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Autopilot False Positive Braking

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Let’s not be so quick to blame this on the other driver. While legally they are likely at fault, in the real world I don’t think they could have anticipated the Tesla’s actions here. They saw the Tesla accelerating with clear space ahead (I say this because the OP said he mashed the accelerator to remediate and he wouldn’t have done so if there were vehicles ahead), and began to move into the now open lane. Who here honestly wouldn’t have done that? I know if I mashed my brakes in any kind of urban traffic setting for no reason, 9 times out of 10, I’m going to get rear-ended.

The other tragedy here is that the driver of the minivan may also be a victim of Tesla’s never-ending AP beta, despite not signing up for it.
I see no reason not to blame the driver either. When you somehow drive your car into a still standing object in the road (the fire truck), then clearly a wrong judgement was made. Clearly the fire truck didn't move, so the blame is not there.

1. The driver should never drive faster than he can stop within half the distance he can see ahead. Clearly he couldn't stop for the fire truck.

2. And you obviously never change into a lane if you cannot confirm that the lane is clear ahead. Because then you violate rule 1, because you cannot stop if the traffic happens to stand still in the lane you switch to.

Clearly both of these rules were broken and could've been prevented. Blindly trusting the car to stop, or not interviene when it accellated. I'll not blame someone for something I don't know, but typing on a cell phone or distracted with other things usually cause these things...
 
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I see no reason not to blame the driver either. When you somehow drive your car into a still standing object in the road (the fire truck), then clearly a wrong judgement was made. Clearly the fire truck didn't move, so the blame is not there.

1. The driver should never drive faster than he can stop within half the distance he can see ahead. Clearly he couldn't stop for the fire truck.

2. And you obviously never change into a lane if you cannot confirm that the lane is clear ahead. Because then you violate rule 1, because you cannot stop if the traffic happens to stand still in the lane you switch to.

Clearly both of these rules were broken and could've been prevented. Blindly trusting the car to stop, or not interviene when it accellated. I'll not blame someone for something I don't know, but typing on a cell phone or distracted with other things usually cause these things...

Yeah those rules wane away quickly in a metropolitan like Istanbul where 17m people live. I'm sure the same goes for NYC or other metropolitans. If Autopilot makes a mistake I can anticipate and react to that is fine, that's why there's the beta tag. You are responsible as the driver and should never stop paying attention. However slamming on the brakes without any apparent reason or prior notice leaves you with virtually zero reaction time. I guess you just shouldn't use it in large cities in crowded roads. It just is too tempting to use in stop&go of large cities, especially when it works 99% of the time flawlessly. That false feeling of security is shattered so quickly with one little event. Technology is never perfect but self driving tech is the only one that needs perfection. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.
 
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Sure. And it’ll be their fault all of those times. The fact that most people drive poorly doesn’t absolve anyone for driving poorly.
Yeah that’s the textbook response. I’m sure you drive by judgement and don’t always give adequate space for a full smash brakes stop by the guy ahead of you in an urban or even highway environment. Especially if you don’t see any other risk factors (ie the guy in front of you/the lane you’re entering being too close to the car ahead).

Wish I had the time to follow you around for a day to prove the point haha. Or maybe brake in front of you j/k...
 
My '17 100D threw up a ghost car for the first time yesterday. It only braked for a half second or so, but it was a sudden surprise as there was absolutely nothing in front of me, no cars or anything along the sides of the road, no oncoming traffic, no shadows, nothing at all I could identify as a cause.
 
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Once the injury lawyers figure out that Tesla's quirks are actually causing these accidents, the rear ended defense may become a thing of the past. It's called contributory negligence.

Rear ended defense isn't much to begin with, all the other party has to do is claim "not at fault" (placing the blame on the driver in front) and the insurance companies go 50/50.
 
I've had the brakes come on in reaction to a car exiting the traveled right lane ahead of me (auto-follow set 4) and decelerate the car in order to, so-to-speak, avoid hitting the highway exiting car in the exit lane. If that car had stopped so would my car but in the adjoining lane. Still no reply from Tesla on the inquiry.
 
