educated. What was the thing that had surprised them most about the UK?
Daylight past 10pm in the summer!
Sunset at 4pm in the winter!
Granted they were "Southern Baptists" from a part of the US where daylight length doesn't vary too much, but they apparently weren't even aware that varying day-length was a "thing". Very pleased to be able to barbecue late into the evening, slightly frustrated that the youth work they were running at 6pm was somewhat restricted over the winter, not just in being basically confined indoors but that teenagers were reluctant to walk themselves to the church hall in the dark.
Epitomises the insular nature of some people. Yes, I know some people in the UK who are as ignorant of other countries, but it seems not only to be common in the US, but actively encouraged.
M.
"I had a conversation with someone in Kent who just didn't believe the sun goes down later in summer the further north you go."
I visited a friend in Seattle and hadn't been that far north in some time. We were out visiting places when there was an announcement the venue was closing and I remember a sign on the way in that said they close at 21:30. "No way it's that late". It was which also meant that dining choices were going to be really poor. People that travel very little aren't exposed to things like the length of day being different in different latitudes. I had another friend living in Alaska where the sun barely goes below the horizon in summer and only makes a short appearance in the depths of winter.
"and not pass the bus"
That is weird, dangerous, and inconsistent. Everywhere else in the USA - and I've driven a LOT in the USA, lived there for many years - an octagonal red 'Stop' sign means 'come to a full stop *and proceed if safe to do so*.' If you just dab the brakes and slow without coming to a stop when passing a stop sign - on a bus or anywhere else - that's illegal. But it's not illegal to stop and proceed. Having the same sign mean different things depending on where it is, that's just barmy.
In my state at least, there is no movement allowed for a school bus stop sign. You stop and stay stopped until the bus driver retracts the sign. The sign stays out until all kids have cleared the road. Taking off while the bus stop sign is deployed is quite expensive, and buses do have cameras that will grab your tag number.
"Taking off while the bus stop sign is deployed is quite expensive, and buses do have cameras that will grab your tag number."
There was a lady that was going around on the pavement (sidewalk) since she and the bus were often on the same road each day. The bus driver got video and police were standing by shortly after and nabbed her doing it again. Not just a ticket, but an arrest, impound the car, all that. It's not wise to muck about when it comes to kids. Hardened cons will come down terminally on any other prisoner that's in for crimes against a child.
In fairness, the self driving features are already statistically better than average humans at regular driving tasks so if all cars were using Tesla's tech then lives would already be saved. That's partly because a lot of human drivers are pretty inattentive and sometimes reckless.
Downvoted because that sounds the usual drivel from Tesla's marketing department. The auto industry is not known for excessive integrity, and Tesla's record for truthiness seems to me to be less than stellar. I remember the infamous 2013 Model S/NY Times Winter driving test drive that ended up with a bricked vehicle in the wild's of Connecticut. https://archive.nytimes.com/wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/that-tesla-data-what-it-says-and-what-it-doesnt/ Frankly I've always found John Broder's story to be far more credible than Tesla's claims that Broder sabotaged the drive.
BTW, I don't believe that autonomous vehicles are inherently unsafe. Waymo's record in 5 years of operation in a fairly difficult environment -- the Bay area -- convinces me that they probably are on the right track and probably are fit for purpose. Can't say the same for Tesla.
I remember the infamous 2013 Model S/NY Times Winter driving test drive that ended up with a bricked vehicle in the wild's of Connecticut.
I remember that one too. Elon Musk summarily fired the customer support agent who gave correct but ineffective advice to the writer. That was when I realised what a vindictive dickhead he is.
"I remember the infamous 2013 Model S/NY Times Winter driving test drive that ended up with a bricked vehicle in the wild's of Connecticut. "
If it's the one I remember, the article writer did their best to find fault with the car by claiming to run out of charge while circling in a car park "looking for the charger" that wasn't all that hard to spot. I've seen EV shows in the UK where the presenter had no clue and the manufacturer lending them the car didn't have anybody verify that they were even licensed, much less aware of how EV's work. They may have been too complacent after working with so many competent reviewers that they didn't make sure the person understood about charging, etc. I suppose you'd think that a show that will be aired on the BBC would have some sort of integrity/competence. Tesla may not have had anybody assigned and trained to be a liaison to the press after Elon fired the PR department and took on the role personally. Good companies have people that can explain their products broken down "Barney Style" and answer the same silly questions all day long with a real smile on their face (not just an exasperated sort of grimace). Those companies understand how important it is to make sure the reviewer (can't say 'journalist' these days) has a good experience and isn't gripping the wrong end of the stick.
"You are joking aren't you?"
