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Model X Crash on US-101 (Mountain View, CA)

Discussion in 'Model X' started by mookhead, Mar 23, 2018.

  1. VikH

    VikH Supporting Member

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    What was the probable cause they voted on?
     
  2. SMAlset

    SMAlset Well-Known Member

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    #3042 SMAlset, Feb 25, 2020
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2020
  3. SMAlset

    SMAlset Well-Known Member

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    #3043 SMAlset, Feb 25, 2020
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    As I listened all parties. Including they held Apple just because the guy had a company phone. I thought that was pretty unreal.

    As to the "canned" appearance of the meeting, the chairman said this:
    "What the public doesn't see is that we, we get this report about 30 days in advance. We all read it. We all meet individually one on one with staff. We make comment, we write memos to say what we believe should be changed. Staff then brings it back to us and tells us how they may or may not revise the report. So it's a lot of work to get to this point. Thank all of you"
     
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  4. bhzmark

    bhzmark Active Member

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    #3044 bhzmark, Feb 25, 2020
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    Ok so:

    1. There are proposed findings that they read. and the old preliminary report
    2. Yes they stated their full report will come out in a couple weeks.
    3. Yes I am capturing the CC and will post the section after the recess when they break again.
     
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  5. SMAlset

    SMAlset Well-Known Member

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    If you got to listen to the meeting from the beginning, did they cover the Delray Beach and the other crash and make a report on those too? Been trying to follow the Model 3 one in Delray Beach as well.
     
  6. bhzmark

    bhzmark Active Member

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    #3046 bhzmark, Feb 25, 2020
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    Post recess cc transcript below. The 23 findings and various jumbled recommendations at the end are all worth reading.

    The main punchline at the end is:

    In this crash, we saw several facets. We saw an overreliance on technology by the driver. We saw distraction by the driver. We saw lack of policy prohibiting PED use by employers. By the employer of this driver. We saw infrastructure failure, Caltran CHP they didn't do what was required to fix this barrier. And when all of these combine, we end up with a tragic accident


    >> Okay. We'll begin back in 60 seconds.
    >> We're back in session. For the next round, Mr. Chairman.
    >> Thank you. Despite all the limitations placed on the use of the autopilot, as I understand it, there was no firmware or software or anything to prohibit its use in what we'll call inappropriate places. Am I correct? And is it fair --
    >> Yeah.
    >> Is it correct? Okay. And is it fair to assume that driver misuse of these systems is not only possible but it's likely?
    >> It certainly should be expected.
    >> Okay.
    >> The adherence to limitations and warnings which appear in vehicle owner's manual rely first on a driver to know about them, second to understand them, and then to adhere to those.
    >> And I think we've already ascertained that most drivers are not familiar, particularly with their systems.
    >> Well, at least with the four crashes we discussed today, we believe those drivers with the system and their limitations,.
    >> But chose to ignore.
    >> But did not adhere to various warnings.

    >> I know we've got a recommendation pending here for -- to the manufacturers of the personal electronic devices, and I'll use this as an opportunity to push something that's on our most wanted list and has been for a number of years, and that has been the whole business of distraction. And it cuts across all modes. But particularly on the highways, we have what is literally an epidemic. The last year that we have data for, we could definitely tie somewhere around 4,000 fatalities and tens of thousands of life-altering injuries because people were distracted by their personal electronic devices. This is a rhetorical question, but I'll ask you anyway.
    Do you know how many PEDs are out there in the United States?
    >> I believe it's more than there are citizens of the United States.
    >> That is correct. We have something in the neighborhood of 4 billion -- with a B. Many people carry more than one. And too many of them are using them while they're driving. And what this crash illustrates is not only do we have the old kind of distraction of the PEDs, but now with the level two automation, we've introduced yet another kind, which is the automation complacency of the system almost kind of always works except when it doesn't. And then people get into yet even more difficulty.
    So I hope as a result of this crash and some of the others going forward that we can get the community to start to understand and the regulatory agencies that this is, you know -- in the aviation world, many of us up here come from aviation, we wouldn't tolerate one 100th of the fatality rate we do on the highways. People seem to think their freedom of using their PED is fine and they're not going to have a crash. And unfortunately, this situation proves that that's correct. I'll get off my soapbox now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
    Thank you.

