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Tesla Model X driver dies in Mountain View crash
Submitted via IRC for Fnord666
The driver of a Tesla Model X has died following a highway crash in Mountain View, leaving a number of safety questions.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/24/tesla-model-x-driver-dies-in-mountain-view-crash/
Tesla Crash: Model X Was In Autopilot Mode, Firm Says
In a post on its website, the electric-car maker said computer logs retrieved from the wrecked SUV show that Tesla's driver-assisting Autopilot technology was engaged and that the driver doesn't appear to have grabbed the steering wheel in the seconds before the crash.
The car's 38-year-old driver died after the vehicle hit a concrete lane divider on a Northern California freeway and caught fire. The accident happened March 23.
[...] In its Friday post, Tesla said the crashed Model X's computer logs show that the driver's hands weren't detected on the steering wheel for 6 seconds prior to the accident. It said they also show the driver had "about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider" before the crash but that "no action was taken."
The company cited various statistics in defending Autopilot in the post and said there's no doubt the technology makes vehicles safer than traditional cars.
"Over a year ago," the post said, "our first iteration of Autopilot was found by the US government to reduce crash rates by as much as 40 percent. Internal data confirms that recent updates to Autopilot have improved system reliability."
"Tesla Autopilot does not prevent all accidents -- such a standard would be impossible -- but it makes them much less likely to occur," the post reads. "It unequivocally makes the world safer for the vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday April 02 2018, @02:48PM (12 children)
The reason why people drunk drive regardless of level of draconian punishment is partially alcoholism, but mostly because the average drunk driver has less than 1 in 10000 chance of getting picked up any given night, the odds of getting home uncaught are extremely high.
Superficially you'd predict the victims of draconian punishment would trend toward young and stupid, partially because they'd get weeded out early, partially because they're young and stupid and thus more likely to do stupid things. However drunk drivers are mostly a cross section of humanity because the odds of getting caught are so low that being young and stupid isn't a significant handicap WRT avoiding capture.
An analogy from Africa is 1% of wildebeasts get eaten by lions per year and 1% of wildebeasts are sick or ill or hurt, the odds of a lazy lion eating a sick wildebeast are pretty high near 100%. But poachers pick off a random 0.001% of wildebeasts with a scoped rifle, and the odds of a dead wildebeast being diseased are the population distribution of a mere 1%, not the near 100% of lion captured prey.
So my point is in an orderly system by 38 most of the stupid is filtered out, so if this was truly a rare problem caused by driver error the victim would much more likely be young and stupid, like 18. However, this victim being 38 would imply the total number of failures is very high but the system is only getting caught in fatal crashes very rarely. So the self driving system is likely failing 10x per day, but most of the time it fails is boring straightaways in light traffic and nobody notices. The equivalent of the /var/log/syslog must be fascinating to read for a self driving car.
In summary the age implies this is not a driver error situation despite the corporate press release claim.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @03:07PM (6 children)
Maybe people have a habit of identifying the wrong problems and then ramping of the hysteria when their "solutions" don't change much.
The problem with drunk driving is not that a person is drunk; rather, it's that a large number of people can't stay awake under the influence of even a little alcohol.
That's why so many of these crashes involve a drunk driver crossing a median, or ramming into something at an incredible speed. They are asleep.
Incidentally, that's also why "driving under the influence of sleep deprivation" is reported every now and then as being just as bad as driving under the influence of alcohol—if the police only had a test to determine whether you had adequate sleep, they'd use it! Cue the founding of MADD: Mothers Against Dreamy Driving.
Government statistics show that only about 1/3 of traffic-related deaths are alcohol-related—whatever that means; maybe, the pilot was the sober "designated driver", ferrying his drunk buddies home when they crashed? Possibly, police found a spent beer bottle in the car from last week's tailgating party? Perhaps, the driver had one Miller Light during a heavy dinner?
Even if alcohol were eliminated from the world, that would still leave 2/3 of traffic-related deaths ongoing. Yet, you'd think from the rhetoric that it's the sole cause of problems on the road.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 02 2018, @03:15PM (5 children)
Well, alcohol also slows down your reactions. So it's not just that a person is drunk.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @05:06PM (4 children)
If you're driving at safe distances, and at the posted speed limit, etc., then you don't need very fast reaction times.
That's why old people can still drive, and why measurably dumb people are allowed to drive, etc.
Come on. Surely, you've had a few beers—which is considered very illegal if you then go driving. You KNOW it's not as dangerous as it's made out to be. You KNOW it.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday April 02 2018, @06:39PM
I don't know about you but I won't even consider driving if I have any external factors effecting my cognition, reaction time, or vision.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 02 2018, @06:44PM (2 children)
According to these [charlotteagenda.com] people who experimented, you can drink 2 or 3 craft beers and still be slightly under the limit (of course that's rather dangerous since breathalyzers are notoriously inaccurate). Which is like the equivalent of 6 Miller Lites?
I'm not making any claims about how dangerous it is. I'm just saying the tiredness isn't the only part of the equation.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @08:27PM (1 child)
If you're over the limit, then it's DUI by definition.
However, the State can choose to press DUI charges for any amount.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @06:29AM
[citation needed]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 02 2018, @03:13PM (1 child)
I think you're wildly leaping to conclusions here. A single driver over 18 dying means there must be 10 failures every day? WTF no.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @04:46PM
Stupid has no age limits.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @03:58PM (2 children)
Other news sites have car analogies...
On SN we have wildebeast analogies!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 02 2018, @07:10PM (1 child)
Could have gone with Tauntaun, at least...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @06:31AM
1) It's a brave GNU world
2) Have you smelled the insides of those things?!