I won't say there isn't bias, but outright incompetence, not so much. One such show I can remember, the presenter had no clue how to charge the car. They plugged it in and came back some time later and found no charging took place as they hadn't properly started the charging session. It would be like putting the nozzle in the car and not pulling the lever or paying/providing a card when filling up with petrol. They went on to say how bad this would be for people that needed to charge and nothing happened. Well, duh. It's like the Tesla owners that kept returning to the same out of order Supercharger station until their car's battery was flat. One can look them up online to see if they are operational and how crowded it might be.
Many replies already, but none have pointed out that the video showed two dead "children", two stop signs run and three other dangerous driving events. I don't know how many hours of filming they did, but I've been driving 35 years and have never killed any children. So unless they have spent milliions of hours filiming, I would question the validity of those statistics.
You don't just have to manage the tech, you have to manage expectations and the media.
Thousands die in road accidents, but one accident with a driverless car could end it as a technology. Which is daft. We shouldn't have an expectation of perfection. We need to do the sums and be happy if the dead body count is lower. Ultimately, the tech is a success if it kills fewer people, not a failure if it kills anyone.
I think that driverless may be a tech step too far given the amount of variables involved and the public/media response to any death. It may be better to have tech assists to reduce accidents. Controlled driverless zones on motorways might then be implemented to give drivers a break.
> Controlled driverless zones on motorways might then be implemented to give drivers a break.
Road trains, with a clearly defined controller (just one Casey Jones) and/or clearly defined (and verified on you vehicle before you get to join the Train Lane) "follow the leader" behaviour in each and every vehicle. One protocol to inform the cars fore and aft how you are doing and that that you are about to enter/exit the train.
Not a random pile of fully autonomous vehicles each making all its own decisions in solitude.
(But is does also worry me, when discussing presentations about road trains, that they all seem to like bunching cars up very close, "for efficient road use", but ignoring what happens when one of them snaps a timing belt or a pump seizes or the turbocharger goes phut ... Maybe better wait until we are all electric and have fewer parts, but even then...)
You could even consider putting them on rails to make it even safer. And if you do that you could have them go straight into the city center at high speed with no issues, maybe create a nice station there for people to get on and off. Gives you a chance to fix the issue of expensive batteries as well, just power the stuff from the rails or overhead wires or something. And if you do that you can have pretty big vehicles that can easily do over 150mph. Heck, you could even add wifi so you can get some work done, or a restaurant car so you can get a bite on the go. Dunno, just an idea.
"And if you do that you can have pretty big vehicles that can easily do over 150mph. "
Around 150mph is a big breaking point that vaults one into HSR and an exponential rise in requirements/cost. For someplace such as the US where passenger trains are the red-headed stepchild, there's so much room for improvement of standard trains that HSR shouldn't be considered. California has already spent more money on that than NASA will spend putting people on the moon and there still no plan to make that train service Los Angeles or San Francisco. The section being worked on already has service which would be dramatically improved by having dedicated passenger tracks and a lack of level crossings which are a requirement of HSR along with much higher spec tracks that can take the stresses. In addition to dedicated tracks for passenger trains, there's a need to more frequent service. If there were two departures for long distance routes each day, 12 hours (or so) apart, it could make more sense to travelers. A service that runs three days/week isn't useful for most people. Brightline (a private company) is supposed to be creating a route on the existing Amtrak Coast Starlight route that will travel overnight between LA and SF in a similar fashion to the Caledonian Sleeper. Leave in the evening, arrive the next morning, travel while asleep vs. HSR that takes 3-5 hours if there are no delays. That's waking time on HSR so half a day burnt going one way and another half day burnt on the return. Going slow overnight means little waking time lost. Leave one evening, do things the next day at the other end and catch the train that evening to return. Having a lounge with showers should be a priority and eliminates the need to have them on the train.
Road trains, with a clearly defined controller (just one Casey Jones) and/or clearly defined (and verified on you vehicle before you get to join the Train Lane) "follow the leader" behaviour in each and every vehicle.
That was suggested as "platooning". The flaws are obvious and insurmountable. The gaps between the platoon/road train vehicles have to be large enough to allow safe braking (even if the lead vehicle applies all the brakes at once you can't assume that they will be equally effective) which means that other vehicles will be able to pull into the gaps, perhaps when joining or leaving the motorway. And if one of them slows down, what happens to the platoon?
"which means that other vehicles will be able to pull into the gaps, perhaps when joining or leaving the motorway. And if one of them slows down, what happens to the platoon?"
Not all trucks are equal either. On level roads, trucks can go at the same rate of speed, but if there are hills, heavier trucks and those with smaller engines will slow down. In some instances, trucks will slow down a lot on a steep hill and there's a huge disparity. Trucks would wind up having to break ranks or the least capable one controls all.
> Not all trucks are equal either
>> and verified on you vehicle before you get to join the Train Lane
Leaving aside my missing 'r', that comes under verifying that you are capable of doing "follow the leader" along this stretch - if you can't keep up, you ain't capable of following properly and don't get to join.
