He was playing games on his phone while driving. And then he died.
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Model X Crash on US-101 (Mountain View, CA)
- Thread starter mookhead
- Start date
kkillebrew
Banned
There is an interesction like this in Austin. On Autopilot drive west on US Highway 71 from I-35 to the 360 Capitol of Tx Highway exit where the right two lanes split off to Hwy 360. Halfway along the route FSD will disengage and Autopilot takes over and at the above mentioned exit it will run you head-on in to the concrete lane divider if you don't disengage. I nearly crashed the first time I experienced this, now I manually drive that exit.
As ever it comes down to deficiencies in the driver attention monitoring. Hand on the wheel detection is simply inadequate, and that goes for all other manufacturers using it.
I see that Cadillac, Nissan and Lexus have all gone for a camera system and also hands-free.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Yep. Huang would most likely still be alive if Tesla had used a driver facing camera monitoring system.
thegruf
Active Member
"he had experienced this particular glitch, in this particular spot, multiple times prior to his fatal crash."
...
and still didnt pay attention
...
in this particular spot
...
and still didnt pay attention
...
in this particular spot
A bit more kindness is appropriate here. Accidents happen in vehicles of all kinds. People die. It’s tragic. Nobody is perfect ( look in the mirror...) and automation can help but not fully prevent tragedies. Assigning 100% blame is too simplistic. It’s just sad.
Model X Crash on US-101 (Mountain View, CA)
Over a 150 pages on this incident. Including the details about the video game usage.
Over a 150 pages on this incident. Including the details about the video game usage.
clydeiii
Member
It does this to this day, or it did that and the bug was eventually fixed? Or you haven't tested recently?
Uncle Paul
Well-Known Member
It was not so much of a bug in software, but a gore point that autopilot had trouble with.
Evidently guy noticed that this was happening every time we went by that bifurcation. Still he kept it on autopilot until it plowed into that unprotected barrier.
The area had been hit earlier, by a human driver. That compressed the safety devices and left the gore point solid.
Autopilot made the same mistake the previous human driver did. Perhaps just a poorly designed area where the highest speed drivers, in heavy traffic, were faced with a solid barrier between two lanes. An instant of miscalculation proved fatal.
Evidently guy noticed that this was happening every time we went by that bifurcation. Still he kept it on autopilot until it plowed into that unprotected barrier.
The area had been hit earlier, by a human driver. That compressed the safety devices and left the gore point solid.
Autopilot made the same mistake the previous human driver did. Perhaps just a poorly designed area where the highest speed drivers, in heavy traffic, were faced with a solid barrier between two lanes. An instant of miscalculation proved fatal.
I agree. At the risk of being deemed unkind, I'll go so far as to say that Mr. Huang willingly put his life at risk to be a "beta tester". It's obviously ridiculous for Tesla to continue calling AP a beta product after 5+ years, but they do and Mr. Huang gave up his life so Tesla could continue ironing out a system that can only be ironed out in real life usage.
I turn off all of the driver assist stuff that can be turned off when I drive, but when I had a Tesla and used AP, I knew that it was dangerous as anything other than a second set of eyes/hands/feet. I bet Mr. Huang knew this as well, but he was either complacent or foolhardy in not being in control 100% of the time.
Regarding the events leading to the crash, this is from the preliminary report
- During the 60 seconds prior to the crash, the driver’s hands were detected on the steering wheel on three separate occasions, for a total of 34 seconds; for the last 6 seconds prior to the crash, the vehicle did not detect the driver’s hands on the steering wheel.
- At 8 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was following a lead vehicle and was traveling about 65 mph.
- At 7 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla began a left steering movement while following a lead vehicle.
- At 4 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was no longer following a lead vehicle.
- At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increased from 62 to 70.8 mph, with no precrash braking or evasive steering movement detected.
The Tesla did not drift on its own into the gore.
The Tesla was following a vehicle that did a late lane change through the worn lane lines of the gore point. At 4 seconds before impact, the Tesla was tracking the intact lane lines of the gore point and no longer following a vehicle, so it then accelerated to its set cruise speed.
The article also notes another fatal crash at that location in 2015, again with a not reset arrestor.
kkillebrew
Banned
Exactly. Bad luck to be following a person who did a very late lane change. Then lack of chevrons and really badly painted lines was the next problem. Then finally no crash barrier. His autopilot as built would probably never handle that situation properly. Hopefully the new AP would do object recognition and at least stop if it ended up barreling towards a crash barrier.
I use AP almost every day in Oregon. There are two spots in my commute that AP struggles with routinely. I usually manually take over in these areas as I have no interest in being in a wreck. Leaving AP when I don't manually take over and properly supervising minimizes the risk to my life. Leaving AP on, not supervising it, and taking a chance means I know I could wreck and sustain significant injuries or die.
Needless to say, it is important with a driver assist package like current AP to pay attention. Mr. Huang knew similarly of the exact spot on his commute that AP struggled, and yet, he chose to leave autopilot on and not to supervise it properly. Had his hands been on the wheel and/or had he been properly watching the car struggle, he'd be alive proper barrier or not; better autopilot or not. To knowingly and repeatedly recognize a flaw and continue to use the product incorrectly against the agreed upon instructions are dangerous and ill advised decisions with potentially harmful or deadly consequences.
Needless to say, it is important with a driver assist package like current AP to pay attention. Mr. Huang knew similarly of the exact spot on his commute that AP struggled, and yet, he chose to leave autopilot on and not to supervise it properly. Had his hands been on the wheel and/or had he been properly watching the car struggle, he'd be alive proper barrier or not; better autopilot or not. To knowingly and repeatedly recognize a flaw and continue to use the product incorrectly against the agreed upon instructions are dangerous and ill advised decisions with potentially harmful or deadly consequences.
Cal trans is outdoing themselves once again. I drove by the same area, they now have the concrete divider sticking out slightly onto the fast lane half a mile before the split. If the car leans to the left too much, it would definitely hit it.
This particular lane split happens at 1/8 of a mile before the concrete barrier. You have to purposely try to hit it, not pay attention or violate all traffic rules to hit it.
We should never design any roads that points to east or west in your standard, the sun would blind people directly more than several times a year.
This guy didn’t die because he went Jules Bianchi into a standing solid object. He simply didn’t pay attention, he didn’t bother to look up to take over. He has more than a second of time from the curve to the concrete barrier
This guy was playing games on his phone while driving on a busy highway. He could have crashed into another car and injured/killed someone.
Also, read the NTSB witness reports - several people risked their lives to pull him from his burning Model X.
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