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ZAKEEUS
Member
That will take a while since white is the most popular trailer color. The US has about 15 million tractor trailers on the roads, it would be easier and faster for Tesla to just do some testing with trailers and tweak it so it can tell the difference between a trailer and an overhead sign. That also doesn't involve fighting the trucking lobby for regulations. I don't think it's a good look for us to start telling other people to change their vehicles so our vehicles don't crash into them. All in all, I think this tragedy will result in huge improvements in autopilot in the coming years.
Lex
Member
Roundabouts are statistically much safer with far fewer fatalities. There's one catch, people need to know how to navigate them first. Province of Ontario, Canada site link on Roundabouts.
How about a flashing amber light at least (it can be solar powered), where there will be cross traffic. In Ontario this area may even be fenced to not only prevent cross vehicle traffic but also to discourage pedestrians crossing the highway to get a snack etc.
As for the other circumstances of this accident, so far this all seems very, very odd.
Lots of speculation at this point, and the alleged claims by the truck driver may be contradictory (didn't see Tesla ?), or at least confusing (gunned the 18-wheeler ? vs. slowing / stopping it ?).
And we'll never hear from Josh, unless a dash cam card is recovered. If being sought. I for one wonder if that was indeed his headlight, or one from an earlier crash at this same "intersection".
What of the coroner report, was he attempting to duck down at all ? Call me a safety nut but I've been known to mentally practice this maneuver as I am regularly surrounded by trucks.
His car has by now reported at minimum the "black box" crash data that is government mandated. This should include the speed before and during collision, state of brakes, etc. And by the sound of it, Tesla also has the data that was used to determine Autopilot decisions during the fatal crash.
So there should be no question of the car's speed, once the data is made available.
I have not heard any suggestion that the truck's data recorder information was researched or retrieved, and this seems odd to me. And where was the truck headed ?
Out of every tragedy there is an urge for an emotional release. This was a tragic accident and not a deliberate action, or a bug that will cause cars to go running into the sides of trucks.
It is the opposite of helpful to react without data.
Sometimes a bizarre accident is just a bizarre accident. People are looking for answers, and blame, but let's be very clear about what we're actually doing here -- we are trying to find out why the amazing safety and driver assistance systems didn't help save a life.
Not why they caused anything.
If indeed Josh was alive at the time of impact -- something we simply don't seem to know, at least not yet. Maybe the car's logs will tell us more. These suggestions of DVD watching, distracted driving, etc. are mere speculation.
Those of you looking to lay any blame on Autopilot are completely missing this point. You need to believe from those of us that have come to rely on it that Autopilot can and already has substantially improved quality of life for many of us. AP is genuninely one of the biggest factors of the life-enhancing Tesla and greater EV community experience for me so far.
How about a flashing amber light at least (it can be solar powered), where there will be cross traffic. In Ontario this area may even be fenced to not only prevent cross vehicle traffic but also to discourage pedestrians crossing the highway to get a snack etc.
As for the other circumstances of this accident, so far this all seems very, very odd.
Lots of speculation at this point, and the alleged claims by the truck driver may be contradictory (didn't see Tesla ?), or at least confusing (gunned the 18-wheeler ? vs. slowing / stopping it ?).
And we'll never hear from Josh, unless a dash cam card is recovered. If being sought. I for one wonder if that was indeed his headlight, or one from an earlier crash at this same "intersection".
What of the coroner report, was he attempting to duck down at all ? Call me a safety nut but I've been known to mentally practice this maneuver as I am regularly surrounded by trucks.
His car has by now reported at minimum the "black box" crash data that is government mandated. This should include the speed before and during collision, state of brakes, etc. And by the sound of it, Tesla also has the data that was used to determine Autopilot decisions during the fatal crash.
So there should be no question of the car's speed, once the data is made available.
I have not heard any suggestion that the truck's data recorder information was researched or retrieved, and this seems odd to me. And where was the truck headed ?
I'll decide what functions are of purpose to me, thanks. As a parallel, I could tell you that the MS's jump seats are a stupid option, but you might have 5 kids.
