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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The driver of this Model S was found to have only had his hands on the wheel for 51 seconds of the last 13 minutes 48 seconds of his trip.
One of the more highly publicized Tesla crashes in recent memory involved a man in Los Angeles plowing his Tesla Model S into the back of a fire truck. The car wasn't going all that fast and thankfully nobody was hurt, but it was a fairly gnarly crash nonetheless.
Part of the government's investigation into the crash involved finding out whether or not Tesla's Autopilot system had been engaged at the time of the collision and if so, determining whether or not the driver was paying attention to what was going on around them.
Well, it's been a while, but the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released part of the findings of its inquiry according to a Tweet published by the agency on Tuesday and hey, guess what? The driver of the vehicle was found only to have had his hands on the wheel as prescribed by Tesla (and good sense) for 51 seconds of the final 13 minutes and 48 seconds of the drive. Even worse, his hands weren't on the wheel at all for the last 3 minutes and 41 seconds before the crash.
When questioned by the NTSB as to what he was doing at the time of the crash, the driver stated, "I was having a coffee and a bagel. And all I remember, that truck, and then I just saw the boom in my face and that was it."
Clearly, there was a breakdown in the system here, and while Autopilot isn't a perfect system and while we've criticized its name as being somewhat misleading, the fault here doesn't seem to lie solely with Tesla.
The moral of the story here is that the advanced driver assistance systems, like Autopilot, that are found in many of the vehicles being sold today are not a form of self-driving. There is no "self-driving" car on sale today, and it's the responsibility of the driver to pay attention to the world around them as they drive.
Tesla didn't immediately respond to Roadshow's request for comment.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Sunday September 08 2019, @02:30AM (4 children)
Assists with what? If the driver is supposed to have hands on wheels (and presumably ready to mash foot on brakes), and the driver has to be as alert and watchful as if he were driving himself, then what is the system assisting with exactly?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @05:13AM
Causing anxiety/carelessness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @02:27PM (2 children)
Assist in not driving off the road or plowing into a pedestrian. Assist in not confusing gas with a break.
Like airbags and seat belts that assist you in not dying in a crash. Maybe they don't do a perfect job, but better than nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @02:16AM
Um, didn't you read the story? In this case (and a few others that appear similar) the "assist" took the Tesla straight into the back of the stopped fire truck. In another case it was straight into a temporary barrier set up at a freeway lane closing. Since it's happened more than once, this behavior was not trained out of the system after the first crash, and it may not be possible to fix--since the software would be constantly braking for stopped objects near the car's path (like road signs)...so they have to be ignored.
IMHO, Tesla is using their customers to beta test their system. But, many of the customers don't even know what beta testing means. Personally, I only know one couple that own a Model S who also realize what "Autopilot" is--they are both experienced software developers and fully understand that they are beta testing. As they use the software they are also keeping track of good and bad behaviors. I fear (a bit) for the lives of the other Tesla owners that I know.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @05:50PM
Airbags and seat belts do things that one cannot do in a crash: Deploy a (relatively) gradual counterforce to slow your impact (in a way your arms and legs cannot do) and to restrain you in the coronal plane (in a way your arms/legs cannot do) at any speed that matters. They are providing assistance.
Not driving off the road or plowing into a pedestrian are things that, even with autopilot, the driver is still supposed to be responsible for not allowing. That the "driver assist" still permits that to happen in given circumstances proves that it is not ready to take those functions independently. That one has to still have hands on controls during these phases prove they are not assisting you - you still deploy awareness and be prepared to do the work to avoid a crash at all times.
If you are my assistant and we are nailing 2x4's in a frame, and your job is to hold my nails and hand them to me, if I nevertheless have to have my hand around the nails at all moments to avoid your dropping them then you are not truly assisting me in any way but name.