Posted on 05/29/2018 4:23:39 PM PDT by dragnet2
A Tesla sedan in Autopilot mode crashed into a parked Laguna Beach Police Department vehicle Tuesday morning, authorities said.
The collision happened at 11:07 a.m. at 20652 Laguna Canyon Road, according to Laguna Police Sgt. Jim Cota. The officer was not in the cruiser at the time of the crash. The Tesla driver suffered minor injuries, but refused transportation to the hospital.
“Thankfully there was not an officer at the time in the police car,” Cota said. “The police car is totaled.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Oh, I agree. I was just sharing the details I read because I found them interesting.
I think there’s very little likelihood of “self-driving” cars anywhere but on a track, in my lifetime.
The NHTSA found that Tesla cars with Autopilot activated have 40% fewer accidents.
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-autopilot-cuts-crash-rates-by-40-government-finds-2017-1
I understand and the company used that as an excuse days ago.
I think if ya live in a rural/desert area, with lots of straight roads without many cross streets, traffic, kids, parked cars, pedestrians etc, they might work relatively safely.
But in the big population centers with thousands of variables that could possibly occur, not so much.
I think by the time they perfect a vehicle which would immediately address every situation possible, they will be prohibitively expensive.
I read it as an admission that the company is incompetent to test the product safely, and therefore, they should be sued out of the business.
I agree that the concept of a car's operating rather like a train ... straight along the line ... seems workable, but I expect that's only until the car hits an armadillo and rolls over while the passenger is asleep. Even trains have live operators who are supposed to be paying attention, and bad stuff happens when they aren't.
Tesla and their human crash test dummies.
You bet, they’re using everyone on the streets and highways as their guinea pigs. If I were the victims family, I’d go after the city/state/counties for allowing them to be used as test subjects.
This should result in an instant dangerous driving charge for the driver. Drivers are required to be in control of their car - you can’t put the responsibility on the “autopilot” - and to monitor the car when it’s on autopilot, being ready to take over at any moment. I would say that this driver clearly wasn’t ready to take over at any moment.
I still think this technology should be banned, for the false sense of security it gives drivers. I would not trust any of these self-driving systems enough that I could actually relax while driving, and staying alert and ready to take over at any moment sounds more tiring to me than just driving the car myself.
Here is some further discussion about the 40% claim.
https://www.autoblog.com/2018/05/03/nhtsa-disputes-tesla-safety-claim-autopilot/
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/05/sorry-elon-musk-theres-no-clear-evidence-autopilot-saves-lives/
How would you explain the 40% drop in airbag deployment after the installation of autosteer?
I agree.
Assuming the 40% is accurate, one reason might be the car is operating in a more conservative mode. People tailgate for no reason and enabling Autopilot reduces those kind of accidents..
I’m pretty sure that Autosteer has nothing to do with following distance.
Probably means T’s ‘semi-autonomous’ cruise control.
Adaptive cruise control that keeps a distance from the vehicle ahead.
I would think that following distance would be a result of Traffic Aware Cruise Control, but the 40% drop in airbag deployments cited by the NHTSA was due to the installation of Autosteer. My understanding is that TACC came before Autosteer.
I would think it would be a combination of the two. If it is just due to autosteer, what is it doing better than a human to reduce frontal impacts? This seems to suggest that the humans wreck more often when making lane changes or making evasive maneuvers.
This seems to suggest that the humans wreck more often when making lane changes or making evasive maneuvers.
...
Or humans aren’t quick or alert enough to make the evasive maneuvers made by Autosteer. The NHTSA made a simple study based on airbag deployments on cars that had Autosteer installed. There was a 40% decrease in deployments. My understanding is that these cars already had Traffic Aware Cruise Control installed.
You seem to be making any and all possible logical contortions to avoid giving Autosteer any credit.
Sounds to me like the autopilot works great until it doesn't. The accidents that have made the news recently appear to have one thing in common. The drivers weren't paying attention and it cost a few of them their lives.
Sounds to me like the autopilot works great until it doesn’t.
...
The owner’s manual is clear about when and how Autosteer is to be operated. All the recent accidents seem to indicate that the owners were using Autosteer improperly.
Even so, the installment of Autosteer leads to 40% fewer airbag deployments.
Here is an update to the story. There was a previous Tesla accident at the same location.
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