Joshua Brown's family hires law firm - attorney claims more accident victims coming forward

[AZ Desert Driver]

Stopcrazypp, I understand the point you make, and as a frequent user of TACC and auto steer, I supervise them, and know their limitations well enough to use hem sensibly. Some of this thread focused on what a jury would think, and I find that because of the media selectively reporting the facts, good friends of mine are telling me Tesla never should have put Autopilot in beta. It's their belief, not mine. I have not advocated that they remove any functionality, just rename it.

You are likely aware of how many manufacturers offer AEB. Don't you find it a little odd that not one rear ender of another manufacturers car has made national news ? My point is that I believe that Tesla is being attacked by financial and petrochemical interests, and Even though Elon has seen worse, and is in excellent legal position, a perception problem is being created. I'm not sure all the facts are in yet, but Autopilot is just fine for me, and I have a pretty thorough understanding of the tech behind it. I think if less of the radar data is filtered, and more is processed, it can be better.

I still recommend a name change, and better driver education, because I clearly understand it better than poorly informed people Inrun into that believe every little half snippet of breaking news they see. I know someone who just bought a Tesla two weeks ago, who despite my multiple cries for caution, has now been in two accidents. He thought his car couldn't hit anything. He's reasonably sharp, but someone he knows must have had the good kool aid.

To summarize, I'm fine with autopilot, use it, understand it, but too many people don't, and I'm afraid that if this game of "find the most recent Tesla crash" continues, more aggressive action may be necessary. It's almost a no win situation. With data logging, Tesla can say the driver was presented with a keep your hands on the wheel message and failed to do so, then crashed a minute later. Sounded like a great response to me and my wife. Now, think like a lawyer. You spy on your customers ? Or worse, you saw data that indicated he was in trouble, and all you did was send a message ? The investigation is already asking for car logs. That ought to be good. Printed in boxes or flash drive ?

OK - here is a conspiricy theory....Tesla has a massive data base on how to make AP work. The ICE world wants this data and is using this accident to mine through Teslas stuff. Perhaps to make their build faster, perhaps to find an Achilles heel. But NOT to solve the Brown case. Tinfoil hat?

 

[RogerHScott]

Autopilot in an airplane is a system that generally keeps the plane at a given speed, altitude and heading. It does not "automatically fly aircraft". The pilot needs to be fully alert the entire time it is used (even in more advanced systems that can aid in landing the plane). There have been a few widely reported accidents that clearly illustrated that such systems need constant monitoring, the closest one to me being Asiana Flight 214.

There have been many more not-so-widely-reported incidents where pilots failed to pay sufficient attention and/or misunderstood the
status of the autopilot system. And these are highly trained, professional operators. How virtually untrained casual amateurs can be
expected to avoid these same pitfalls -- but on a massively larger scale due to their correspondingly massively greater numbers and
numbers of operating hours -- is beyond me.

 

[RogerHScott]

Is it just me or is anyone else thinking "It was the freakin truck drivers fault!".

Speaking just for myself, I'm thinking "We don't know enough to be assigning blame to anyone".

 

[SR22pilot]

There have been many more not-so-widely-reported incidents where pilots failed to pay sufficient attention and/or misunderstood the
status of the autopilot system. And these are highly trained, professional operators. How virtually untrained casual amateurs can be
expected to avoid these same pitfalls -- but on a massively larger scale due to their correspondingly massively greater numbers and
numbers of operating hours -- is beyond me.

So AP is really TAAC, AEB and lane keep assist. All these are on other cars and with the same limitations (stationary vehicles, cross traffic). It sounds lie you want to get rid of all of them. AEB helps mitigate (not completely eliminate) rear end collisions. Do yo want to get rid of it? How about TAAC? A large percentage of cars have active cruise control. Should we outlaw that? If it is lane keep assist then do we outlaw that on Infiniti, MB, Hyundai and others? I wish the truck that hit me had had LKA on. It would have avoided an accident.

 

[bhzmark]

Is it just me or is anyone else thinking "It was the freakin truck drivers fault!". I read somewhere he stated he saw the Tesla but turned across it anyway. Like a lot of bad truck drivers who think they ca just demand right of way. Not all but some bad ones. The truck driver turned into the path of an oncoming vehicle and said vehicle impacted the side of the truck. Straightforward. Am I nuts? If autopilot was on or not, if the car driver saw the truck or not, is it relevant? The truck cut him off for the love of.....

