3 day old import P85D crashed while using TACC

[AB4EJ]

When fully automated driving arrives, those sorts of things will be handled. These are not unsolved problems, they are unsolved problems at a price point that makes a product.

In the public safety research arena, where I currently work, there are discussions about the potential for vehicle automation functions (short of a fully autonomous vehicle) to lead to problems because the driver may think the system is capable of more than it can really do, and become inattentive or distracted when they should be doing their part of the driving. This might be a real-world example of that, and we can all be thankful that it didn't result in a fatal crash.

I think we can all learn from this incident. We need to make sure we are thoroughly versed in what automation functions are supposed to be able to do before engaging them, and plan to try them extensively when there's little or no other traffic around to learn how they behave. We must remember that (except for fully autonomous vehicles) the driver is responsible and must be ready to assume control at any time. Finally and perhaps most important, these features should be used only in the scenarios for which they have been designed and tested. It would be a tragedy if these kinds of incidents lead to carmakers pulling out useful features or insurance companies jacking up rates for automation-equipped cars, when these features (when used right) will lead to major decreases in crashes.

 

[Stoneymonster]

In the public safety research arena, where I currently work, there are discussions about the potential for vehicle automation functions (short of a fully autonomous vehicle) to lead to problems because the driver may think the system is capable of more than it can really do, and become inattentive or distracted when they should be doing their part of the driving. This might be a real-world example of that, and we can all be thankful that it didn't result in a fatal crash.

I think we can all learn from this incident. We need to make sure we are thoroughly versed in what automation functions are supposed to be able to do before engaging them, and plan to try them extensively when there's little or no other traffic around to learn how they behave. We must remember that (except for fully autonomous vehicles) the driver is responsible and must be ready to assume control at any time. Finally and perhaps most important, these features should be used only in the scenarios for which they have been designed and tested. It would be a tragedy if these kinds of incidents lead to carmakers pulling out useful features or insurance companies jacking up rates for automation-equipped cars, when these features (when used right) will lead to major decreases in crashes.

This actually reminds me a lot of FDA regulated medical devices (where I often work). It's becoming more common for companies to want to "take over" some of the decision making process from the doctor (especially in robotic surgery and image guided applications). This is often so daunting from a regulatory perspective that the conclusion further along product development is to make the device simply a guidance system that leaves the final decision in the hands of the doctor.

I can see that perspective from the FDA, and it is a verification nightmare for companies to actually put medical decision making in the hands of a robot.

YET, someday there are going to be things that needs to make autonomous decisions for better medical care. I think this is a good analogy for where we are with cars: for a while, the car can do autonomous driving, under the close supervision of the driver. Simply saying to customers, "Ultimately, you the driver are responsible for any actions the vehicle takes and any incidents thereof" would seem enough to me. Later, with more miles and experience, we'll get to the point where companies can say (and be comfortable with), "Go take a nap".

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Please. People posted often they were sorry to hear about the accident but that doesn't take the fault away from the driver. No one said he jumped in the back seat but the feature requires you to actively be paying attention. He thought incorrectly the car would stop for him and reacted too slowly. Pretty simple.

Several people did say they were sorry, true. There were also some pretty horrible responses in the usual TMC style when someone is seen at odds with Tesla the company. Obviously my comment is aimed at the latter comments, as was OPs comment. Sure, OP used the word "everyone" (text is hard), but if you read his entire chapter, he did exclude reasonable responses - and his later responses are even more amicable.

My entire point is, we should at least give people a chance to clarify. The OP definitely did. And when they do clarify, appreciate that.

Yet, even in the latest messages, some accusations linger, and for sure in the first half of the thread they went on irrespective of whatever the OP was trying to say.

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But frankly, if TACC can't be used on regular streets it is much worse than the German competition. That has to be said. Many German models use ACC for stop-and-go traffic already since many years, meaning the car stops at lights etc. by itself (after the car in front) and even starts driving again by itself if traffic moves again soon enough. I guess Tesla just isn't there yet.

I haven't driven Tesla's ACC so I don't know (I guess I'll see what Model X offers eventually), but I've driven many German ACCs for a decade and they are perfectly usable in most driving situations and very reliable. The latest implementations with multiple radars, camera and combined navigation data (these themselves already around 5 years old) are very impressive in almost any situation. And they've saved my inattentive behind a few times too, by stopping the car - with a stationary car in front.

I don't see why you think it's reasonable to reach the underlined conclusion given the bolded admission.

Obviously because several posters in this thread, who have driven Tesla's ACC, said it shouldn't be used on regular streets but only on highways. I was taking their word for it, plus I started with "I guess...". If you missed it, there was big talk that the OP's friend was using TACC on a road it shouldn't be used on.

