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Autopilot on long straight highways
- Thread starter skshimer
- Start date
clydeiii
Member
Pretty inconsistent logic. You can’t both be supremely negative about AP and FSD while also supporting a device that enables people to stop paying attention entirely while using AP and FSD.
Your logic is fundamentally flawed. Ford/GM today, use autonomous driving systems that do not require hands on wheel. Today. On public roads.
Tesla (known for saying one thing, but actually doing another), has its software coded to defeat steering nags by simply adjusting stereo volume.
Add to that, as @Knightshade points out, you have not shown a single proven case where a steering wheel weight has resulted in even a single accident, much less a fatality.
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And the whole “illegal” concept is flawed. The wheel weight is illegal just as much as my polarized glasses negating the cameras attention to my eyes lol.
I bring up the ford/GM thing also, but people dismiss it. Tesla AP is leagues ahead of them safety wise, but given stricter judgment. Dumb.
As soon as you experience a LONG freeway based drive, whiteout having to worry about wheel nag, you’ll never go back.
Ford and GM track eyeballs; that's well known. On the FSD-b, Tesla may track eyes, but, apparently, not to the extent that GM and Ford do.
So, Tesla says, "Keep your hands on the wheel." And they do that by looking for torque, pretty obvious. It's not hands free: Tesla itself says so and puts up tons of warnings in the "You accept this" when one turns that feature on and additional, real-time checking when the car is being driven. And they keep on stating to keep eyes on the road and the driver in control of the car.
Then you, and others like you, run around putting jiggly little weights on the wheel, defeating the real-time checking. If you've gone that far, then, why not go farther? Read a book, watch a video on the cell, play video games, why not? The rest of the driving world has no clue what you're up to in the driver's seat. But, by your own words, you've defeated one of the safety checks in the car.
So, what happens if the General Tesla-Driving Public follows your advice? Let's have a million drivers with jiggly weights on the wheel, why not? YOU do it, so you likely think that everybody else should as well. How long before somebody discovers that Tesla wasn't kidding about keeping eyes on the road and runs into a bridge abutment? Y'know, THAT HAS HAPPENED. At least twice; once with a game-playing idiot in California somewhere, and again with an idiot who turned on TACC/LK on some high-speed, four lane, non-limited access highway, and smackered straight into semi who turned onto the road, during the time when the Tesla vision system didn't pick it up. From what can be figured, based upon the second case's posts and videos, the idiot was in the habit of watching video while driving. Yeah.
So, yeah, I think you and your buddies continual mentioning of how cool you think the jiggly weight approach is is pretty darn stupid. People who have actual brains don't defeat safety measures. Just like (in my opinion) people who don't wear seat belts demonstrate a certain lack of grey matter. Or, perhaps, an impending lack of grey matter. (I've known EMTs who were active in the 50's and 60's whose horror stories about cracked and busted windshields, from the inside, with the associated guillotining of the drivers were hard to listen to. Safety glass is your friend, but it's better not to have close personal acquaintance with the material.)
The reason I suspect that you're a troll is that you tend to write pretty well. The truly idiot types usually flunked English somewhere, so their grammar and spelling usually leave something to be desired. That implies that you are thinking.. But, apparently, to an end that's meant to harm, not help, your fellow humans.
Finally, for what it's worth: I do keep my eyes on the road with FSD-b, NAV, Autopilot, TACC/LK, whatever. The car may be driving itself and doing a decent job; in which case, my eyes are monitoring how it's doing and keeping an eye out for serious traffic anomalies that might develop. (Speaking of which: This past Monday, coming down I-84 outside of Hartford, got passed on the left by a small pick-up towing a small camping trailer. No biggie.. until they got about 300 yards up, hit a bump, the trailer disconnected and zipped to the right, hitting and jamming into some innocent in the right lane of three, shoving the SUV she was driving onto the verge, narrowly missing a light pole. And not going down over the embankment and rolling. The SO and I pulled over and spent some time helping this woman get over the shakes.. and taking pictures, which seems to have dissuaded the truck drivers from hitching up their trailer and booking it out of there. Fun. State cops got the video.)
That’s a loooong response. But in short:
- wheel weights are not illegal to sell, buy, nor use in any of the 50 states/District of Columbia.
- for many years, Tesla drivers have used everything from fruit to water bottles to ankle weights to defeat the nag. There has never been a reported accident associated with weight use
- Drivers are 100% responsible for their cars actions whether a weight is used or not.
At least in America, we have a choice. Use a weight, or don’t use one. It really is as simple as that.
Because we’re not idiots? There’s a wide gulf between not wanting to hang your hands on the wheel for hours on end and thinking you can take your attention completely off the road.
Many of us find Tesla’s “torque nag” system clumsy. We may inadvertently disengage AP, or struggle to find a comfortable way to hang our hands on the wheel for hours on end. We understand that many people have no problems with it, but many also do.