Rear ended defense isn't much to begin with, all the other party has to do is claim "not at fault" (placing the blame on the driver in front) and the insurance companies go 50/50.
News to me. If someone inadvertently runs into my car from behind and claims it’s not their fault, I’ll be darn sure to make sure my insurance company doesn’t arbitrarily settle at 50%. That’s bad for everyone as far as rates go and I don’t want a partial fault incident on my driving record if it wasn’t my fault. No one should settle for that. I’d escalate and reach out to the state insurance regulatory agency first and my lawyer next.
 
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I've had the brakes come on in reaction to a car exiting the traveled right lane ahead of me (auto-follow set 4) and decelerate the car in order to, so-to-speak, avoid hitting the highway exiting car in the exit lane. If that car had stopped so would my car but in the adjoining lane. Still no reply from Tesla on the inquiry.
This happens all the time.
I presume this is because the car does not "see" the exit lane as a separate lane until it is closer. This happens on surface roads as well. If you observe closely (assuming you are not driving), you will see that the car resumes normal speed as soon as it "sees" the new lane.
 
Rear ended defense isn't much to begin with, all the other party has to do is claim "not at fault" (placing the blame on the driver in front) and the insurance companies go 50/50.

That is not true at all. I've been rear-ended a couple times(not in the S, thank god) and rear-ended someone else once. In none of those cases did the rear driver claiming the one in front was at fault make any difference. In at least one case, I know for a fact that the rear driver tried to claim I was at fault(he secretly voice recorded me while we talked and tried to probe me for something indicating I was at fault). Still 100% his.
 
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That is not true at all. I've been rear-ended a couple times(not in the S, thank god) and rear-ended someone else once. In none of those cases did the rear driver claiming the one in front was at fault make any difference. In at least one case, I know for a fact that the rear driver tried to claim I was at fault(he secretly voice recorded me while we talked and tried to probe me for something indicating I was at fault). Still 100% his.

Agreed. I’ve been involved in 2 rear endings and both times the driver had a lame ass excuse for why I deserved it, and zero times has that affected fault determination.
 
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People almost universally follow too closely. I understand not liking to leave the necessary time/space cushion because other drivers will cut in and remove it, but the few seconds saved by tailgating are not worth the risk in my opinion. It's so much more relaxing to leave the additional space and just go with the flow of traffic. The left lane is overrated. And since when is the carpool lane considered the "drive 20 mph over the speed limit" lane? Just try driving the speed limit in the carpool lane and see how many friendly drivers you meet.
 
I experience the phantom emergency braking this weekend. Showed a red car immediately ahead, take control now, and hard braking. Of course, not only was there not a car in front of me, but there were NO cars within 1000+ feet in ANY direction.

In addition, the breakage of following distance I experienced in a build from December, seems even worse now. A setting of "1" leaves such a huge gap in front of you, it encourages road rage - tailgaters and people passing you on the shoulder just to cut you off in the same lane.

This crap is just plain dangerous. The downward spiral of AP functionality to avoid bad press for Tesla. It's becoming unusable.
 
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Similar occurrence to me today. On the highway at 75mph or so, AP2 engaged and suddenly the car hit the brakes VERY hard. Then a half second later, it returned to normal. No tones, no bells , no red cars in the display...nothing. Scared the piss out of me.

There was a truck ahead of me in an adjacent lane. He was maybe 4-5 car-lengths away. Straight portion of the road, no curves.

Totally forgot about doing a bug report. But if it happens again, I will...and will be calling the SvC.
 
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I've had these false braking events too. It shouldn't be caused by the radar, because I never see this while on TACC. Only on autosteer does this problem occur.

It's not a stop-and-go traffic only problem. It gives you quite a jolt when this happens on the highway. Definitely not safe.

(I should note that I do love autopilot, and use it on all of my longer drives. But I'm not blind to its flaws. Hopefully talking about this more will increase awareness of these problems, get them fixed sooner, and make everyone a safer driver/user.)
When this happens I try to email National Service promptly with the time it happened so they can look at the issue and adjust the software.