Emergency Lane Departure - False Positives

[Paddy3101]

I was hugging the left side of my lane to steer clear of a suspicious looking Civic doing about 45mph on the freeway. A car approached from my left, triggering ELDA and nearly sending my into a spin. Luckily my years of autocross training kicked in and I was able to counter-steer and maintain control of the vehicle.
Just kidding . The alarm went off and I held the steering wheel while the car tried to send me to the right. Really, now that I've associated the alarm sound with the need to firmly grab the steering wheel I don't find it all that obtrusive. I do agree that Tesla should have warned people about this new feature and should provide some data about how much it improves safety.

That's more or less the same scenario I my first encounter. Except the car on the right was a Semi, the overtaking car was a lifted Truck (F350 I think) and happened to me on the first day ELDA was rolled out, so wasn't aware/forewarned/prepared to have to fight the car

The alarm went off, I thought WTF, and whilst working out what was going on/reading the message the car was heading towards the center of the semi (between the cab and the wheels of the trailer, where the M3 doesn't see anything).

 

[Dogen]

Really, now that I've associated the alarm sound with the need to firmly grab the steering wheel I don't find it all that obtrusive.

Wow. If someone riding with you screamed and grabbed the steering wheel on a regular basis, would you just accept their behavior and continue to let them in your car? You may be the most tolerant fellow on the planet.
:-D

 

[Daniel in SD]

Wow. If someone riding with you screamed and grabbed the steering wheel on a regular basis, would you just accept their behavior and continue to let them in your car? You may be the most tolerant fellow on the planet.
:-D

Haha. It depends how often they are right and I’m about to crash into something!
How often is the car right? I have no idea. Obviously if it ever saves me then it will be totally worth it. Maybe Tesla will include some data in their almost useless safety report.

 

[puckpurnell]

Looking for a fix. Spring load Emergency to DISABLE.

 

[Daniel in SD]

• About 22 percent of the vehicles ran off the edge of the road--a potential application of this information would be in the evaluation of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) systems.

• About 11 percent of the vehicles failed to stay in the proper lane – information that could be used in the evaluation of lane departure warning systems.

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811059
ELDA has the potential to prevent a third of accidents.

 

[Msjulie]

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811059
ELDA has the potential to prevent a third of accidents.

Sounds promising though I bet attentive driving would actually even go further...



This is an old study but I think some of the points are valid when it comes to how people are convinced they need not be responsible for their actions.

"Researchers have compared accident and fatality rates for vehicles with and without ABS. Other studies have examined the driving records of ABS and non-ABS equipped taxi drivers in Munich and Oslo. The accident and fatality data shows that ABS exacerbates the severity of accidents in certain situations. The taxi study proved that drivers tend to take greater risks in cars equipped with ABS (although the difference in collision rates was not significant). In short, ABS may do more harm than good."

Killer ABS - The Truth About Cars


This is more recent but still older, but it resonates with me...

"Though these “semiautonomous” systems are sold as safety equipment, researchers argue that they create a sense of reliance that actually makes drivers less safe.."


Do Driver Aids Make Us Worse Drivers? - The Truth About Cars

 

[jyalpert]

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811059
ELDA has the potential to prevent a third of accidents.

Yeah definitely, could be very valuable. This is a cool report. I'd love to see the crosstab data between Table 8 and Table 9a in that dataset. Whatever % of the two accident modes you've identified (edge of road and edge of lane departure) were due to inattention or inadequate surveilance would the the target for ELDA.

One other troubling thing, though, is table 6, which shows that a full 50% of crashes were caused by drivers under the age of 35. Assuming most younger people are unable to afford luxury cars, that would speak to the idea that these systems (if they work) should be put in all cars.

 

[jyalpert]

"Though these “semiautonomous” systems are sold as safety equipment, researchers argue that they create a sense of reliance that actually makes drivers less safe.."

