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Two Soylentils wrote in with news of a fatal accident involving a Tesla vehicle. Please note that the feature in use, called "Autopilot" is not the same as an autonomous vehicle. It provides lane-keeping, cruise control, and safe-distance monitoring, but the driver is expected to be alert and in control at all times. -Ed.
Man Killed in Crash of 'Self-Driving' Car
Tech Insider reports that an Ohio man was killed on 7 May when his Tesla Model S, with its autopilot feature turned on, went under a tractor-trailer.
Further information:
- Tesla Motors blog
- NHTSA report
- video uploaded by the victim, demonstrating use of the autopilot feature
Tesla Autopilot - Fatal Accident
Accident is reported to have happened in May, and reported to NHTSA/DOT immediately by Tesla. But not public until the end of June -- something a bit fishy about this reporting lag.
On the other hand, the accident is described as one that might have also been difficult for an alert human to have avoided:
The May crash occurred when a tractor trailer drove across a divided highway, where a Tesla in autopilot mode was driving. The Model S passed under the tractor trailer, and the bottom of the trailer hit the Tesla vehicle's windshield.
"Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied," Tesla wrote.
This was the first reporting found--by the time it makes the SN front page there may be more details. Because this is a "first" it seems likely that a detailed investigation and accident reconstruction will be performed.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday July 01 2016, @02:31AM
I have noticed that competing systems use duplicates of all the sensors; including cameras.
I suspect that the Tesla design is eventually going to be ruled unsafe. They don't stand behind it themselves: saying the driver has to be aware and ready to take over at all times.
It may work well for lane-keeping 99.9% of the time, but even a 0.1% failure rate is not ideal. I guess the big question is if the COTS computer failure rate is lower than the human failure rate.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday July 01 2016, @02:38AM
riddle me this: how many times have you stopped on the highway because a truck jumped the divider and blocked the road? i'm not talking about being stuck behind traffic, i'm saying you actually had to stop because there was a giant white truck in the way. this is closer to a 0.0000001% failure rate which is far closer to ideal than what you are claiming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @03:07AM
So, the truck was at a right angle to the flow of traffic on the other side of the road after crossing the median.
You gotta expect the other guy to do something stupid. [wikipedia.org]
...and, if you like to go fast on top of that, count on that going really bad. [wikipedia.org]
Until AI can totally compensate for the unpredictability of humans, shit is still gonna happen.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by tftp on Friday July 01 2016, @04:50AM
riddle me this: how many times have you stopped on the highway because a truck jumped the divider and blocked the road?
Don't know how often it happens, but in construction zones it's very common. Just in last weeks I had to stop a few times at behest of workers holding large STOP signs, while various construction machinery crawled across the road. All in all, I'd say you ought to be careful nearly everywhere. A computer has a long, long way to go before it achieves the sentience level of a small dog - and we usually don't allow dogs to drive.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 01 2016, @05:44PM
There is no indication the truck jumped the divider.
The May crash occurred when a tractor trailer drove across a divided highway, where a Tesla in autopilot mode was driving.
This was an at-grade crossing incident.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.