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Florida Autopilot crash Oct 2018
- Thread starter malcolm
- Start date
whitex
Well-Known Member
It really depends what this stationary object is, its mass, its shape and whether its friction coefficient with the ground (or other stationary objects). Any car can handle a stationary plastic cone on the road for example. In this case it was a Ford Fiesta, a little car (lighter than a Model S). If it was a Hummer or a Firetruck, the outcome would have likely been different.
It would be interesting to know if the AEB kicked in to reduce the impact speed any in this case?
May help explain how driver survived to pursue this frivolous lawsuit.
Although, given that since Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants - Wikipedia McDonald's USA have had to prominently warn on their coffee cups that "Scalding Product may Neuter if Dumped on Genitals!!", I would not be at all surprised if Tesla were ultimately forced to flash up on IC the relevant warning from the user manual each time AP is engaged.
May help explain how driver survived to pursue this frivolous lawsuit.
Although, given that since Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants - Wikipedia McDonald's USA have had to prominently warn on their coffee cups that "Scalding Product may Neuter if Dumped on Genitals!!", I would not be at all surprised if Tesla were ultimately forced to flash up on IC the relevant warning from the user manual each time AP is engaged.
X Fan
Active Member
FWIW: Morgan & Morgan heavily advertise in FL and are well known to folks. “for the people” is their tag line so if it goes to jury they have that advantage.
Btw: I’m not sure admitting that you’re going above speed limit at 80mph and distracted is the best pathway.
Btw: I’m not sure admitting that you’re going above speed limit at 80mph and distracted is the best pathway.
The AP cameras (presuming unimpaired visibility) would certainly have captured images of the Fiesta in this case before plaintiff hit it, but it seems the software to recognise and act on that information is either not yet written or operational. Hence the extensive small print warnings in the user manual as reproduced [ Florida Autopilot crash Oct 2018 ] above.
Speaking from recent personal experience of accelerating to 78mph on motorway from behind a step-aside lead vehicle into tail-end of a stationary traffic jam [ major difference being I was fully attentive and aware of what behaviour to expect Phantom braking, etc. overflow from 2018.32.2 thread ] the Tesla HW 2.5 radar sensor is completely useless for avoiding this type of scenario at >=50mph, which is why IMHO it must, if the dream of a safe L3 Highway Autopilot on the way to FSD is ever to happen, be upgraded with one having sufficient resolution to at any speed distinguish massive stationary objects in the planned path from inconsequential roadside clutter.
.jg.
Member
"Hudson says that at the time of the impact, he was looking at his phone."
The driver is the one with the driving license, not the car - that would mean that the driver has to be in control of their vehicle at all times.
I don't know the rules in Florida but in the UK, anyone caught using their phone whilst driving now gets an instant £200 fine and six penalty points on their driving license. [12 penalty points within two years earns a six month driving ban]. For drivers who choose to go to court, the penalties upon conviction increase to a £1000 fine and an instant driving ban. Having points for this offence will dramatically increase insurance premiums for several years.
The driver is the one with the driving license, not the car - that would mean that the driver has to be in control of their vehicle at all times.
I don't know the rules in Florida but in the UK, anyone caught using their phone whilst driving now gets an instant £200 fine and six penalty points on their driving license. [12 penalty points within two years earns a six month driving ban]. For drivers who choose to go to court, the penalties upon conviction increase to a £1000 fine and an instant driving ban. Having points for this offence will dramatically increase insurance premiums for several years.
Apparently the speed limit was 65mph, so by his own evidence this driver should certainly, with every prospect of success, be prosecuted for speeding and the habitual reckless endangerment of others while he "got some work done" during his 4 hour daily commute over the previous 98,000 miles.
The local Tesla owners club should set a good example by filing a criminal complaint to that effect.
If we are going to be pedantic
, he does work "for", meaning in the interests of Nissan. However, he is not directly employed by Nissan (but is indirectly since without Nissan, there would be no Nissan dealerships).work for
Despite plaintiff's defects this type of case was always inevitable in USA and even without reaching a jury may serve to cure/ameliorate Tesla's traditionally rather mixed messages about AP, and/or help Musk rejig his priorities to perhaps, almost 3 years after the first such fatality, finally eliminate Firetruck Super-Destruction mode instead of layering more Atari-type lipstick upon his fundamentally unsafe hardware pig.
On second thoughts, therefore, perhaps this suit is indeed not so frivolous. Hmmnn ...
Dr. J
Active Member
Common sense is not what's expected from a jury--so, yes, that would be folly. A jury is directed to listen to the evidence presented in court (and only that evidence) and follow the law to reach a verdict. Unfortunately, that parenthetical part is the hard part.
Since you asked
This I probably agree with, for anything in the US, there will be a lawsuit
Disagree: Tesla has not had mixed messages on current capability. The media has.
Disagree: first fatality was not a firetruck
Disagree: no such mode
Disagree that reason the "stationary object after occluding vehicle changes lane" issue has not been solved is the lack of lawsuit.
Disagree that it is fundamentally unsafe. If it is, cars with zero lane keeping are super-duper-fundamentally unsafe.
Disagree that the Atari features are lipstick on a pig.
Disagree: The lawsuit is frivolous. Driver was not paying attention, not following the owners manual, and speeding by 10-15 MPH. Not the car's fault, not Tesla's fault.
Qualification: whereas the jury are obliged to listen to the evidence presented and may indeed be "directed" by the judge to follow his interpretation of the law, once in the jury room they are entirely free to discard his legal advice and actively nullify what they may consider bad law, by returning an unexpected verdict:
Jury nullification - Wikipedia
So a considerable amount of common sense is still inherent in the legal system despite the authoritarian efforts in USA to stamp it out by forbidding lawyers from informing juries of this their ancient right.
Dr. J
Active Member
Well, yes, but jurors who may be so inclined get assiduously scrubbed during the voir dire process. And nullification is not necessarily in service of "common sense," and certainly not guaranteed to be in service of justice. Sometimes it's just ornery.
Edit: And there is the possibility in civil cases of a judge throwing out a jury's verdict, which I suspects happens more frequently than jury nullification.
"In civil cases, things are more complicated: double jeopardy does not exist there. There, there is a notion of a judgment as a matter of law: the judge determines that, based on evidence presented, no reasonable jury could possibly find the other way. This can happen before or after the verdict, and is appealable."
Can a court judge override a jury decision?
X Fan
Active Member
Geez......clearly you're misguided re: USA's legal system.....trial lawyer lobbyists have often rigged the system through lobbying to ensure favorable verdicts.....in most states, they are highly influential in the State houses that construct the laws.
Merriam-Webster defines "common sense" as "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." So, yes, I would argue that this is a desirable quality in a juror.
CarlK
Active Member
Should be easy to do. Let's say that a camera records 60 FPS and it processes all those frames flawlessly.
50 mph = 22.352 m/s. 22 / 60 = 0.36 meters per frame. It usually takes 2-3 frames to judge whether you are approaching something.
At that speed you should be able to figure that out at a distance of 1 meter of movement.
You know your local speed, you know whether the object grows (approaches) or shrinks (goes away) in view. This is already demonstrated in videos using their AP hardware:
Why the heck don't they switch it on???
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