As implied by this and other comments, there is the problem of how to stop people trying to push their way into the road train lane; that is left as an exercise for the reader*
* as it largely depends upon what the state of the art is when we get to the point of trying to assign said lane; if by then every car has lane assist, that can be activated to prevent crossing across, for example. But if it were done this year then we'd need something cleverer (or something dumber - a physical lane divider except at exit/entry points for starters...)
Thousands die in road accidents, but one accident with a driverless car could end it as a technology. Which is daft. We shouldn't have an expectation of perfection.
Yeah, well... What I expect is to see hard-braking rubber marks in the asphalt prior to the hit. And then the car stopping and alerting the emergency services and not moving from there till they arrive and then give them a full report of what happened.
Not doing that is illegal for meatbags, why should a machine get an exception?
If machines get an exception, it is probably down to a legal failing. Vehicle accidents under any form of autopilot should be treated like air accidents. Each one considered on its merits.
A friend of mine was killed by a drunk driver. That was a crime but the sentence he got was shamefully short. We have known about drink and drug drivers for about a century, yet still they get pathetic sentences.
I'm not sure why I got so many downvotes. If any form of tech reduces the body count that's surely a good thing. You guys expect this tech to be perfect? Have you heard of this thing called 'Windows'?
Given how much data a moving vehicle has to process in real time, it's never going to be close to perfect. As in most areas of life, we may need to put a peg on our noses and take what we can get.
I suspect you got downvoted by people who failed to get the point you were making?
Yes autonomous cars will, absolutely will, kill people, pedestrians, other users, whatever; no more or less than humans do driving cars right now.
The tech isn't perfect, it will never be perfect. The question is this, if hypothetically, all cars were self-driving (with the current state of the art tech), then would more or fewer people be killed in accidents per year?
> . If any form of tech reduces the body count that's surely a good thing.
Agreed.
> You guys expect this tech to be perfect?
No, but if body count reduction is a prime concern get rid of so many individual cars and put decent public transport in place - that'll cut the numbers way down.
If we insist on keeping so many cars around, there are better ways to go on all counts than shitty FSD based on deliberately inadequate sensors and no communications between vehicles (both of which use existing capabilities) instead of keeping fingers crossed that Tesla's system will magically work better without.
The problem with the current tesla data is that in theory, a driver is supervising the system. We don't know how well it would do without supervision. Well, we know in the above case. With no human to stop FSD from killing a kid, it would have. So until we have non-supervised data from FSD, we don't know how well it does. In the case of cruise, it nearly killed a person by dragging them under the car for a block because the system was deaf and could not hear the screaming.
If it can - for example - start driving in a small village in Germany, navigate the autobahns (complete with traffic incidents and road works) through multiple countries, get itself onto the Eurotunnel train (or a ferry; I'm not fussy), navigate the UK motorway system, A roads, and B roads down to single-track-with-passing places, and finish at my mother's croft on a Scottish island, I might begin to consider the technology usable.
Bonus points for driving at a speed at which I feel comfortable, and maybe for parking at a hotel or two along the way.
Until then, no.
"We shouldn't have an expectation of perfection."
Elon's refrain has been "it's 10 times safer" and he repeats that over and over again. If somebody has only been in one accident in their entire life, 10x safer would be zero accidents. Somebody that is a poor driver and has been in 10 would expect no more than one (and likely do better given how bad they are at driving).
The best way to have put it, provided it was true, was that since the computer doesn't get bored or easily distracted, it will reduce the likelihood of an accident by a considerable amount. What constitutes "a considerable amount" is properly vague. For a very good driver, probably no difference and for somebody that can't put their phone down* and goes everywhere with a gaggle of spawn and an annoying dog, it could be a life an death difference.
*I have a theory that the next mass extinction of humans will be due to mobile phones.
The main problem isn't "expectations and the media", it's liability.
Ever since the dawn of auto-based transportation, our society has a relatively simple process for metabolizing the massive amounts of death, injury, and property damage caused by car crashes: examine the behavior of individual human drivers involved in the crash and attribute 100% of the legal and financial liability to whichever driver(s) are determined to be "at fault". No matter how capable your automated "driver assist" systems are, the obligatory human driver is still present to function as a lightning rod for all that liability, whereas taking the leap into true "driverless" opens the unfathomably massive Pandora's box of automakers themselves being fully responsible for any and all traffic infractions where one of their vehicles is determined to be at fault.
