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A driver using Tesla Autopilot improperly was caught on camera by another driver, leading to his arrest:
A driver who moved into the passenger seat after putting his electric car into autopilot while at 40mph on a motorway has been banned from driving.
Bhavesh Patel, 39, of Alfreton Road, Nottingham, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving at St Albans Crown Court. A witness in another car filmed him sitting in the passenger seat of his Tesla S 60 on the M1 between junctions 8 and 9 near Hemel Hempstead.
Patel said he was the "unlucky one who got caught", the court was told.
The footage was posted on social media before it was reported to the police.
Also at The Guardian.
As well as the 18-month driving ban he was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work. He was also put on a 10-day rehabilitation programme and will have to pay £1,800 in costs.
[...] Road investigators were told by Tesla engineers that the autopilot function, including traffic-aware cruise control and auto-steer, was only intended to assist a "fully attentive driver".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 29 2018, @08:23PM (2 children)
Self-driving car operators are cancerous scum, and should be removed from motorways by summary execution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @01:56AM
That's a really stupid idea!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 30 2018, @04:33PM
Just make sure to regularly draw incorrect road lines which need to concrete dividers, and the problem will solve itself naturally.
Which is the part that baffles me: we've had some pretty publicized instances of Autopilot failures, dating back to at least last year, yet here's a moron optimizing his odds of getting a Darwin award. Was he eating Fugu fish at the same time?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @08:26PM (6 children)
Slashdot already ran this story. [slashdot.org] This site will never succeed at replacing the green site with a molasses news cycle.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @08:45PM
This brings up an important question: who gives a shit?
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Sunday April 29 2018, @09:47PM (1 child)
We beat them [soylentnews.org] to the DNA structure story [slashdot.org] by almost 4 days.
AC scum strikes out again.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 30 2018, @04:21PM
I'll taking interesting DNA news post for 100 Alex!
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Touché) by requerdanos on Sunday April 29 2018, @10:22PM (1 child)
Getting away from panic-must-go-faster-to-keep-up and instead having a more leisurely pace is a feature, not a bug.
This feature, in fact, explains why I post here much more often than there.
Get off my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @03:14PM
I came here for the not-ruined layout, but I stayed for the interesting stories
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday April 30 2018, @09:13AM
You're right of course, anonymous troll, but no-one here is assuming that it will.
I use both, and I'm not the only one. I enjoy SN's small and colourful community, but that doesn't mean I drop Slashdot.
(Score: 1) by JustNiz on Sunday April 29 2018, @09:00PM (14 children)
Natural selection. Why do we even let people this stupid live to breed?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Sunday April 29 2018, @09:13PM (1 child)
Now if you could, for instance, replace the 100 hours of unpaid work from the sentence with 100 hours of having to survive in an environment where lack of common sense is liable to get you killed then we might have a viable (and highly entertaining) solution. Hell, there are already reality TV shows that get pretty close to this setup, so it would just be more of the same only without the safety net of people who know what they are doing prepared to intervene if some clueless D-list celeb tries to eat something poisonous or whatever.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1) by JustNiz on Tuesday May 29 2018, @07:43PM
I'd agree with your statement if humankind wsn't already doing everything it can (and sadly, largely succeeding) in eliminating any/all natural selection in humans.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @09:54PM (4 children)
If stupidity made it any harder to produce the next generation his country wouldn't have more than a billion people and no plumbing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Sunday April 29 2018, @10:19PM (3 children)
I don't think the UK has a population of a billion people per plumbing fixture; you might want to check your numbers there.
But at any rate, in the documentary Idiocracy [imdb.com], it was revealed that not only is stupidity no impediment to breeding, it actually makes it easier and faster to breed in larger numbers, resulting in a shift in the overall intelligence of entire populations.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday April 29 2018, @10:28PM
AC looked at the driver's name and immediately jumped to an assumption about where this event took place.
There is a word for that type of thinking .........
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @11:13PM (1 child)
The (non) driver isn't british. He's either indian or paki, probably a paki since he's in the UK.
(Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Monday April 30 2018, @12:43AM
First of all: This article concerns, according to TFA, "Bhavesh Patel, 39, of Alfreton Road, Nottingham." That's in the UK. There is nothing in TFA to suggest he isn't from the UK. Perhaps he is originally from elsewhere and moved to the UK, but that isn't a given, and enough natives are named "Patel" that it's not an exceptional thing to find one in the headlines, especially if he is an idiot.
Second of all: Even were someone to take your nonsense seriously, Pakistan still does not have a population anywhere near a billion. Despite [worldometers.info] checking [wikipedia.org] several [tradingeconomics.com] sources [poverties.org], I don't see anyone who even admits to a quarter as many.
If a certain place does not have a billion people, then that place, by definition, does not have a billion people wanting for plumbing. Your statements have not changed this. Perhaps you, too, should check your figures.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 30 2018, @12:48AM (5 children)
Yes, Tesla should be taken out behind the barn for allowing autopilot mode turn on or remain on with the driver's seat unoccupied.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @08:22AM (3 children)
No, they should be taken out behind the barn for calling it "auto-pilot" instead of "enhanced cruise control".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @11:26AM (2 children)
Why? Even when airliners are on autopilot at least one pilot must be in their pilot seat. In some countries there must be at least two approved crew members in the cockpit at all times (e.g. co-pilot goes to the loo and the pilot passes out the flight attendant can try to wake the pilot up and/or notify the co-pilot).
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/26/autopilot-what-the-system-can-and-cant-do.html [cnbc.com]
http://www.wtnh.com/news/international/faa-regulations-prevent-crew-members-from-being-alone-in-cockpit_20180416072024623/1123472258 [wtnh.com]
The autopilot is just a tool to make the pilot's life easier. Not so the pilot can go watch a movie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @02:17PM
In that case they should only sell their cars to licenced pilots who know that autopilot means they have to stay in the cockpit.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday April 30 2018, @03:10PM
> (e.g. co-pilot goes to the loo and the pilot passes out the flight attendant can try to wake the pilot up and/or notify the co-pilot).
The explanation I have seen is that in this circumstance the FA in cockpit has one purpose only - to open the (locked and reinforced, since 911) cockpit door and let the other pilot in.
> The autopilot is just a tool to make the pilot's life easier. Not so the pilot can go watch a movie.
Or play with a laptop. Which happens, btw (google Northwest 188). They lost their licences too, of course. Because like this guy, they got caught...
(Score: 1) by JustNiz on Tuesday May 29 2018, @07:48PM
Totally agree. Most cars already have a seat-weight sensor installed, at least in the passenger seat, to do things like control airbag deployment and the "seatbelt not fastened" alarm.
Many car designs probably simply assume that the drivers seat must be occupied, which is a reasonable up until self-driving cars, but regardless, the technology is trivial and already exists in many if not most vehicles.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Wootery on Monday April 30 2018, @09:15AM
Was the irony intentional? If you're talking about what we allow people to do, you're not talking about natural selection.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by requerdanos on Sunday April 29 2018, @10:05PM
There's a real opportunity for discussion here.
Now, the word "one" here is a pronoun standing for another word, term, or phrase, such as "airline pilot" or "Nobel laureate".
He is trying to say that there is a large group of ___________ who frequently let cruise control drive all by itself while they move about their vehicles with liberated abandon, perhaps occupied completely by smartphone wizardry.
Is the group word or phrase... "genius" because Patel is representative of a super-intelligent group that knows that the cars are secretly fully self-aware AI that would never allow themselves to come to harm?
..."moron" (reasoning obvious)?
... or something else?