Later, which you I guess you missed too, I commented, in response to someone implying TACC indeed is suitable for in-city driving:

That is good to hear. I found the above talk of disabling ACC or not using it in city streets worrisome. That is not the current reality of advanced ACCs on the competition. Hopefully Tesla is a match.

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Couple things at play here. Low post count and the first post in a thread with only the "sue" part in bold (something he chose to emphasize himself) raises alarm bells. This forum is no stranger to people posting who claim to be owners but turn out not to be (and in this case the person posting was not the owner, although at least a friend posting on the owner's behalf). So paranoid levels are quite high here. But even given that, at the start of the thread there was not a lot of doubt about his identity, only a lot of talk about suing (which you can't logically blame people for focusing on, given the OP decided to highlight that).

And in general, unless it pertains to an issue others have experience themselves, it's harder for people to have sympathy. A lot of people here have the reasonable position that it's the owner's responsibility to stay alert even with ACC activated (something they adhere to themselves), a position supported by manuals of not only the Tesla, but pretty much all manufacturers. In the end the OP agreed to this too, so I don't really see the issue here of being "defensive" in this thread. Sure, we may suggest ways for the technology to improve (and it should), but that is a separate issue from the owner's responsibility.

Sure, I know why this forum is so paranoid. Your first chapter explains this - and I've expressed similar sentiments several times over the past year. I agree the paranoid levels are high. And I add the assertion that identifying with Tesla the company is high too, meaning defensive attitudes override compassion/peer support in many cases.

I'm offering this thread as case why it shouldn't be like this. In the end a completely innocently motivated poster felt attacked, which I don't think was necessary. A fellow Tesla fan and his friend Tesla owner/fan getting a bitter taste of it all (in a new area geographical where surely we want Tesla to grow and be advocated), just because a lot of people who identify with Tesla felt their company was under attack and/or mistakenly assumed the poster as a malicious troll.

If there was a better way OP could have handled this, I'm at least equally sure there was a better way TMC community could have handled it. The attacks continued long after the OP had clarified his/her message.

 

[Stoneymonster]

If there was a better way OP could have handled this, I'm at least equally sure there was a better way TMC community could have handled it. The attacks continued long after the OP had clarified his/her message.

To be fair, many of the harsher respnses were not to the OP but to commenters who jumped in repeatedly to suggest that TACC and Autopilot are going to murder us all in our sleep and must be eliminated from the earth. Ok a little hyperbole, but there were some pretty ridiculous reactions to the original incident in the direction, too.

 

[LetsGoFast]

Obviously because several posters in this thread, who have driven Tesla's ACC, said it shouldn't be used on regular streets but only on highways. I was taking their word for it, plus I started with "I guess...". If you missed it, there was big talk that the OP's friend was using TACC on a road it shouldn't be used on.

I don't really have a problem with using it on smaller surface streets, but you need to be aware of the potential pitfalls and use your own judgment. Driving up to parked cars at a high rate of speed where you are concerned that you wouldn't be able to stop the car in time to avoid a collision is something I don't choose to do. It does a lot of things well and is indeed very useful in stop and go traffic and I am very pleased to have the feature, but it is slow to recognize cars either entering or departing my lane to/from an adjacent lane and it brakes far more abrubtly when approaching stopped traffic at high speed than I prefer. Accordingly, I override its planned behavior and substitute my own judgment when I'm not satisfied with its decisions.

Do I think that Tesla has room to improve in their handling of these specific situations? Absolutely, yes. Do I think they should be legally liable if I was approaching stopped traffic at a red light at the posted speed limit and just watched as the car drove into the back of those cars? I do not. I think the driver remains responsible for controlling his car. If you are comfortable overriding the car when it doesn't do as you would prefer, feel free to use TACC on crowded surface streets. If you are not prepared to step in and avoid problems, you should turn it off in those scenarios. Because there are absolutely going to be situations where TACC will end up in panic stops and collisions if you don't intervene. I'd still far rather have it for the 99% of the time it handles things perfectly and be prepared to intervene in the 1% (or .1% or .001%) where it does not.

I imagine most anyone who drives the car with TACC at say 50 mph and approaches slow-moving or stopped traffic at that speed will agree that the car closes the gap too quickly and brakes too abrubtly. The last software update made some improvements in the smoothness of those transitions, but it still needs some tweaking, in my view. One of the biggest hazards of the rapid rate of closure with stopped traffic is that you become accustomed to its relatively late braking habits and therefore have a much smaller window to react and intervene with the brake until you very close indeed to the stopped cars.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Fair responses Stoneymonster and LetsGoFast, thank you for them.