In other words, it's not a matter of the PR department talking a few histrionic journalists down from the ledge of reactionary Luddism, it's a matter of the entire industry needing to fabricate a whole new category of engineering safety/compliance standards out of whole cloth, which needs to happen before the industry can even *begin* to exist at any kind of scale. Just imagine how difficult it'll be for insurance companies, courts, and regulators to comb through a company's internal data after every single at-fault crash to establish exactly when, how, and by whom a specific driving behavior was introduced in the development cycle of a driverless vehicle's hardware and/or software -- especially considering how much our current approaches to machine learning tend to treat complex neural-network models as inscrutable black boxes whose specific individual reasons for specific individual outputs are inherently beyond the ken of mere human comprehension.
"Move fast and break things" might be workable as a snarky business aphorism for an industry whose raison d'etre is figuring out how to shove a few extra fractions of a second's worth of targeted ads in front of an app user's eyeballs, but it quickly stops being such a ha-ha funny joke once your products are actually moving fast and breaking things in the literal physical world, let alone when the "things" being broken include human bodies.
It's just Americans killing Americans trying very hard to equal their 1860s bloodfest in a gruesome version of manifest destiny.
Being America I can foresee the whole thing coming undone in the courts when FSD shows a preference in its victims for a particular racial or ethnic group. Adds a whole new meaning to D.I.E.
The computer is constantly having a seizure, it’s dealing with interrupts. I think the C64 regularly had a micro-seizure about 60 times a second. No matter what it was doing, it would have to set aside its current “thought” then do some minor things like scan the keyboard, flash the cursor, interact with a device, etc, then set that aside and return to the main program. The trouble occurred if the interrupt got stuck, then the computer could get jammed waiting for some status indicator, and might miss a few (thousand) keyboard scans while it struggles with conniption.
Meanwhile, it’s dragging a mannequin child over a cliff…
one would hope that a human driver would have noticed the lights and stopped as legally required.
When I was in school a human driver in our town failed to stop as required. The bus was stopped, red, folding STOP signs attatched to the sides of the bus deployed, and red lights flashing. A schoolgirl had got off the schoolbus, and started to cross the street in front of the bus, when some asshole human driver got tired of waiting, pulled around the bus, and struck the girl, who was flung back across the road and then struck the sidewalk.
She was in the hospital for a long time. She had to relearn some things, and had to repeat her 3rd year. People who knew her said her personality had changed.
Theoretically, if it had been a Tesla in FSD mode which had done this, the Tesla company would be at least partially at fault.
Practically, how likely is it that an individual or family would be able to sue, and then collect, from a rich mega-corp which simply refuses to pay? Nobody goes to jail when a company refuses to pay its debts.
Refusal to pay legally-owed corporate debts is a publicly-known Elon Musk business practice (Musk's X Owes Boulder Landlord $8.2 Million, Judge Rules - https://www.westword.com/news/musks-x-owes-boulder-landlord-82-million-judge-rules-24650846).
Oh that's easy. I've been peripherally involved in a similar situation in the UK myself. Large company ignored all orders to pay after losing a court case. Creditor eventually hired bailiffs who showed up at the head office with a court order to seize goods in hand and movers in tow, and headed straight for the mainframe... never have I see a large cheque written faster!
Read just yesterday of an identical US situation. Bank owned a couple money, wouldn't pay. They eventually got an enforcement order and turned up at the bank branch with sheriff's deputies (fulfil similar role to bailiffs in the USA) to seize goods... bank manager wrote them them a check on the spot.
"Read just yesterday of an identical US situation. Bank owned a couple money, wouldn't pay. They eventually got an enforcement order and turned up at the bank branch with sheriff's deputies (fulfil similar role to bailiffs in the USA) to seize goods... bank manager wrote them them a check on the spot."
I've heard that one, but I'd not be surprised if there was more than one instance. The creditor showed up at the bank branch with a bailiff and a moving van to collect any chattels with an estimated value equal to the judgement. I expect cash would be a first priority, but counting machines and other things have good resale value. The branch manager was able to cut a bank check for the amount due. There may have been a 3x penalty if that check was irredeemable, so I expect it was fine. I also imagine that the person at the branch was able to do this very quickly as the bailiffs wouldn't be able to hang about.
"A schoolgirl had got off the schoolbus, and started to cross the street in front of the bus"
1) Why was the bus stopped on the wrong side of the street? I.e why did the child have to cross?
2) Never cross the road in front of the stopped vehicle; always behind.
Umm... do all schoolchildren live on the same side of the road where you come from? 'round here, there appears to be a fairly even distribution of them on both sides which means some *have* to cross the road (unless the bus makes two passes down every street - which seems a little excessive but I don't live in murica and may well be making an assumption).