For my part, I fervently hope that they "lucky" ones also get caught, and soon.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @10:25PM (2 children)
From the BBC article:
Tesla should also be fined for not adding a safety feature that triggers the safe pull-over/stop if the driver's seat becomes empty. For fucks sake, they already have the weight sensor in both seats, they simply needed to use that data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @06:25AM (1 child)
It should pullover then stop just like SpaceBall1 did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygE01sOhzz0 [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday April 30 2018, @02:28PM
Just never play that part ever again.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday April 29 2018, @10:45PM (8 children)
But if you have a selfdriving car does it not sort of defeat the purpose for having it if I have to be behind the wheel? It's like having to monitor the microwave oven or toaster to make sure they do their job in a proper manner and be there to be ready in case of some kind of cooking emergency. So to iterate why the fuck would I buy a self driving car if I can't sit in the back or passenger seat or passed out in the trunk of the car but instead have to sit behind the wheel? Ready to jump in and take over when the machine fails. I don't need help driving the car, I want someone to drive it for me so I can do other things. Otherwise they are utterly pointless.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday April 29 2018, @11:28PM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Levels_of_driving_automation [wikipedia.org]
There are different levels of automation. Automatic brakes, adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, etc. are features found in not-yet-fully-autonomous cars. The problem is that if the drivers think they can get away with "hands off, mind off" with something that is not fully autonomous, like Tesla, you get issues like this.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Monday April 30 2018, @08:44AM
This incident demonstrates that automation with regard to controlling the car on the road should be 100% or nothing. There are always going to be idiots like this one who rely on automation too much.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @12:21AM (2 children)
Well, if you bought a Tesla because you thought it was self-driving, you have plenty of company among fucking moron dipshit wankers with too much fucking money, way too much magical fucking thinking, and a complete, criminally negligent level of attention to detail.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday April 30 2018, @12:48AM (1 child)
I believe I have found the name of the group mentioned in comment number 673498 [soylentnews.org] that Patel was referring to. The phone lines are now closed. A hearty thanks to all who participated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @02:29AM
> I believe I have found the name of the group...
???
Please don't leave us in suspense or anything.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday April 30 2018, @06:07PM (2 children)
If you have autopilot in an aircraft, why do you still need so two or three pilots in the cockpit?
Because autopilot doesn't do *everything*, just a lot of it. Same thing here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday May 01 2018, @01:14AM (1 child)
True. But if I crash my car 300-400 people won't crash with me as if it was a 747 -- also one can really wonder what all the pilots are doing in the cockpit. Some of it is clearly for show since it doesn't take 3 pilots to operate the plan, there is some massive backup and redundancy going on there or airplane theater. Perhaps they are actually more like astronauts, most of them don't actually pilot the rocket. They are just along for the ride.
That said if Tesla (or whomever) tries to sell you (or me) a car with autopilot and claims that it is selfdriving then at least I would assume that the car is going to be fine on it's own and doesn't require my constant supervision. Cause if it does then I might as well just get a normal car. The point of having it drive is so I can slack off and do other things not to sit there and "be prepared".
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday May 01 2018, @02:53PM
Absolutely. But they aren't making those claims. Journalists do occasionally, but I can't find anywhere at all where Tesla themselves refer to the technology as "self driving". The closest they get is to claim that their cars have all of the *hardware* required for self-driving, but that the software to enable that feature is still in progress.
The term Tesla uses -- "Autopilot" -- and the way they advertise it perfectly accurate as far as I can tell. It won't drive you door to door, just like a plane on autopilot won't take off and land by itself, but it's good for protecting against momentary lapses in attention and reducing the amount of focus required while you're cruising. I wouldn't say it's useless as it is either -- people lose focus on long drives, "highway hypnosis" does cause accidents and autopilot could avoid those. At least if people aren't complete idiots about it....
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday April 30 2018, @04:54AM (2 children)
He was more paying attention to his cellphone than the road ahead. I hope he loses his license too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @08:26AM
"A witness in another car" does not equate to "A driver in another car".
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rivenaleem on Monday April 30 2018, @09:03AM
In the video, you can see that the footage has was shot from the passenger seat (you can see the reflection of the witness in the side mirror).
https://i.imgur.com/8H2vQyi.png [imgur.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by jcross on Monday April 30 2018, @01:25PM (1 child)
I mean, he has a Tesla with autopilot, forbidding him to *drive* won't inconvenience him much, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @03:32AM
Hey should be allowed to continue using the car, but forbidden from touching the controls at all. The problem will be solved the next time the car encounters a concrete barrier on the highway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @05:20PM (1 child)
A half-self-driving car. I would probably kill myself with one. Like others have.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday May 01 2018, @10:10AM
Like the only thing worse than finding a mouse in your meat pie is finding half a mouse.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday April 30 2018, @11:14PM
Bin that car!