Yes that is exactly what happened. Based on the police report and the truck driver's interviews. And I hope the truck driver's company's insurance was paid up to be the appropriate target for the family's PI atty.

And I hope the PI atty fails in any attempts to get permission from the family to dishonor Mr. Brown's very informed and experienced enthusiasm for Tesla, EVs and driving assistance technology.

The blameworthy fault lies in that truck driver saying "Ehh that car can slam on its brakes while I make this turn right in front of it -- I'll just give 'er the gas"

oddly the current Reuters story doesn't have that quote. but it is in the google Cahced version.

DVD player found in Tesla car in May crash: Florida officials

 

[RogerHScott]

Why do you leap to the conclusion that because someone suggests something is imperfect they are advocating banning it? Or
that if they criticize one instance of something they are intentionally not impugning the entire class?
While it is true that the functionality of AP minus auto-steer is essentially cruise-control as appears in many other vehicles,
the experience of operating a vehicle with auto-steer -- at least as currently implemented by Tesla -- is significantly different
in terms of the degree of driver engagement. People using traditional cruise-control, or even TACC, don't imagine (wrongly) that
the car is "driving itself", whereas some do appear to imagine this when auto-steer is added.

 

[lolachampcar]

RS,

"And these are highly trained, professional operators"
some are but most GA pilots are not yet a large number have access to, and regularly use, AP functionality. They also routinely rely on the technology to their detriment and even demise. I suspect that, in the aggregate, aircraft AP has saved more lives then it has cost. It most certainly has saved a lot of people's lives in IMC

The real question here is where is the balance between personal responsibility and having someone else responsible for our behavior. So much richness is lost in life without personal responsibility as the responsible party, whomever that may be, will likely decide we are too stupid to be trusted with sharp instruments. I would prefer not to live in that world which is likely why I stay in the US.

Ban AP.
Remove access to a million AP miles per ten hours of data.
Push back fully autonomous driving by a decade or more.
Dump millions of tons more trash in our atmosphere.
KILL tens to hundreds of thousands more drivers by delaying autonomous driving.

This would seem to be an unwise path but then we invaded Iraq, have the TSA and are considering electing a con man. Lack of critical thinking and poor decision making seems to be in fashion.

Rant over.

 

[22522]

A wide median left turn is going to be hard to clear in any traffic unless you can see a gap and time your momentum. Sounds like the hill makes this one worse as you can get stuck, stopped, with no momentum and a visibility distance that will not let you clear the intersection.

A green light for the truck, like the freeway entrance lights in California, when there is no approaching traffic over the crest of the hill, is a low cost way to avoid accidents while allowing the main road to hold pace.

This is an intersection improvement comment.

 

[thegruf]

Yes that is exactly what happened. Based on the police report and the truck driver's interviews. And I hope the truck driver's company's insurance was paid up to be the appropriate target for the family's PI atty.

And I hope the PI atty fails in any attempts to get permission from the family to dishonor Mr. Brown's very informed and experienced enthusiasm for Tesla, EVs and driving assistance technology.

The blameworthy fault lies in that truck driver saying "Ehh that car can slam on its brakes while I make this turn right in front of it -- I'll just give 'er the gas"

View attachment 185572oddly the current Reuters story doesn't have that quote. but it is in the google Cahced version.

DVD player found in Tesla car in May crash: Florida officials

I hadn't seen this report before.

So according to the truck driver, the Tesla was initially in the left (passing) lane but moved to the right lane at the time of impact.

How did that happen under AP?

 

[Kutu]

I hadn't seen this report before.

So according to the truck driver, the Tesla was initially in the left (passing) lane but moved to the right lane at the time of impact.

How did that happen under AP?

Maybe the truck driver is mistaken-- or lying. He did make a left turn into the path of a car.

 

[thegruf]

Maybe the truck driver is mistaken-- or lying. He did make a left turn into the path of a car.

well posslble - but there is also report of the Tesla overtaking a vehicle shortly beforethe accident, which would increase probability it was in the left lane.


So according to the truck driver, the Tesla was initially in the left (passing) lane but moved to the right lane at the time of impact.