And on crossing the road, the safest option is obviously waiting until the bus has buggered off so you have the clearest view but if you have to go early, I'd suggest passing in front of the bus for one very good reason: it puts several tons of metal between you and the inattentive driver who's about to rear-end the bus. There's also a chance the bus driver - who's just let you off so they KNOW you're there - will use their mirrors and so give you a second set of eyes on approaching traffic. But, hey, if Darwin tells you to do it differently, you crack on ;)
"Umm... do all schoolchildren live on the same side of the road where you come from? 'round here, there appears to be a fairly even distribution of them on both sides which means some *have* to cross the road"
It's odd that were I live the bus stop is near no child's home and in front of mine so they are all getting off and walking some distance. The kids don't bother me, but their parents do. They'll park across my driveway and once even in my driveway blasting 'ethnic' music as hearing damaging levels with a stereo worth more than the car. I use the term 'music' loosely as there were no musicians present at the creation of the recording.
"1) Why was the bus stopped on the wrong side of the street? I.e why did the child have to cross?
2) Never cross the road in front of the stopped vehicle; always behind."
It makes no difference as traffic is required to stop on both sides of the road until the bus turns off the flashing lights and retracts the sign. We are talking about kids here as well. You can tell them a gazillion times they are to cross behind the bus and they'll cross in front so it has to be expected.
The bus stopped on the side of the road where it was travelling. Passengers would emerge on the bus stop / sidewalk / path. If the bus had moved to the other side of the road, crossing the traffic lane, the passengers would have to get off into the traffic.
You are correct that it is much better to cross by going to the back of any vehicle. The driver can see better and any hinged doors open in your favour.
1) Are you daft? How do you think buses work? A bus is not a taxi. It has a route.
2) In the US school buses have specific laws concerning them. One of them is you are not allowed to pass them while passengers are embarking/disembarking, which means blinkenlights and a stop sign. IT DOESN'T MATTER where the kid was.
"Refusal to pay legally-owed corporate debts is a publicly-known Elon Musk business practice (Musk's X Owes Boulder Landlord $8.2 Million, Judge Rules - https://www.westword.com/news/musks-x-owes-boulder-landlord-82-million-judge-rules-24650846)."
Elon has done that in the UK as well. The funny thing is that one of the properties is owned in part by the King. Yeah, not a great idea to give the bird to the Sovereign.
Musk has been proposing all sorts of crap for well over a decade and has never delivered any of them or it's "in about two years", yet people still think he's a genius when he's really just an arse.
"Technically it did save a fraction of what was promised but I get your point."
Perhaps, but not after all of the lawsuits are factored in. It's just like talking about Elon's 'net' worth and only counting his Tesla holdings and ignoring his debt.
Hyperloop was Musk's excuse to start The Boring Company so he could pretend it was his dick making all those holes.
And the fact that TBC has been the slowest, most expensive and generally useless at using its giant mechanical penis should not be taken as a reflection on anything...
First-stage rocket reuse in the dozens and low-orbit satellite constellation with laser cross-links not enough for you? If you totally ignored every word out of his mouth and judged him by what he'd actually achieved, he'd be one of the preeminent innovators of our age. Elon Musk only looks bad if you judge him by what he promises. Which to be fair, *is* a problem, but don't undercount what he gets done because of that.
>” and judged him by what he'd actually achieved, he'd be one of the preeminent innovators of our age.”
Keep taking the Kool-aid, not seen any real evidence of Musk being a serial innovator, but plenty of him using his money and status to uncle in and claim the work of others…
Hyperloop? Nope.
Patented by Robert Goddard over 100 years ago
Solar roof tiles? Nope.
Patented by NASA many years ago
Tesla Truck? Nope.
Just about every major truck maker has been selling electric trucks for a few years now.
New Roadster? Nope. However, did raise over $2B from orders for it when it was announced seven years ago. Hasn't returned any of that money yet.
Scam
Tesla robot? Nope.
Just saw a video from a Chinese company showing humanoid robots with some serious dance and gymnastics moves. CGI or real?
Full Self Driving? Nope.
Other companies far in the lead and it's still not known if it's going to be viable in the marketplace.
Starship to orbit? Not really, although a banana possibly managed to get to the Indian Ocean."
If at first you don't succeed, try again and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again (that's 9, right?)
What's the definition of insanity again?
To be fair, they haven't tried to get to orbit yet but they are missing the Indian Ocean so much that maybe they shouldn't be allowed to try.
>> Are you implying it's okay to run over children as long as you don't make a habit of it?
I'm pretty sure that was a mannequin of a child, not a real one.
Like everyone on the internet the producers of this video have a point to prove and will selectively select footage that supports their case. It's cool to hate Tesla and Tesla-drivers at the moment (and there are excellent reasons for doing so, mainly led by the Nazi manchild who's superficially running the company), hence the downvotes on a comment which suggested that maybe, just *maybe* it might be worth having a closer look at the footage.
> I'm pretty sure that was a mannequin of a child, not a real one.
What, you believe the Tesla cameras can tell the difference? Reliably enough that it made a direct decision not to stop that time?
