Fatal autopilot crash, NHTSA investigating...

[nikielizabeth]

I think some folks need to stop blaming this entire thing on the truck driver (that he is lying etc). The idea that somehow because the guy was a navy seal he is less likely to be at fault than a driver with millions of miles behind the wheel is ridiculous.

Blaming anyone is dumb at this point. Not a lot of hard fact, and a lot of stipulation. And I agree, there is no reason to assume that someone is a liar or truthful based off of their profession.

I am sure the driver of that semi will never be able to sleep the same again - he lived and another guy died.

 

[kort677]

Congrats. You get the award for the first insensitive d-bag in this tragic thread, more concerned about protecting the "brand".

this has nothing to do with being insensitive or protecting the brand, it is all about
personal responsibility it is my opinion that he was not alert or keeping his eyes on the road.

My heart goes out to his loss. A truck drove perpendicular on a freeway crossing. It would have taken an incredibly powerful autonomous system to avoid this accident. But it would take some crazy maneuvering for any driver or computer to have avoided it. This was not at all an autopilot failure. The question is how do we get autonomous features to prevent more accidents- particularly ones like this. There is no way tesla or autopilot are to blame. It's a tragic accident. Of course this is all the news preselects.

this was not a limited access highway, the truck was making what appeared to be a legal left turn.
why haven't the results of the highway patrol investigation included in this press release?
there are many questions not answered. the biggest open question that would answer a lot of the speculation regarding the culpability of the AP system would be the length of the skid marks made from a hard braking, how long were the skid marks would tell you about the reaction time of the car or driver and if there was a lack of skid marks it would point to both AP failure/driver inattentiveness.

 

[alseTrick]

Another question from a European here: are there really many roads built this way in the US? Assuming it was a "highway" with a speed limit of 55 mph or 65 mph it just seems very weird to me that the road is even built in a way where it is possible to make a left turn to cross. All places in Western Europe where I've lived this would have been solved with either:
1. An off-ramp for the truck followed by a 3/4 circle elevated turn and an overpass to cross the highway.
2. A gradual slow down in to an intersection controlled by traffic lights.
3. The same traffic setup as in this case BUT then the speed limit would never have been more than 40 mph.

Yes, they're "common". Both in Florida and most every other state. While they're common , they're primarily in rural areas where the number of vehicles on the road is substantially reduced compared to traditional highways. Look at Google maps street view. The "highway" is damn near empty in the middle of the day. That's how they almost always are.

I personally don't see anything wrong with these roads. If the truck driver makes a safe turn, there's perhaps no accident. If the Tesla driver is paying attention, there's perhaps no accident. If Tesla's emergency braking worked in these situations, perhaps there's no accident. Nothing about the type of road it was on changes that.

 

[SR22pilot]

Excellent example! Now, how many times have you grabbed the wheel when AP tried to hit another car? If you hadn't grabbed it you would have possibly been killed or injured? You have to balance the two together. You can't just say "AP saves more lives than not" because you don't know how many times the human had to save himself/herself from death or injury AP would have caused. And Tesla doesn't publish the number of times owners save themselves. So its a false argument.

This argument is flawed. The better argument is:

Taking everything into account including driver takeover from AP and AP failure to brake, does the accident rate go up or down?

So far the only data available says there is a large net reduction in accidents where accidents are measured by airbag deployments.

 

[kort677]

Autopilot is a combo of auto steer and TACC. This was failure of the TACC system. If the car barreled out of its lane, then it would have been an autopilot problem. It just didn't stop. This could have happened to anyone that owns a car with TACC, or am I missing something?

you are missing the fact that having the AP engaged to handle the steering allowed the driver to not have 100% attention to the road ahead of him

 

[kort677]

Point 1 isn't true. Long range radar should have detected the front of the truck first before the high-riding part of the trailer.

what long range radar?

 

[Vger]

Mobileye issued the following statement on the fatal Tesla collision:

"We have read the account of what happened in this case. Today's collision avoidance technology, or Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) is defined as rear-end collision avoidance, and is designed specifically for that. This incident involved a laterally crossing vehicle, which current-generation AEB systems are not designed to actuate upon. Mobileye systems will include Lateral Turn Across Path (LTAP) detection capabilities beginning in 2018, and the Euro NCAP safety ratings will include this beginning in 2020."

Well, that is pretty significant, in my view. If that distinction was well-documented to authorities prior to this incident, then at least the NHTSA investigation will probably close quickly.

 

[Seesaw]

I hope some good can come out of this tragedy, it would be great to see a push to mandate underride protections on trucks, they are often seen to improve fuel efficiency too.

 

[Tam]

...EM has already tweeted that the radar return from the truck's side would have been interpreted as an overhead sign, and therefore the AP did not brake for it...

As the summoning picture posted by Canuck, and now with this highway accident, it seems Tesla has problem with the ride height of a flatbed trailer or truck at a very low speed of summoning or a highway speed.