If the AP loses the lane though bad markings or cresting a rise it jinks ubruptly and no way the driver could have missed this.
If the driver delierately performed a lane change with AP, he surely must have seen the truck/trailer.

Something is not adding up.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

People using traditional cruise-control, or even TACC, don't imagine (wrongly) that the car is "driving itself", whereas some do appear to imagine this when auto-steer is added.

To me, that seems to be an imagination problem, not an auto-steer problem.

If (and that's a big if) Tesla is somehow responsible for changing that perception, then the shortcoming is perhaps training and marketing, not the technical implementation of auto-steer.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

So according to the truck driver, the Tesla was initially in the left (passing) lane but moved to the right lane at the time of impact.

Something is not adding up.

Indeed.

Let's assume for the moment that this portion of the truck driver's statement is factual.

Moving from one lane to another requires operator action, even with autosteer engaged. This implies that the following scenarios are probably eliminated:

• Driver incapacitated
• Driver distracted

A hypothetical and speculative chain of events that may therefore be possible is:

• Driver is in the left lane passing another vehicle with autosteer engaged.
• Driver looks forward, sees the truck in the wide median, preparing to turn left.
• Driver feels he should move to the right lane to give the truck a wide margin, but his pass won't be completed by then.
• Driver accelerates to finish the pass sooner, concentrating on his right-side mirror to see when is the earliest point in time that he can move to the right lane after passing the other vehicle.
• Driver initiates auto lane change as soon as he can.
• Driver is also cross-checking the instrument display to see that autosteer is still recognizing the lane lines during the pass and lane change maneuver.
• Driver looks up, truck has proceeded with his turn, it's too late, and he is now going very fast because he sped up to complete the pass.

I have no idea if any of that is actually what happened, it's just a scenario which would happen to fit the facts and corresponds with the truck driver's statement of lane change.

Two potential problems with this:

1. If there indeed was another car being passed, then he should have witnessed the accident, and we haven't heard about that nor heard a statement from him.
2. Tesla logs should have shown whether auto lane change was initiated or accelerator was manually overridden, but we haven't heard anything about those items.

 

[BriansBucketList]

I'm sort of surprised that these discussions go on an on using the term Autopilot. Is the ability to hold a lane at issue here ? I believe we have an AEB issue. If it were an Acura, it would be called CMBS, or the Collision Mitigation Braking System. Not intended to prevent collisions. This is one reason I suggested an Autopilot rename: to eliminate this confusion and obfuscation of which system did, or did not fail. The owners manual states the limitations, and while ones life may depend on understanding the technology they are using, they often turn it on and "see how it works." One thing that will surface after the facts are in, are will all the info provided, legal disclaimers, etc be considered a reasonable attempt to educate the driver. All providers of AEB should be watching this.

As far as what people imagine when auto steer is engaged, this is a fuzzy area. I just saw two men walk off a cliff and fall more than 50 feet whil staring at their iPhone playing Pokimon Go. Please don't let them buy Teslas. Is this how we have evolved ? Maybe Elons right. Maybe the simulation needs a reboot. How do I mitigate this as an automaker. Ask people if they dream of flying at night ? How about what are your expecting from your Tesla, with a list of features to check off, and sign, just like you sign when financing. Again, I think Tesla is legally well positioned, but in the spirit of safety, maybe take the explanation of features and limitation a step further than a blog.

As for the truck driver and his decision to turn left, isn't this decision going to be governed in part by the rate of closure of the Tesla. If, and I emphasize IF the driver (Josh in this case) as going 90 mph, how far away are you expected to see a car coming. Anyone know the legal speed limit at that location ? Is it the same where the turn was made ? This is far from cut and dry, but if AEB is ruled as an unsafe technology, and what people imagine (unfortunately Josh is no longer alive, so what he imagines is speculation) becomes relevant to decisions made here, then the outcome may be questionable.

How about some statistics on collisions on all AEB equipped cars. Isn't it about time that the benefits of this technology start surfacing, and perhaps lowering injury and insurance rates ? Tesla has volunteered one fatality in 130 million miles with Autopilot on. I wonder if that includes AEB which is normally always on. I haven't heard anyone agree Tesla is being singled out. I guess they are the only car that makes national news when a fatality occurs. We all know there's more than one fatality a day, and none of these other fatalities are in AEB equipped vehicles ? I think Tesla has a few cards they haven't played yet. Waiting on more facts to surface.