And you think it is a good idea to just drive over a mannequin anyway? Never sen the damage that plastic road trash can do if it gets jammed in just the right place?
> There are multiple sets of long skid marks visible in the video. I wonder how many attempts it took them to get the footage they wanted?
Were all those skid marks caused by this same test?
Maybe that piece of tarmac is just generally available for running tests or other 'unusual' activities? Like the skid marks all over the tarmac on privately owned land that is used for advanced driver training, stunt driving and just generally mucking about in cars away from the traffic on proper roads.
They may even have started with a bigger mannequin but found that the Tesla never hit anything Elon-sized or larger.
"Kids crossing from a yellow bus are one of the few times when pedestrians have priority on US roads."
Legally, peds always have the right of way aside from freeways* where they are banned in the US. In practice, the "law of gross tonnage" should be given a load of respect.
*freeways are limited access motorways with vehicle restrictions. It's why one might see signs that state "end of freeway" on a highway that seems to be the same sort of road. It will often mean that there can be cross traffic and branching roads that don't have a ramp (slip road).
I feel like the first step to being self driving is to start designing roads to standards that are easy for software to understand and only allow it to operate on those.
Yes, you can write incredibly clever software to interpret the real world, but that's not a simple answer.
If you need a robot to navigate a factory floor, paint a yellow line for it to follow. It's not a flashy gadget like a roomba, but it works.
In other words, there are environments where robots are a sensible idea, and environments where they’re not.
Examples of the former are harsh environments such as deep sea diving, or controlled environments such as factories.
Public roads are an excellent example of the latter. There is no way that vehicles should ever be self-driving unless the road is designed for them, and public roads in most parts of the world most definitely are not.
Incidentally driving in many parts of the US is extremely easy compared to the more populous parts of the world where roads are shared by all kinds of traffic and many roads pre-date powered vehicles.
Exactly this. A former commute of mine used to be about 40 minutes, and involved 5 minutes of fast dual carriageway followed by the remaining 35 minutes on single track roads, including humpback bridges on unsighted 90 degree bends. High grass banks or brick walls either side make it nice and narrow. Basically the kind where you approach the bridges, slow to a jogging pace and blow the horn before proceeding in the event someone is coming the other way.
Road was signed at UK national speed limit (60mph) and about once a year or so someone would smash into one of the bridges (or crash just after it) having failed to realise it was between two a very sharp s-bends.
If FSD can't cope with obstructions on the nice wide straight roads in the US then how the hell would it cope with the above, which is effectively everyday driving in other parts of the world?
"If FSD can't cope with obstructions on the nice wide straight roads in the US then how the hell would it cope with the above, which is effectively everyday driving in other parts of the world?"
In the US, there isn't the same inherited road system from centuries ago so many have never seen the difference between a US city street and something that began life as a cart track and the only upgrade since has been paving the surface. Widening might be a massive chore when both sides are stout stacked stone walls. Taking those down and putting the stone someplace else while erecting new fencing likely isn't worth the cost. There would also be issues if there are also buildings rather close to the road. Doubly so if they are listed.
"Public roads are an excellent example of the latter. There is no way that vehicles should ever be self-driving unless the road is designed for them, and public roads in most parts of the world most definitely are not."
Even if roads are constructed for automated vehicles, part of that would be the ability to detect debris and disabled vehicles in real time. The vehicles themselves may also need to have a redundant signal they can broadcast if they break down. The next dilemma is how to work around that for the remainder of traffic behind since blocking off multiple lanes of existing roads for automation would be problematic. If the lane(s) can be entered and exited by human driven vehicles, there will be plenty of that happening so routing automated cars onto human lanes is a problem.
I'm a fan of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) for cities where they are completely separated from the rest of traffic. There's been discussion that private cars could also use the network by entering the system at a defined point and the car being put under automated control as long as they physically fit. One of the interesting concepts is running those guideways completely through buildings. To get off within the building, you'd need some sort of badge or code when you request your destination in some cases. The same could apply to a business campus so there is the option of being routed through as a way to manage traffic, but not be able to stop if you aren't an employee. The same could apply to schools. In the case of an emergency, stops could be allowed with some sort of approval. If you were going to a shopping mall, you could be dropped inside during business hours, outside at other times and employees might be allowed inside within certain closed hours depending on their shift and title. Managers being allowed at all hours and staff in a more limited fashion which might be tied to their assigned shift on a particular day.
For times when I’m long distance commuting, I’d love to have a self driven car but I’d also like to see a lane specifically allocated to such cars. They could convoy fast as they want with only themselves to worry about. Mixing with other cars is always going to be a non starter because everyone has different driving styles.
"If you need a robot to navigate a factory floor, paint a yellow line for it to follow."