I don’t understand why Tesla hasn’t implemented a driver-facing eyeball tracker like just about everyone else, but this is the same company that tossed a perfectly good, dirt cheap, standard windshield rain sensor for their own delayed, buggy, and still-in-beta-after-6-years “let the computer see if it thinks it’s raining” system, so maybe it’s not too surprising they’re sticking with the torque thing, since it requires no extra hardware and if there’s one thing Elon’s all about these days, it’s eliminating hardware…
It does track your eyes. Face forward, but look down at your lap. You’ll get a nag. Has for a while now
1. I have a Model S, so no eye tracking for me.
2. My understanding is that even models with the cabin camera require occasional torque on the steering wheel.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Yup to both (for older S/X anyway- newer ones have the interior cam)
But even then the cam was never meant for this, so it's not great at it (wrong type of camera and very much in the wrong location)- so they still require wheel torque as well...
My MYP with FSD beta requires both. I’m happy with my weight because the car knows I’m paying attention with my eyes. It’s effective and I’m no less safe because of the weight.
Unless you're wearing sunglasses. It's been noted that the where-your-eyes-are-pointed function works less well with sunglasses on.
Cameras/software directed specifically towards tracking eye movements have been around for a while. A quick perusal of the web says that these are using infrared, or near-infrared cameras, which is likely not what's in the cabin-facing cameras in a Tesla.
I wear sunglasses, but whatever. I know I’m hyper aware of everything around me. Torque/pressure on the wheel does not denote a safe and attentive driver.
Edit: my households livelihood relies on my vehicle. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it. It’s not unimportant to me. I just know my car, and my attention level.
It's good to see most of us here on TMC are good, attentive drivers. What about the rest of the drivers? I get it, we have a distracted driving problem in America. Car companies are trying to solve it with technology, and government regulation is stepping in to help too. I don't mind the wheel torque and eye tracking that Tesla put in. If it keeps even one driver from falling asleep or answering that completely unimportant text message while controlling a 4,500 pound hunk of metal traveling at ridiculous speeds (love the people complaining about AP not going more than 90MPH), then it's totally worth it.
www.nhtsa.gov
Do all those people really deserve to die because Becky's cat video or Andrew's hook-up details simply could NOT wait?
Distracted Driving | NHTSA
Learn about distracted driving and consequences and dangers of texting and driving. Also get info on distracted driving statistics.
Do all those people really deserve to die because Becky's cat video or Andrew's hook-up details simply could NOT wait?
boonedocks
MS LR Blk/Blk 19”
I have a 45 mile each way commute and about 35 miles of it are exactly as you describe. I have had the same issue on all 4 of my Model S’ so it is definitely the way Tesla has “programmed” the hands on wheel sensing.
If you drive with both hands on the wheel which I almost always do it applies equal pressure and makes the sensor think you aren’t there. It really is annoying for those of us with loooong straight drives.
You can hold the wheel as some have posted but it isn’t necessarily comfortable or natural for those of us that have driven with both hands on the wheel for a life time.
I will add that having to hold the wheel in a way that does nothing but put downward torque pressure on one side of the wheel of other is not necessarily safe. It you disengage A/P and put the same pressure on the wheel what would happen. Yep you guessed right, you would go sailing across all lanes of traffic.
This is exactly how I feel. I drive 150-350 miles. A day and the amount of times I’ve kicked AP off is ridiculous. A friend did go into a gaurd rail at an exit because of this.
Torque on the wheel is more dangerous than a weight and effective eye tracking.
cmy4x4
Member
On my last trip I tried any input from the steering wheel (scroll, click, toggle, turning wheel) and ALL would dismiss the nag. Now I just turn the volume up/down one click, works every time.
I just hold the bottoms 7 o’clock area. And grip it slightly enough that when the car turns slightly there’s a slight resistance. I rarely get the blue warning flash and I’ve done it enough that it’s second nature.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Ah, so you're using active defeat measures on BOTH driver monitoring systems in the car
I've found the issue of needing to look at the screen with the blue shadow or the message to be distracting and lowering safety, and thinking about holding it the right way to prevent the nags also distracts from safety.
Yes, it's definitely Tesla being cheap. Every other automaker: An inexpensive rain sensor is better, as is a simple touch sensor on the wheel, it needs to feel a finger, but not move it. Because of course moving for reasons other than driving is less safe. And any nags are lights in direct sight forward, not to the side. Then they're adding eye tracking.
I'm pretty sure these are Elon's decisions, not engineer's decisions. He pretends to be someone else in public but he really really cares about his money and pushes for extreme margins and cost cutting. He's personally too indebted and leveraged to Tesla stock, and buying twitter will make it even worse.
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