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https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/06/tesla-driver-blames-autopilot-for-crash-into-police-car/
A Massachusetts man is facing a negligent-driving charge after his Tesla slammed into a police car that was parked by the side of the road. According to a state trooper, the man had Tesla's Autopilot technology turned on and said that he "must not have been paying attention." The crash occurred in December, but the defendant, Nicholas Ciarlone, was only recently charged in the incident.
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Tesla is aiming to build a more sophisticated self-driving system that fully understands the surrounding environment. Hopefully, Tesla's "full self-driving" software will eventually detect a situation like this and respond appropriately. But as of at least last December, the technology seems to still be a work in progress.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 02 2020, @05:32PM (3 children)
Yeah, alright. How about first, we define what "unsafe driving" really is. I'll be first to argue that driving 75 in a 55 isn't an unsafe act. (Details - the entire nation was under a 55 mph speed limit at the time, I was traveling on the interstate.) There are plenty of other places where speed limits are all but meaningless.
Motorcycles - either you're unsafe for even getting up on two, or you're a friggin's squid waiting to get run over because you drive like grandma. Motorcycles doing the speed limit are just stupid.
Accumulating points due to driving fast is NOT one of the things that makes you an unsafe driver. Get those fools who always drive 10 to 20 mile under the speed limit first, then we can work some more on defining "unsafe".
I'm in agreement with you that unsafe drivers need to be taken off the road. But, obviously, your idea of unsafe doesn't jibe with my ideas on unsafe. How about drunk drivers? I'm all for taking their licenses for ten years, MINIMUM, and then making them jump through hoops, and performing indecent sex acts in public before they can get it back.
The masses of humanity aren't fit to drive, but the masses of humanity aren't fit to define "safe" and/or "unsafe" to start with. If you can't make people's pulses go through the roof with your driving, you're probably not fit to drive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @06:25PM (1 child)
Speed limits are supposed to be the absolute maximum speed that you can legally go. They should be the absolute maximum speed that you can safely travel under any circumstances.
The problem is that the speed limits are set to be the maximum speed you can travel under specific circumstances. However, there are other specific circumstances where it's perfectly safe to travel faster. The freeway speed limit in California is 65. However, when there is little to no traffic, in certain areas, it's perfectly safe to do 75 or even 80 MPH.
If it's unsafe to travel faster than 65 MPH under a specific condition then those traveling faster should be considered braking the law. But when they are traveling faster than 65 MPH under conditions that are perfectly safe to do so then it should not be against the law for them to do so.
Different parts of the freeways should have different speed limits. A one size fits all doesn't make sense. When there are more sharper curves and turns the speed limit should be lower. But when the curves are less sharp then the speed limit can be faster in the passing lanes when there is little traffic. If the government even cared about the public interest they can even have digital speed limit signs that have sensors that adjust for traffic conditions.
But it comes down to revenue and cost. They spend a ton of money on red light cameras because it brings in revenue. They don't want to put dynamic speed limit signs that make more sense because it will reduce revenue and will incur costs. The public interest is not important to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @06:28PM
err .... breaking the law *
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 03 2020, @02:54AM
When the parents of the Boomers were still racing dinosaurs around the time square, they already knew about the 85th percentile. Real engineers - yes, traffic engineers are a thing - use the 85th percentile.
Police departments desperate for revenues adjust that 85th percentile down to about the 60th. That provides a steady flow of revenue, because only retards drive at the 60th percentile. I mean, people who never should have been given a license.
Let me explain that 85th percentile. You build a road, and you put no speed limit on it. Instead, you use a nice radar setup, and find out how fast everyone is driving on your nice new road. After a month or two, you do the math, and determine that the 85th percentile was driving at 72 mile per hour. THAT is your speed limit. Round it off to 70 or 75, and you're good to go. Many slower drivers will speed up a bit, and many faster drivers will slow down a bit. And there should only be a few outliers who refuse to either slow down, or speed up, to match the speed limit.
If you're interested, you can look it up. Key word is 85th percentile, and traffic engineer.