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Federal investigators announced Tuesday that the design of Tesla's semiautonomous driving system allowed the driver of a Tesla Model S in a fatal 2016 crash with a semi-truck to rely too heavily on the car's automation.
"Tesla allowed the driver to use the system outside of the environment for which it was designed," said National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt. "The system gave far too much leeway to the driver to divert his attention."
The board's report declares the primary probable cause of the collision as the truck driver's failure to yield, as well as the Tesla driver's overreliance on his car's automation — or Autopilot, as Tesla calls the system. Tesla's system design was declared a contributing factor.
[...] A Tesla spokesperson provided a statement to ABC News that read, "We appreciate the NTSB's analysis of last year's tragic accident, and we will evaluate their recommendations as we continue to evolve our technology. We will also continue to be extremely clear with current and potential customers that Autopilot is not a fully self-driving technology and drivers need to remain attentive at all times."
According to The Associated Press, members of Brown's family said on Monday that they do not blame the car or the Autopilot system for his death.
A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report on the crash can be found here. The NTSB has yet not published its full report; a synopsis of it can be found here.
(Score: 3, Informative) by meustrus on Wednesday September 13 2017, @09:50PM (5 children)
It's pretty clear to me what the NTSB is implying here. Tesla loudly warning the driver multiple times to take the wheel isn't enough. The system "allowed the driver...to rely too heavily on the car's automation" [emphasis mine].
Therefore, it is up to Tesla to actively prevent drivers from ignoring the warnings. They need to construct a perfect system that also happens to be completely closed off from driver input. And in order to protect that perfect system, it needs to be completely closed off from driver modification.
The first freedom to go is always the freedom to (stupidly) kill oneself. What inevitably follows is the freedom to tell the nanny to go fuck itself so one can (stupidly) kill oneself anyway.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:18PM (4 children)
If the car requires a hand on the wheel to stay at full speed in autopilot mode, as frojack says, why not include an electric shock along with warning lights? Make it strong enough to be noticeable but not so much that you abandon the wheel. Or just do it one time instead of twice a second or whatever.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by JNCF on Wednesday September 13 2017, @11:37PM (3 children)
Or after the third warning is ignored, Hastings the nefarious driver into the nearest tree. "BOSTON BRAKES INITIATING IN 3... 2...."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:48AM (2 children)
Wow, I've never heard this verb "Hastings".... I kinda get the context but what exactly does it mean? Where does this come from? Is this a reference to how the Hastings store chain ran out of money and had to shut down, or what?
UrbanDictionary didn't explain "Hastings" but did have "Boston brakes": http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Boston+Brakes [urbandictionary.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by JNCF on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:05AM (1 child)
Michael Hastings was a journalist who died in a high-speed car wreck with a tree. [wikipedia.org] He asked to borrow a car belonging to his neighbor just days prior, explaining that he feared his vehicle had been tampered with. He had also told some friends that he was doing a big story on the government, and was going to "go off the radar." After his death the FBI initially lied about having a file on him, but has since released what they claim to be his file. Richard Clarke said his death was "consistent with a car cyber attack." There is no smoking gun, unless you interpret this grainy video [youtube.com] as showing an explosion prior to collision (I don't, I think they probably murdered him with a car hack sans explosives, but maybe the coroner is right and he was just smoking too many marijuanas).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:23AM
Wow, I hadn't heard about that. Thanks for answering my question.