I'm quite worried about this, actually. Tons of human/machine interaction literature showing this. A typical response would be "drivers are already distracted, so these systems will prevent more accidents than they cause." Which may turn out to be true, but there are implications for liability and moral/ethical problems. People have a tendency toward fear and throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so seeing things like the high false positive rate for ELDA and people reporting that it might be less safe could lead to a disillusionment or fear around advanced systems. Or they'll actually be less safe. Or they won't ever cause any accidents. I've seen no data or evidence on any of this.

Maybe it'll all be fine and they'll be able to cross the chasm to the early majority with no issues. I REALLY want roadways to be safer - I worry every day that my wife or daughter will get into a car accident. But I am concerned we are plowing headlong into the unknown with not enough information or direction.

 

[Msjulie]

I'm quite worried about this, actually. Tons of human/machine interaction literature showing this. A typical response would be "drivers are already distracted, so these systems will prevent more accidents than they cause."

I think this is why AP, with phantom breaking and sometimes odd steering choices, makes some people more stressed behind the wheel vs less. I'm supposing that folks who are more stressed may be so because they are not distracted and find fault with the car's "choices" vs what they might have done. I can say this for myself anyway..

Still hoping for some future day where the car drives me cross country w/o help and w/o making stress!

 

[RobbL]

I’m on 20.4.2. I was driving West this morning on the SF Bay Bridge and wanted to move over one lane to the left. I checked my mirror, saw nothing close, and began to move over. However, there is a blind spot for a car just behind and to the left. I wish we had a light on the mirror like other cars to provide an alert. In any case, as I started to move, there was an audible beeping and a gentle, but firm push back into my lane. It happened quickly and stopped as soon as I was back fully in my original lane. I thought it was very helpful, and in no way over intrusive. I have had no alerts for just crossing a lane line even without a signal if there was no car close. I consider the current functioning as a welcome improvement.

 

[SDKoala]

Updated to 20.4.2 yesterday. Still no way to permanently disable ELDA. I'm glad to hear it's improving for some, but personally, I see no change in false positive behavior on my commute. It's getting really tiresome to manually disable it every time I get in the car and I'm starting to lose hope that Tesla is going to implement an option to permanently turn it off.

Also, I finally got an e-mail reply to the concerns I sent many weeks ago from someone at Tesla who clearly had no clue as to what the problem was and lacks in basic reading comprehension. The recommendation was to reboot the car for absolutely no other reason than it being the default response for all problems. I don't use Twitter; has anyone tweeted at Elon to try to draw attention to these issues?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I don't use Twitter; has anyone tweeted at Elon to try to draw attention to these issues?

Yes a few times, but I didn't see any influential people doing so. Probably depends on the search terms though.

Selby on Twitter

 

[Dogen]

Self reliance is apparently on the decline. I like driving. I like being responsible for my actions. That’s how I was raised. This pervasive trend towards passing off personal responsibility is not improving society. When did the proper response to “Johnny doesn’t want to clean his room.” go from “Tough beans, he’s gonna learn good habits.” to “Oh the poor baby! Call the maid!” Or more to the point “Sorry, you failed your drivers test.” becomes “It doesn’t matter, the active safety systems will save you.” As the horse in Ren and Stimpy was fond of saying as he stroked his chin: “Nossir, I don’t like it.”

 

[ddm3]

Updated to 20.4.2 yesterday. Still no way to permanently disable ELDA. I'm glad to hear it's improving for some, but personally, I see no change in false positive behavior on my commute. It's getting really tiresome to manually disable it every time I get in the car and I'm starting to lose hope that Tesla is going to implement an option to permanently turn it off.

Also, I finally got an e-mail reply to the concerns I sent many weeks ago from someone at Tesla who clearly had no clue as to what the problem was and lacks in basic reading comprehension. The recommendation was to reboot the car for absolutely no other reason than it being the default response for all problems. I don't use Twitter; has anyone tweeted at Elon to try to draw attention to these issues?

Same for me on all counts: 20.4.2, still false positives, and got the same "reboot the car" reply.

