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from the keep-your-eyes-on-the-road-and-your-hands-on-the-wheel dept.
Tesla's advanced driver assist system, Autopilot, was active when a Model 3 driven by a 50-year-old Florida man crashed into the side of a tractor-trailer truck on March 1st, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) states in a report released on Thursday. Investigators reviewed video and preliminary data from the vehicle and found that neither the driver nor Autopilot "executed evasive maneuvers" before striking the truck.
[...] The driver, Jeremy Beren Banner, was killed in the crash. It is at least the fourth fatal crash of a Tesla vehicle involving Autopilot.
This crash is eerily similar to another one involving a Tesla in 2016 near Gainesville, Florida. In that incident, Joshua Brown was killed when his Model S sedan collided with a semitrailer truck on a Florida highway in May 2016, making him the first known fatality in a semi-autonomous car.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) determined that a "lack of safeguards" contributed to Brown's death. Meanwhile, today's report is just preliminary, and the NTSB declined to place blame on anyone.
Source: The Verge
Also at Ars Technica.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 17 2019, @01:56PM (2 children)
So, space aliens can use the Tesla autopilot safely? I do not know a single human being who could make a 2 hour road trip with the Autopilot engaged and maintain attention / preparation to take control at all times. Some backseat drivers might approach 75% readiness, but even their attention lapses when their hands aren't on the wheel.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by lentilla on Friday May 17 2019, @11:34PM (1 child)
Hmmm. They should have taken their mother-in-law on the trip. That's 110% attention to detail right there.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 18 2019, @12:19PM
What needs to be noted is that even with hands on the wheel, almost noone maintains 100% attention to the full situation, to the front, the sides, all potential collisions in the case that somebody does something unexpected.
Hell, around here (Florida) you're lucky if 5% of the drivers around you aren't staring down at their phone screens at any given moment. Try this: while you're sitting at a light, take a good look into the oncoming cars as they go by - try to count 20 in a row that appear, from the outside, to be paying full attention - not holding/looking into a phone, down at the radio, applying makeup, turned to look at a passenger while talking to them, etc. I don't think you'll get to 20, most days you won't even get to 10.
🌻🌻 [google.com]