Another death in a Tesla (Castro Valley, CA)

Can't stop stupid

 

I wonder how this happened? That's a 90 degree turn off the roadway and the pond is quite a distance from the road. The end of this article goes into Autopilot scaremongering, but this car definitely would not have been on autopilot after it crashed through the roadside fence and I don't see a 90 degree turn happening under autosteer even if he was going extremely slow.

Sad story overall, it sounds like he was missing for some time before the property owner noticed the hole in his fence

 

I know the road very well, it's a few miles from my office. It's a road that is very rural in the midst of a congested urban area, so lots of people go there to race or push their cars' limits. If you don't know how to deal with things like decreasing radius turns and other tricky driving conditions you can easily just hit a turn and find yourself off the road.

 

They asked Tesla for a comment. Why? Do they ask Ford or Chevy for a comment every time one of their cars gets wrecked?

 

Sorry to hear this news, and condolences to his family. That's my local road, a fairly heavily-traveled (during commute hours) twisty route with some uneven/rough sections of pavement. When traffic eases up, it's a fun road to run "at speed"; I wouldn't be surprised (given the distance traveled after leaving the roadway) if this was a simple speed-related loss of control.

I've never tried AP on Crow Canyon... because it looks exactly like the sort of road you should drive manually.


Rich

 

Looks like he crashed through the fence at a very slight angle to the roadway, and continued into the pond. If you watch the video from the story you can see where the fence was damaged, and if you look at the aerial view on google, you can see he traveled maybe 50 yards into the pond. The roadway is pretty straight before this. Maybe he was simply distracted by his phone?

 

I have used AP in stop and go traffic on Crow Canyon, but never at full speed. Norris Canyon either.

 

This would be Tesla's 29th (ish ?) fatality. Ford has had that many in an hour, Tesla has so few that they still get the microscope every single time. Same goes for broken ankles.

 

I wouldn't use AP on that road (it's too much fun to drive it), and I've never noticed this while on the road but that satellite image makes it look like AP could have been tricked coming through the bend by the driveway and by the time the guy realized he was off the road he was already on a trajectory into the pond.

 

Because clicks.
Robin

 

or it could simply be a deer hit or avoiding a car from other side that might be off-lane...you never know. We all jump into conclusions so quickly (or ready to push the "stupid" button). Feel really sad for him and his family - let Tesla/others get some data first. This (& the Mt. View crash) are happening close to home - feels a lot more real.

Perhaps dashcams should be standard offering in fast cars, with autopilot etc. both from insurance side, as well as to learn how to avoid/react under challenging circumstances.

 

Drunk -- had to have been. Even if AP had veered him off the road, he would have had PLENTY of time to brake or steer away. You absolutely CANNOT blame AP on this! Hope he had a dash cam that would have documented all this!

 

Uh, because only Tesla has "autopilot"?

 

I'm sure they routinely ask Ford, GM, etc for help in retrieving information from the vehicle.

The main difference with Tesla is lots of data gets uploaded.

 

If this was my fatality it would be speed, and that I misjudged a corner.

When I was younger I'm sure there were moments where I was close to the edge of traction before losing control, and seriously crashing. It never happened, but all it takes is some oil/debris on the road.

I agree that it likely wasn't AP. The TACC portion of it does the whole "driving miss daisy" thing where it slows way down for corners.

Although it doesn't look like that big of a corner so who knows. Could just be distracted driving.

 

Ford has a few more cars on the road than Tesla. Apples and Oranges. Fatalities per 1000 cars would be more fair. But linking fatalities to car brands is kind of pointless anyways. Too many factors are the reasons, not the car brand.

 

It's not comparing apples to anything, it's the reason Tesla gets directly headlined about every fatality... because it's actually possible to do that. There are many reasons, but at the end of the discussion the only explanation that matters is "because there are so few"

 

I'm not sure there are so few anymore.

It's getting close to 200K.

I think we have to accept a higher than average fatality rate for the class of car due to a number of factors.

The Speed of the car -> It's probably one of the quickest cars on the road in terms of roadway speeds, and people abuse this all the time. All the recent fatality accidents involving teen drivers with a Tesla were the result of speed.

AP/TACC -> Allows a person to be distracted, and there is a huge ignorance of owners who don't understand how the systems work.

So you can abuse this car far more than other cars on the road.

 

Why do the media focus on Tesla when there's a fatality? Maybe because Tesla claims that its cars are the safest on the road.