    >> The Tesla's autopilot assists the driver's revel of engagement by monitoring through changes of steering wheel torque. We've determined that's not effective.
    Are there occasions when autopilot will not register torque, and in what circumstances? Steering wheel torque.
    >> There is a certain amount of torque required for the system to detect it. So there may be circumstances where the driver has hands on the steering wheel but the system does not detect the torque, sufficient torque.
    >> And we know that wasn't the case here because we know that there was a gaming application or some sort of gaming going on. Correct?
    >> I believe that's correct.

    >> Okay. How do other modes of -- and I'm just curious. How do other modes of transportation monitor operator engagement?
    >> So in many of the most, obviously, the board's investigated crashes that have involved marine, aviation, and rail. In each of the modes, they have multiple operators performing the task, so they have each other to follow. In some cases, obviously in rail, they'll have some devices to keep -- you have to keep your dead man switch kind of thing to show you're attentive. A lot of it, you've got second person in there to help you miss something.
    >> In rail, they have the alert or.
    >> Yeah.
    >> Some rail operators have cameras in the cab which looks at things later. So there's some. But it would be interesting to look at cross-mode alley how different operators monitor engagement and other modes of transportation. I just put that out there.
    Doctor, on collision avoidance, NHTSA established performance standards for forward-collision warning and automatic emergency braking. Collision avoidance systems that meet the standards are recommended as safety technologies on the NHTSA website.
    What's evaluated in NHTSA's new car assessment program's five-star safety ratings program? What's missing? And how does the program compare to Euro end cap?
    >> The five stars in the NCAP refer only to vehicle worthiness and rollover protection. The five-star rating does not include rating of various collision rating systems. NHTSA in December 2015 has published an NPRM that proposes expanding NCAP to include ratings for various collision avoidance systems as well as for pedestrian detection, pedestrian safety, following our recommendation for NHTSA to do exactly that, and following the mandate from Congress to NHTSA to have such rule making within a year. Has been five years since then and for whatever reason, NHTSA has not yet done so. In comparison, Euro end cap, the final safety rating requires certain level crash worthiness performance, certain level of collision avoidance systems, as well as pedestrian detection. Furthermore, the testing for collision avoidance systems in your end cap decides the rear-end crash, includes different profile targets such as pedestrian and bicyclist.
    >> Thank you. Doctor, I assume you can answer this, do they look in crash testing at damage to batteries? Like lithium ion batteries?
    >> Yes, there's a federal motor vehicle standard 305, which is focused on lithium ion battery -- vehicle batteries. But what it does is it refers -- for the crash testing, it refers to the other FFBSSs where they delineate the specific crash testing and then they've added some responses to look for, for example, when they do some postcrash inspection of the vehicle. They look for things like battery leakage or damage to the bayry.
    >> And, in fact, there was a crash test where there was some damage to the battery that we are aware of. Correct?
    >> That's correct. In 2011, a Chevy Volt incident where it had finished an NCAP side impact test suffered some damage to the battery case which manifested in a reignition or fire of the vehicle three weeks later as it sat waiting to be auctioned off. NHTSA initiated investigation to determine the issues with the battery in that case.
    >> And in this case -- I think it would be helpful. I know we're going to have a separate report on electric vehicle batteries, which is expected to come out sometime this summer, which is why we did not include recommendations in this report. But it would be helpful, because we didn't discuss it earlier on to talk about what happened in the fire in this case.
    >> You're right. We have eye finding here that there was unusual fire and electrical hazards that were discovered in this crash. It was one of the reasons we responded to it. The battery case was breached in this crash, and the first responders were -- and that did lead to some reignition events after the initial fire distinguishing was conducted. The fire responders reacted and were able to put out the fire.
    But they were also aware electric vehicles can present unique challenge, which is part of the reason they decided to delay opening of the freeway and bring in the Tesla engineers to get some assistance. And so the vehicle was able to be moved from the scene without incident and we were incorporating the lessons learned it from this crash with the report we're developing in the summer that combined this crash with some other investigations with similar situations.
    >> Okay. I'll follow up on this in my next round.
    >> Thank you. Member Graham.
    >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate her bringing up the NHTSA's new car assessment program. The five-star rating program. As a matter of fact, my staff, we printed off one of those reports today looking at one of my staff member's cars. I will tell you, it's quite honestly, pretty worthless. I get some stars for frontal crash, side crash, and some rollover information. Doesn't really tell me a lot about it, whether it was good or bad.
    Then in the recommended safety technologies, it comes up and it shows what options are available on the vehicle. In this case forward-collision warning, lane departure warning, crash imminent braking. We clicked on that to see what was there. Nothing. Nothing was there.
    So the report is pretty worthless. Didn't really tell me much as a consumer. We went ahead and printed off the big technical report. We were planning on it but it was like 100-something pages and nothing really useful for the consumer I would say. Lot of engineering terminology and everything.
    So we're aware that it's just shows vehicle crash worthiness and rollover safety. What is the Euro NCAP include besides those.
    >> As I just stated, the overall safety rating included crash worthiness, various collision avoidance technologies, and pedestrian detection. And each -- generally, each year in order to achieve the maximum rating, a manufacturer has to do better than a previous year. With that said, here in the U.S. the institute for highway safety, also has a safety rating that includes crash worthiness and collision avoidance systems.