I believe Tesla will be able to deal with those higher-than-the-hood-height obstacles in future, but in the mean time, I would be very careful at any speed when encountering these specific obstacles.

 

[SR22pilot]

Agreed - he was probably not paying attention. Disagree, that makes it his fault. And that's what a jury would decide if Tesla was foolish enough to let it go to a jury. A reasonable person who buys a car with something called "Auto-Pilot" can expect NOT to have to pay attention every second. Obviously that's not true, but Tesla muddies the water with the "Beta" claim, and that's what I would desperately like to see decided in court - can an automaker do this? Blame the user for an admitted experimental technology that ends in tragedy?

Yes! I use AP, but believe you me I pay STRICT attention. No more book reading - I quit that long ago.

Not if the jury were made of pilots. I fly a plane with an excellent AP. It follows the course I enter just fine. It doesn't avoid weather or other planes. In fact, as another post pointed out, this accident is only about AP when discussing the inattention of the driver. Collision avoidance, emergency braking or whatever you want to call it is something else.

 

[kort677]

Another question from a European here: are there really many roads built this way in the US? Assuming it was a "highway" with a speed limit of 55 mph or 65 mph it just seems very weird to me that the road is even built in a way where it is possible to make a left turn to cross. All places in Western Europe where I've lived this would have been solved with either:
.

highways like this is quite common here in fact there are probably more miles of roads like this than there are limited access highways.
the bottom line in this tragedy is a lack of competence and personal responsibilities of all parties involved.
the trucker appears to have misjudged the speed of the approaching vehicle and continued to make his turn and the tesla driver appears to have been traveling at a high rate of speed and was not attentive to the truck turning in front of him.

 

[alseTrick]

The problem is, that there is a large open space below this trailer and because of this open space AP thought, that the radar return is false posite of overhead traffic sign.

Which is a failure/shortcoming of some component of the system (hardware, software, Tesla decision making, etc).

There is a clear difference between an overhead sign that's 15-20 ft(?) in the air and a truck that's 4 ft off the ground that a Tesla can smash into.

 

[808?]

I doubt AP will get disabled too. The government is definitely not going to step in and order any action based on one instance.

Sadly it has happened before where I am.

 

[vgrinshpun]

Which is a failure of some component if the system (hardware, software, Tesla decision making, etc).

There is a clear difference between an overhead sign that's 15-20 ft(?) in the air and a truck that's 4 ft off the ground that a Tesla can smash into.

Not a failure of any type.

The system is not designed for Lateral Turn Across Pass (LATP) detection, period. See here.

 

[SR22pilot]

Do modern antilock brakes leave skid marks? I would think they would leave a broken mark with many small marks but I'm not sure.

 

[MXFLA]

The mobile eye statement refers to this as a laterally crossing vehicle that no current autonomous breaking system can detect. This is not an autopilot failure folks. It is a current limitation of existing auto breaking technology. Repeat, it is not a Tesla autopilot problem. This has always been an emergency braking problem. No current cruise control or emergency braking system can solve for this particular issue. Mobileye says in 2018 they will be rolling out new systems the can fix this. Auto steer, which most people equate to the autopilot function since TACC is fairly standard on today's luxury cars appears to have been working fine. If no TACC system would have stopped that car I'm not sure what solution there is. These features make us safer but photon shields are still a few years out.

 

[kort677]

Do modern antilock brakes leave skid marks? I would think they would leave a broken mark with many small marks but I'm not sure.

regardless of the skids leaving a continuous mark on the roadway or if it was a broken pattern, if it is determined that there were no skid marks then I would conclude that either the driver put too much faith into the abilities of the TACC or he just didn't have eyes on the roadway ahead of him.

 

[zambono]

According to Fox News this morning, the Tesla driver was watching a movie on his screen and it was still playing when the paramedics arrived. How did he do it? I am fairly sure that it was a violation of the law.

The trucker stated he heard the movie but never saw it, per another post on here the driver used to work on his laptop while on AP. My take is that the laptop was playing the movie and streaming via bluetooth to the car speakers, or the trucker heard the laptops speakers. As noted on this thread any vehicle crossing traffic is at fault in these accidents, but it does seem the driver of the tesla was not aware of his surroundings when the accident happened.

I knew there had to be a fatality sooner or later with AP but I thought it was going to happen where a pedestrian got hit. The current situation is very unfortunate in that it shows the limitations of the hardware in the Tesla when it comes to objects which are higher than ground level. Just one more sensor MIGHT have been enough to prevent or reduce the severity of the collision.

 

[alseTrick]

Not a failure of any type.

The system is not designed for Lateral Turn Across Pass (LATP) detection, period. See here.

Tesla is saying the car can see these objects but ignores them because they think they're overhead signs.

They can't have it both ways here.

 

[lklundin]

I believe Tesla will be able to deal with those higher-than-the-hood-height obstacles in future, but in the mean time, I would be very careful at any speed when encountering these specific obstacles.

Me too.

(Both on foot, bicycle and in my car, which for AP has only cruise control and lane departure warning).