Out of every tragedy there is an urge for an emotional release. This was a tragic accident and not a deliberate action, or a bug that will cause cars to go running into the sides of trucks.
It is the opposite of helpful to react without data.
Sometimes a bizarre accident is just a bizarre accident. People are looking for answers, and blame, but let's be very clear about what we're actually doing here -- we are trying to find out why the amazing safety and driver assistance systems didn't help save a life.
Not why they caused anything.
If indeed Josh was alive at the time of impact -- something we simply don't seem to know, at least not yet. Maybe the car's logs will tell us more. These suggestions of DVD watching, distracted driving, etc. are mere speculation.
Those of you looking to lay any blame on Autopilot are completely missing this point. You need to believe from those of us that have come to rely on it that Autopilot can and already has substantially improved quality of life for many of us. AP is genuninely one of the biggest factors of the life-enhancing Tesla and greater EV community experience for me so far.
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Judging by 5 dislikes, looks like I was too subtle on my sarcasm.
Instead of saying it is stupid and silly to look for all edge cases to be solved before anything resembling drivers assistance is released, I took the sarcasm route.
Lex
Member
Reflector patches in the trailer corners would be a start. I've seen these in use around these parts.
Are there any pictures of the tractor trailer ? I have not seen...
ZAKEEUS
Member
Reflector strips are required....this could be something Tesla could train autopilot to look for?
Good question Mike and I think I see where you're going with this.
I believe the logical answer would be yes it would if the data, without a shadow of doubt, proved that.
Appreciate the different perspective...mind officially blown.
Gil
Trailers all have reflective markers and lights down the length of them.
The driver hit the trailer because he did not see it. He probably was not even looking at the road.
It will be interesting to see how Tesla reacts. When a company discovers a safety risk and does not act on it, it can be billions of dollars and the press coverage will indicate a 'cover-up'. The actual statistical risk never comes into play.
Pintos, Chevy pickups, and GM key ignitions all fell victim to this, as have many others.
The risk is very low. But if you don't act, you are evil.
The driver hit the trailer because he did not see it. He probably was not even looking at the road.
It will be interesting to see how Tesla reacts. When a company discovers a safety risk and does not act on it, it can be billions of dollars and the press coverage will indicate a 'cover-up'. The actual statistical risk never comes into play.
Pintos, Chevy pickups, and GM key ignitions all fell victim to this, as have many others.
The risk is very low. But if you don't act, you are evil.
Yes, and we must also eliminate parachute recovery systems on light aircraft because one might deploy in such a way as to descend in a heavily populated area, injuring of killing someone.
Every technological advance produces some negative consequences but the end of most of them is positive.
In the meantime it seems likely that the current case involved watching a portable DVD while driving and a long history of speeding violations. In any given accident there seem always to be multiple contributing factors, and so it seems to be here. Just as in almost all aircraft accidents complacency tends to dominate the driver/pilot reaction ineffectiveness.
From the A330 with frozen pitot tubes to the misprogrammed approach with the B777 at SFO, the pilots should have known better. Nearly all auto accidents are similar. Yet the first reaction in the A330 case was to blame Airbus, in the B777 to blame Boeing and in our current case to blame Tesla.
We all want the machine to somehow overcome human error. "Ain't gonna happen!" Complacency always can overcome technology. We have endless examples, don't we? Still, it is far easier to blame the machine.
I've written about this in previous posts...
From how im undestanding it (and please correct me if I'm wrong), AEB isn't the root cause here. AEB never received any signal to fire because AP didn't give it a signal to fire. AP didn't give it a signal to fire because the radar didn't give AP a signal to fire.
Why didn't the radar give it a reason to fire? Because the radars software (tesla's in house software) viewed the truck as a false positive (overhead sign). If the radars software were refined more (I know it's coming with additional hardware and software) then maybe it wouldnt have viewed the 18 wheeler crossing the road as something simular to a overhead sign. It would have viewed it as what it was...a big truck in front of you. The system as a whole has imperfections, as tesla has stated.
