SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 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....