 

[NRG4All]

Doesn't AP drive at the speed you set, or slower to match traffic? Do you really expect it to go faster than you said is allowable?

Actually I don't and I suppose that I can just step on the accelerator to speed up a bit. However, my hope is that the software in the future can do two things better, 1)be able to more clearly identify objects (for example when my dog sticks her head out the back passenger window, the display shows I'm passing a truck) and 2)be able to predict further into the future. As I mentioned in my post attentive humans are better at predicting the immediate future (e.g. using the 12 second rule).

In the mean time it would be much better if we could train the ELDA for more precision. I would like the car to be able to have the right tires running within a couple inches of the right white line. I'd also like to be able to train it so that when passing, the car would move slightly out of the center of the lane to allow a foot or so more on the right and a foot or so less on the left.

 

[Jdee2wheels]

I’ve lost my patience with this feature and have now resorted to turning it off each time I get in the car. I’ve had a total of about 6 false positives, 4 of which were confusing as to why they even triggered. If this is meant to be a safety feature, it is entirely flawed in my opinion. The false positives are alarming at best, and potentially dangerous - my first reaction is to overcompensate because I’m confused what is going on. With 6 false positives and not a single instance of actually protecting me from danger, it is doing the exact opposite of keeping me safe.

Complaining to Tesla has been a waste of time, as I don’t even get email responses from them anymore. I wonder if we all complained to the guys over at Eletrek if they’d write about it? Seems like that’s the only way at this point to get anyone at Tesla to pay attention to this issue and allow us to turn it off permanently.

 

[tzlaxmr]

I'm happy to report that I think Tesla has deployed significant improvements to ELDA. I used to experience a false positive every 10-15mins of driving, but since about a week ago, I haven't gotten any. I'm now on software version 20.4.2, but I think it got better in the prior version (the one that only had very minor items in the release notes).

Note that the issues I experienced with ELDA were extremely irritating (see my post history). It made me hate my car. I resorted to turning it off before every drive if I remembered, and everyone in my household was infuriated by the feature. Very glad this seems to be resolved for me. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

 

[jkeyser14]

I had another false positive today. Was entering an intersection with two left turn lanes where there are lines in the intersection to guide the turning cars. Turn signal was on. My car started beeping and fighting me while I was turning. It also highlighted the car in the turn lane next to me in red, along with the lane line between us in red. I was fully centered in the middle of my turn lane however, and so was the car it highlighted next to me, so Tesla's code was just flat out wrong.

This dog poop of a "feature" needs to go away permanently.

 

[CarMAN3]

I’ve lost my patience with this feature and have now resorted to turning it off each time I get in the car. I’ve had a total of about 6 false positives, 4 of which were confusing as to why they even triggered. If this is meant to be a safety feature, it is entirely flawed in my opinion. The false positives are alarming at best, and potentially dangerous - my first reaction is to overcompensate because I’m confused what is going on. With 6 false positives and not a single instance of actually protecting me from danger, it is doing the exact opposite of keeping me safe.

Complaining to Tesla has been a waste of time, as I don’t even get email responses from them anymore. I wonder if we all complained to the guys over at Eletrek if they’d write about it? Seems like that’s the only way at this point to get anyone at Tesla to pay attention to this issue and allow us to turn it off permanently.

I had the same thought as you about Electrek, especially since I see a 'glowing' article about ELDA about once every couple of weeks.. I'd love to see one focus on some of us having major issues so they'll give us a permanent off switch. Have you reached out to them?

 

[Msjulie]

@jkeyser14 @CarMAN3 FWIW I send an actual paper letter to Elon explaining that I didn't think it was right for Tesla to ship new software that forces us to reset our preferences at each drive, that removes owner choice post-delivery. I mentioned I refuse to update my car's firmware as long as this policy persists (and so happens the newer software screwed up Sentry Mode anyway it seems, not yet fixed).

We'll see if anything comes of it; it was sent registered and only arrived Monday, not expecting much.. Maybe if more enough correspondence is received? One can hope...