 

[brianman]

Obviously because several posters in this thread, who have driven Tesla's ACC, said it shouldn't be used on regular streets but only on highways. I was taking their word for it, plus I started with "I guess...".

My point was that you're taking a small sampling of anecdotal input and drawing conclusions from it somewhat, well, blindly. Reminds me a lot of the media coverage of the CR issue, frankly.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Obviously because several posters in this thread, who have driven Tesla's ACC, said it shouldn't be used on regular streets but only on highways. I was taking their word for it, plus I started with "I guess...".

My point was that you're taking a small sampling of anecdotal input and drawing conclusions from it somewhat, well, blindly. Reminds me a lot of the media coverage of the CR issue, frankly.

Your point is acknowledged, although I fear it is misplaced in my case.

Look, I thought there would be no need to spell it out, but I was being polite to the thread - giving the other guys the benefit of the doubt. When several posters told me TACC wasn't to be used for city streets, and I had no first-hand experience with the Tesla implementation (I've owned many ACC cars from the Germans though), I chose not to argue the point - "I guess Tesla just isn't there yet." was me conceding the floor on the issue, not trying to make firm conclusions. I find that quite common social etiquette and usually people just leave it at that. I get it that you weren't one of those people I was having that sub-thread with me, so perhaps you read it differently than it was intended. For those of us exchanging those messages, I think it worked fine for everyone.

Safe to say, I didn't mean it like "It has thus been proven TACC can't be used outside of the freeway.", I meant it like "I hear you guys, your argument and experience is taken into consideration, and since I can't agree or argue it (not enough info), I'll take it in, think about it and leave it on the table in a nice manner." And when an opposing point of view was later offered on TACC, I acknowledged that also by saying "That is good to hear. I found the above talk of disabling ACC or not using it in city streets worrisome. That is not the current reality of advanced ACCs on the competition. Hopefully Tesla is a match." Again, safe to say, I didn't mean it as proof either, just acknowledging the point of view. As you can see my wordings include things like "I guess", "worrisome", "Hopefully", these are not conclusions, they are musings.

I was trying to avoid being overly argumentative and to acknowledge the points of others, which I genuinely did and which I appreciate - but it doesn't mean I took them as gospel. I recommend not to read it as me drawing conclusions. In my mind the feedback on current TACC capabilities is mixed, some say this, others say that, and I wait for personal experiences. Many high-end German ACC's, the ones with several radars and camera(s), definitely can be be used on city streets reliably. TACC, I haven't experienced myself as my P85 is a "September Classic" (with the reversed stalks).

 

[emir-t]

Thank you AnxietyRanger for the support. FanBoy-ism is bad for everyone however as I've acknowledged earlier in the thread asking to sue Tesla in the original thread is wrong. It was the heat of the moment, literally hours after the accident, frustrated about losing the Tesla. Even though I spend lots of time on the internet reading, watching, talking about Tesla since I have a blog/news website for Tesla in Turkish, even I didn't know about the stationary objects thing. But yeah people are generally right, driver should always be very careful with automation features. But after all we are all human.

p.s. I feel bad that you've recognised English not being my native language. haha. Jokes aside apparently some people here decide on credibility looking at the user's post count. Even being a longtime lurker and not writing too many replies, not starting too many threads is bad. Anyhow, thanks everyone for all their support, I'm glad everyone was O.K. after the accident.

 

[brianman]

Look, I thought there would be no need to spell it out, but I was being polite to the thread - giving the other guys the benefit of the doubt. When several posters told me TACC wasn't to be used for city streets, and I had no first-hand experience with the Tesla implementation (I've owned many ACC cars from the Germans though), I chose not to argue the point - "I guess Tesla just isn't there yet."

Understood.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Understood.

Thank you, brianman. I appreciate you taking the time for a quick nod. Too often people just leave threads without mutual understanding.

 

[brianman]

[1] p.s. I feel bad that you've recognised English not being my native language. haha. [2] Jokes aside apparently some people here decide on credibility looking at the user's post count. [3] Even being a longtime lurker and not writing too many replies, not starting too many threads is bad. [4] Anyhow, thanks everyone for all their support, I'm glad everyone was O.K. after the accident.