I view teslas in house radar software as one of those imperfections. So I see no issues with AEB. AEB didn't malfunction...it never received any signal to malfunction (not implying you said this)
If I've missed understood any of this, let me know. I'm more than happy to receive inputs.
Yes, sarcasm is always hard to detect online, and often in real life. I've significantly decreased my use of sarcasm when I realized my kids were taking me literally.
This is a rough statistical observation judging from the comments on this thread.
On the people owning S and enjoying AP, a good 90% of them love it and consider this incident as an edge case that a moderate attention to the road is enough.
90% of the folks who complain Tesla's AP is a death machine neither own one or even driven for any reasonable length of time (5 minute test drives don't count).
That tells you everything you need to know.
On the people owning S and enjoying AP, a good 90% of them love it and consider this incident as an edge case that a moderate attention to the road is enough.
90% of the folks who complain Tesla's AP is a death machine neither own one or even driven for any reasonable length of time (5 minute test drives don't count).
That tells you everything you need to know.
You think im a short or tesla basher? Get real man. I'm just as passionate about the tesla movement as the most obsessive tesla advocate. Read my post history and just get real.
I'm objectively (for once pertaining to tesla) giving my opinion on this specific issue.
I love tesla like most of everyone else on here. Don't hurt my feelings like that again
Nikxice
Active Member
From what we know to date, there doesn't appear to be any credible evidence the Tesla driver ever saw the tractor trailer. The truck driver apparently made a statement indicating that prior to the crash the Tesla made a lane change. If that is true, I'm surprised Tesla didn't reference it in their blog post. Who knows where that's coming from. Perhaps a parallax illusion perceived by a panicked truck driver. Even taking into account the alleged lane change, under the circumstances it's not the type of evasive maneuver one would expect. The Tesla crashed close to the center of a 70 foot long billboard, with no application of the brakes. If there was any driver awareness, one would expect a different crash scene.
When in doubt I stick a
Enjoy your AP, but pay attention when you using it. It is very fortunate that there is only one victim of this incident. Hopefully there will be no more victims of still not perfect system. IMHO victim still will be alive if he will pay attention to the road, I do not want to be killed or injured by not yet 100% safe system, please be considerate to others using road.
JeffK
Well-Known Member
It'll never be perfect, it just has to be better than a human. You should remind others to be considerate of traffic laws and this accident wouldn't have happened at all.
That's just what I read.
To me, it doesn't matter. The DRIVER should have seen an 18 wheeler across the road if he was paying attention. It would have been nice if AP would have seen it too. Turns out the driver is pretty bad at driving. He's had MULTIPLE tickets in the past 2 years and posted a vid of a service truck merging into his lane and AP ha to save him there... again, obviously distracted driving since he was drving in someone's blind spot and didn't see a big truck merging into his lane!!??
.
Yes, and we must also eliminate parachute recovery systems on light aircraft because one might deploy in such a way as to descend in a heavily populated area, injuring of killing someone.
Every technological advance produces some negative consequences but the end of most of them is positive.
It's funny you mentioned that... I was just talking about this with my father who used to be a RIO in F4s.
If you're wondering, the chute used to slow that beastly aircraftaircraft during short runway landings malfunctioned in this instance.
Reading all these threads, it seems like many people already drawn the conclusions that:
When I ran into the "Inside Edition" video regarding this accident on YouTube, I immediately smelled something...
As for myself, I am eagerly waiting for the final investigation result from NHTSA and FHP to put this to rest.
- The driver was watching a movie because the truck driver who caused the accident "heard" it and a portable DVD player was found among the wreckage
- "Eye witness report" from a very questionable (and sensational) local news station report which stated that the car was travelling much faster than 85mph while AP limits to 90mph. (BTW, could the statement from this "witness" become self-incriminating evidence for speeding?)
When I ran into the "Inside Edition" video regarding this accident on YouTube, I immediately smelled something...
As for myself, I am eagerly waiting for the final investigation result from NHTSA and FHP to put this to rest.
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