An interesting system to look up is the Kiva robots. They use a QR type of code on the floor that gives them an exact location. I'm not suggesting that it would be a good idea to stencil codes on a roadway but it might work to have signs that contain machine readable codes as an aid to automated vehicles as a data point. "Stick that in your Kalman filter and process it".
"I can imagine people going round with stickers to put over the QRs to spoof them"
People already do apply malicious spoofing stickers over real ones which is why I'd never scan a QR code. There's even been instances of people replacing large sheet ads on bus stops with versions of the existing ads that have modified QR codes so people will have seen the same ads in other places. Digital hygiene is important.
The Kiva robots are used in warehouses and not out in the wild world. I'm not sure how they handle inconsistent codes.
> I'd never scan a QR code
That is not that much of a problem: If you use a normal QR code program to check it will show you the information in the code before blindly doing anything. I do that for every QR code, especially if an app asks for one in a public space. Check first, and the the app can access it.
There are already self driving underground, even if actually they are a bit more complex than a lift. High speed trains are almost self driving, once the driver starts the train acceleration and braking are automatically controlled, the driver could manually brake the train or go to a slower speed, but to go faster than the speed allowed on the line or disregard signals, has to use a manual override and physically break a seal on a switch. A self driving tram, in the surface of the city firs of all has less degrees of freedom than a car or a bus and the tramway itself could have sensors and signalling equipment to control the tram.
Unfortunately, it's public transportation, totally uncool and not sci-fi.
>” I feel like the first step to being self driving is to start designing roads to standards that are easy for software to understand”
Sounds nice, but experience says these roads will have higher maintenance costs than existing roads and will require more downtime whilst maintenance is performed to keep the road in the pristine condition necessary for software to understand.
For example, it is going to be simpler and safer to simply shut a road after say a child being run over, so that the messy;activity of restoring the road to a pristine condition can be performed, than expect software to handle the (temporary) situation.
I'm imagining FSD cars trying to navigate snowy roads where markings are somewhere under snow and road itself is more a vague hint than something obvious. FSD cars would likely crash out at the first corner unless using GPS navigation in the conditions I'm thinking of. (That kind of weather is scary, you kinda have to infer the location of road from signs, tyre marks and such. Also, in that weather signs may be unreadable.)
> The figure for the USA in 2022 is reported to have been just over 42,500
Approximately 1.19 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes.
You may want to buy a globe, there is a lot more World out there than just the USA. And Tesla et al are trying to flog their wares into every bit of it.
> If you are going to exaggerate on minor points, it tends to undermine trust in whatever claims you make.
If you are ignorant of the existence of 98% of The Planet Earth it tends to undermine trust in whatever point you are trying to make.
Have Tesla stopped calling it full self driving and now just refer to it as FSD, or is that just in the article?
As I do have major problems with them marketing something as full self driving and then saying you have to supervise it all the time. As that isn't then full self driving is it?
It like the BS of lifetime warranties, which aren't usually for the life time of how long the purchaser owns it, but whatever arbitrary number the manufacturer decides is the lifetime of the product, so could be as little as a few years after purchase so as soon as they release a new model the 'lifetime' on the old one expires.
In our state the requirement is to stop when a school bus shows its lights regardless. This isn't an issue on a residential street but the last time we came across a bus with its lights flashing it was on a main road, the sort of road that nobody crosses randomly because its so wide and quite fast (think four lane trunk road in the UK). I spotted the bus because I wasn't driving and we joined the gaggle of confused drivers on our side of the road. (Nobody likes to stop on a road like that, you're asking to get rear ended).
There's a lot of instant criticism of self driving this and that and it invariably cites situations where a human driver is likely to perform poorly as well. In other words, self-driving isn't perfect. We cater to human imperfections by designing road layouts and signs around our limitations but even then the results are never perfect. I'm actually a self-driving skeptic, I don't see the point beyond demonstrating that its possible (a bit like the next level of computer chess or something) because of the difficulty of maintaining and managing fully operational driving equipment. After all, even self-driving trains still have an operator to oversee them -- its not strictly necessary but there 'just in case'. But saying that "it will never work" is denying the obvious.
"This isn't an issue on a residential street but the last time we came across a bus with its lights flashing it was on a main road, the sort of road that nobody crosses randomly because its so wide and quite fast "
I'm fairly certain on a divided road (one with a center reservation), traffic in the opposite direction isn't required to stop. I would also expect that if kids might be crossing that road, a crossing guard would be there. Even on a busier road, it is illegal to pass a school bus with it's flashing lights on and sign out. Full stop. Whether it's a good idea for there to be a bus stop in such a place is another matter. It might not be a stop, but an issue with the bus that might require getting the children out (engine/battery fire or smoke). The term "herding cats" comes to mind.
He's fired all the people investigating Tesla so there is no one left when this fails for real.
Now he's launching driverless taxi's. Yeah, that's a good one. Will the passengers be liable when it hits something? There is one certanty and it won't be Muck footing the bill.