[1] I think he assumed it from the Location in your profile. Don't fret.
[2] Nah, high post count just means you talk...err.. type a lot.
[3] Participating is great. Starting a bunch of threads is usually a bad thing rather than a good one though.
[4] Definitely good to hear no human drama, just car drama. Please do keep us posted on how the car fares, and what role Tesla plays in bringing it back on the road.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Thank you AnxietyRanger for the support. FanBoy-ism is bad for everyone however as I've acknowledged earlier in the thread asking to sue Tesla in the original thread is wrong. It was the heat of the moment, literally hours after the accident, frustrated about losing the Tesla. Even though I spend lots of time on the internet reading, watching, talking about Tesla since I have a blog/news website for Tesla in Turkish, even I didn't know about the stationary objects thing. But yeah people are generally right, driver should always be very careful with automation features. But after all we are all human.

p.s. I feel bad that you've recognised English not being my native language. haha. Jokes aside apparently some people here decide on credibility looking at the user's post count. Even being a longtime lurker and not writing too many replies, not starting too many threads is bad. Anyhow, thanks everyone for all their support, I'm glad everyone was O.K. after the accident.

Thank you, emir-t. Frankly, your English is fine (I'm not native either), but I assumed based on your location that probably it is not your native language.

Even though I myself am fairly fluent in English, there are moments - especially when one is rushed or writing on mobile or whatnot - when the right words just don't come to mind, when it starts to get a bit more convoluted, a bit less accurate, than it would be in one's native tongue. And then the whole forum blows up because those words are misunderstood. Even native speakers misunderstand each other through text a lot, text is a hard medium.

I hope other's give me the benefit of the doubt, and thus I've given it to you as well. I also appreciate that you took the time to explain and correct your line of talking and thinking as things progressed, not all do that. In my books, that shows character and I appreciate that. So, go Turkey, good luck with a new Tesla soon - and may Tesla come official soon too. I hear that may be the case, right?

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[1] I think he assumed it from the Location in your profile. Don't fret.

Mutual understanding generated. I am happy.

 

[emir-t]

[1] I think he assumed it from the Location in your profile. Don't fret.
[2] Nah, high post count just means you talk...err.. type a lot.
[3] Participating is great. Starting a bunch of threads is usually a bad thing rather than a good one though.
[4] Definitely good to hear no human drama, just car drama. Please do keep us posted on how the car fares, and what role Tesla plays in bringing it back on the road.

Thank you, emir-t. Frankly, your English is fine (I'm not native either), but I assumed based on your location that probably it is not your native language.

Even though I myself am fairly fluent in English, there are moments - especially when one is rushed or writing on mobile or whatnot - when the right words just don't come to mind, when it starts to get a bit more convoluted, a bit less accurate, than it would be in one's native tongue. And then the whole forum blows up because those words are misunderstood. Even native speakers misunderstand each other through text a lot, text is a hard medium.

I hope other's give me the benefit of the doubt, and thus I've given it to you as well. I also appreciate that you took the time to explain and correct your line of talking and thinking as things progressed, not all do that. In my books, that shows character and I appreciate that. So, go Turkey, good luck with a new Tesla soon - and may Tesla come official soon too. I hear that may be the case, right?

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Mutual understanding generated. I am happy.

Thank you again for all the understanding and support. I'm glad we're all in mutual understanding l'll keep the thread updated with the car's situation as things progress.

 

[dhanson865]

latest firmware update menioned in post #1000 on the thread Firmware 6.2 mentions

Automatic Emergency Braking has been further improved to reduce the impact of an unavoidable frontal collision.

I don't know how much difference it would have made for the accident that started this thread...

 

[Xpress]

Um, it seems like with Volvo you need to order extras options for it to works with pedestrians...

Self-Driving Volvo Tries To Run Some People Over

Self-parking car accident! Carro que se parquea solo choca dos personas. - YouTube

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

Um, it seems like with Volvo you need to order extras options for it to works with pedestrians...

Self-Driving Volvo Tries To Run Some People Over

Self-parking car accident! Carro que se parquea solo choca dos personas. - YouTube

dammit Kitt! Stop running people over


Knight Rider Knight 2000 vs Knight 3000 - YouTube

 

[JimmyAZ]

I can't help but laugh at the demo! They had perfectly good foam 'people' to perform the test, but they insisted on standing in harms way. LOL. Glad nobody was hurt!

 

[hbouw]

Um, it seems like with Volvo you need to order extras options for it to works with pedestrians...

Self-Driving Volvo Tries To Run Some People Over

Self-parking car accident! Carro que se parquea solo choca dos personas. - YouTube

Darwin award contenders?

Isnt it absolutely mind boggling to see the trust people put in safety system technology also considering that (assuming the pedestrian detection feature had been installed on the Volvo) is intended to do nothing more than to reduce the probability of something bad to happen?

Guess some people would happily test a chain saw with some "skin detection" feature by placing it on someone's neck and then turning it on??? :scared:

 

[Johan]

So Emir: Any updates? I'm interested to hear what response Tesla gave and how it's being handled. Thanks!