 

[jdw]

Oddly the current Reuters story doesn't have that quote. but it is in the Google cached version.

DVD player found in Tesla car in May crash: Florida officials

It is odd that the story was edited to remove the truck drivers comments and refocus the story on AP. Two very different stories

Thanks for the link.

 

[SR22pilot]

BriansBucketLis, I agree. The car held lane like lane keep assist is expected to do. You can talk about AEB but that is designed to prevent rear end collisions from the guy in front slowing down rapidly. MB and Hyundai have all kinds of warnings in their manuals. Hyundai specifically says it may not see stationary vehicles or vehicles crossing in front. It also says the system may not recognize trailers with unusually shaped cargo.

What I would like to know is the full telemetry on the car. Was the driver pressing the accelerator pedal? A lady says he flew by her moments before the crash. AP shouldn't have allowed excessive speed but it will if you push down on the accelerator.

According to IHS, AEB reduces rear end crashes by 40%. It does not eliminate them.

One link is Automakers agree to make automatic braking a standard feature by 2022

 

[BriansBucketList]

Or a slightly different link:

10 car companies make automatic brakes standard

A list of automakers who should have their antenna up. For sake of simplicity, I didn't mention collision with cross traffic, which I'm guessing stems from filtering data from the sides to avoid braking for structures like toll booths and freeway structures. We've al branched off to jury's, lane keeping, and what people's vivid imaginations might think their car will do.

Automatic braking shouldn't just be for the rich

Interestingly, the NHTSA recommends AEB, as late as last year. We appear to have regulatory gridlock, and potential reversal of progress, hopefully not confined to certain electric car companies. People on this forum, have acces some of the logged data. They log a million miles of driving a day, but I suspect a deep dive is made, when as Tesla states, an airbag is deployed. I would be quite surprised if Tesla told us everything they see, reference maps of which supercharger stalls are occupied in real time, displayed in Fremonts delivery centers. It's not accident data, but clearly they have information that could help them as well as hurt them, that's not shared yet. More speculation (sorry) but at a minimum, if they did a very granular data dump, I believe they could retrieve just about everything the Tesla onboard systems knew, which would include speed, braking pressure, AEB, TACC, Autosteer status, expected car path, actual car path, any steering override, any messages displayed, reported V and H coordinates from the GPS, and possibly RAW unfiltered sensor input. OBD III on steroids. I'm talking a stream of this data, not a snapshot.

If they get that type of data, they have a major leg up on other companies, and it doesn't need to be retrieved immediately. That's why I said the have a few unplaced cards. I think they have said what they need to say, at this point in time. If a collision is not fatal, Tesla won't comment until the driver is contacted. In some cases, the driver hesitates to respond, like when they know what happened, but may not want to share the story. Time will tell

 

[cpa]

The lawyers on this site need to 'splain the Third Restatement of Torts developed for plaintiff's attorneys:

The 3rd Restatement of Torts-Shaping the Future of Products Liability Law - FindLaw

A lot of this has to do with litigating product liability, and the bases for manufacturer culpability. I know nothing about Tesla's software or how it works, or supposed to work. Legal arguments and theories sometimes make my hair hurt.

But, I gather from reading this blurb that there are three tests that the manufacturer needs to pass in order to get a pass. But I could be wrong.

 

[thegruf]

BriansBucketLis, I agree. The car held lane like lane keep assist is expected to do...

Did it?
the (pre-sanitized) report above post #145 states the Tesla changed lane.
Why?
How?

 

[SR22pilot]

Did it?
the (pre-sanitized) report above post #145 states the Tesla changed lane.
Why?
How?

It could have been commanded to. My main point is that the car didn't run off the road. It didn't move sideways into another car. This isn't a case of LKA causing the car to swerve into oncoming traffic. People get confused. As far as LKA what do they think the car should have done? Now AEB is another story. The Tesla system has the same limitations as AEB from Mercedes, Hyundai and others. Even the IHS, a big fan, says these systems reduce accidents by 40%. They don't eliminate accidents. Had this been a Mercedes or a Hyundai I don't think this would have made it to the press.