Here we are in the middle of 2025 and Elon and his crew can't get this right. Didn't he promise it to be read by 2018?
Avoid Tesla's even if you are not driving one.
OK let me pose a question;
Right imagine that a human driver runs down my daughter and kills her, ran a red light, was drunk, was high; whatever. Fine, well not fine, but someone is responsible and will be punished (hopefully). It won't bring my daughter back but I know that the perpetrator is being punished - best I can do.
Fine OK, but what if it is an ‘autonomous’ vehicle? Who goes to prison, who ‘pays’ for this? Or do I (as an aggrieved father) have to get a gun and kill the CEO of the company that make the car because that’s the only restitution I have - or maybe kill their children and wife but leave them alive?
Let’s hope we don’t get to the position where the above is a viable solution.
"Fine OK, but what if it is an ‘autonomous’ vehicle? Who goes to prison, who ‘pays’ for this? "
I don't think you'll be able to insist on somebody going to prison, but it should have the option of a court handing out a huge fine, a revocation of any licenses or permits to produce such cars and an immediate recall of existing vehicles or a disabling of the functionality if it appears that it might be a fundamental flaw. Where prison for a senior executive comes in is if there's proof of circumvention of safety testing protocols, a lack of proper testing or known issues that haven't been addressed no matter if remediation is in process or not. There has to be a credible threat of that rather than the more common assumption of immunity from such penalties. It would focus their minds on safety being important a bit more sharply. If those executives could be heavily fined to be paid from their own funds with a ban on company compensation for that, in addition to doing time, even better.
If your child died because my self-driving car didn’t brake is identical to the brakes on my ordinary car failing. The manufacturer can lose the road license for the car, then it’s like my brakes failing after an urgent recall.
For accidents, your insurance should pay as it does now. The insurance company will set the premium according to the amount of money they have to pay out.
or maybe kill their children and wife but leave them alive?
No point - the CEO is probably a sociopath, so would have little effect on them - he'll (most likely to be male), will just carry on.
As for killing the CEO - the problem there is, you know that he's dead - but, he probably wouldn't "know he's been terminated", and for what reason. No, leave it up to the judiciary - get the law makers to make it so that the buck stops with the CEO and they can be jailed, for a long time and have to forfeit wealth - that will mean the CEO has plenty of time to think over the consequences of their [in]action in making their wares fit for purpose and not cutting corners for the sake of profit
I understand to a large extent the mid range American buying into all the cr@p the mainstream media pushes but here too?? really? I thought we'd be technocrats above all things and here we have a guy who's pushing the boundaries and turning science fiction into science fact. Don't we ALL want this to work?
We *are* technocrats, *when the tech works*. So far it really doesn't, and I don't really see it ever working in all conditions, which really is what it should be able to do. It needs to be *at least as good* as humans (not lowest bar, or even average American, because everybody knows USA driver training sucks; let's say average European?).
My last two company cars (now off the scheme as i don't want electric) a 2017 golf GTD and a 2020 BMW M135I Where fantastic at auto speed reognition and auto braking. The golf i actually drove through central London on cruise control and just steering it braked and accelerated perfectly , I will say it was kind of scary and a foot poised over the brake pedal at all times. So the tech is out there already if TESLA want to use the Bosch systems but my guess is TESLA dont and go there own way,. Which obviously doesn't work.
I have a 2023 Audi A6. The lane assist has tried to stern me into cyclists, and the collision avoidance occasionally jams on the brakes on open roads for no reason I can ascertain. These appear to be basic safety systems that are just not very good. To me, we are a long way off full self driving. I’m kind f surprised that these safety critical systems have been mandated when they’re so flaky
Would it be possible, and cheap, to have school bus lights flash a kill-code that Teslas, and every other FSD machine would recognise? Preferably a code that humans could not see so migraines and epilestic crashes would be avoided.
Would it be possible to have a Q-code or bar-code on the sleeves of clothing that the sensors of electric vehicles would recognise as a kill-code from a safe stopping distance? These could be printed in "colours" that humans can't see so no fashions would be disrupted.
Would it be possible to have, on the rear of other vehicles a "back-off, no tail-gating" code that would tell E.V.'s to slow down and to back off a little so they had sufficient braking distance?
And if we could do these for E.V.'s, could we have them for petrol-fueled cars, too?
Those sorts of things were possible in the 1930's though we never used them. We preferred to allow for tens of thousands of deaths by impact with cars because that was cheaper.
All of that is possible, but you then get the question of "What happens if it breaks?"
You need something which is advisory but it's absence doesn't prevent the car from taking the appropriate actions to take without the signal.
The worry is that the car manufacturers will remove the other equipment and rely on the signal in order to save cost, and when the signal is absent the car crashes.
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