    >> I'm glad you talked about that. Because we just happened to print my staff member's vehicle out of the Euro NCAP. I would tell you, if I was going to make a recommendation to NHTSA, and I'm big into not reinventing the wheel, I'd have them go out and look at their site and do what they did as far as the presentation, the pictures are very up front. There's a very easy-to-read legend this

    that basically says good ab adequate, marginal, weak, poor. It's got a rating system in there. Great pictures and things like that that I'd highly recommend. Matter of fact, when I go home tonight, I'm going to print -- hopefully they have my cars in here. I want to print it off and look at that. So I think NHTSA got a high bar to reach here. But I don't think it's that hard to reach. Very simple, very informative pictures and diagrams.
    So one more question with my time. What obstacles does this Tesla vehicle forward-collision avoidance system? What objects can it see?
    >> Again, might be a question for Tesla to state what kind of objects they are designing their systems for, whether it may see some of them. But the actual test that those systems are tested for are based on NHTSA's testing protocols which, as we stated earlier, test up to 45 miles per hour and only one type of target, which is bag of a regular passenger vehicle, I believe.
    So while -- and this is true not only for Tesla, but for collision avoidance systems of all other manufacturers. While they may babe in certain circumstances to perform more than that, they are simply not tested to those standards.
    >> Okay. Thank you. Just happens to be that that Euro NCAP report for this vehicle went over each of those types of obstacles, whether it was a pedestrian coming straight on, cross traffic, same with the bicycle, other vehicles, barriers, things like that. It all had all of that in the rating system and is quite a good presentation, and I'd highly recommend that for everybody. Thank you.
    >> If you just allow me to add, NHTSA in the previous NPRMs proposed various testing protocols for pedestrian detection mimics much of what your Euro NCAP has. Much of the work NHTSA has done is somewhere in the limbo and the expansion of NCAP just has into the happened yet.
    >> Very unfortunate for us here.
    Thank you.
    >> Thank you. Member Graham, member Chapman.
    >> I just have one question related to the battery issues, and I recognize you're still doing work on this. I want to be fair to Tesla, because I understand, obviously, that the circumstances were unique because of their proximity to the location of this accident.
    But I was struck. Apparently emergency response personnel were told by a Tesla battery engineer that the vehicle was not safe and that individuals should stay away from the SUV until Tesla representatives could evaluate it.
    Again, recognizing that they were in relatively close proximity, but is that the company's plan for responding to battery fires? And if so, is that sustainable? And how is that -- how do they intend to respond where they aren't in close proximity to an accident of this nature?
    >> So the felt -- Tesla publishes emergency response guides for vehicles in collisions. And they do not plan on -- they don't have a standard protocol for providing assistance in a crash. They recommend that you use the guidance that they have. The firefighters in this case called up Tesla because there is -- a vehicle after it crashes, there is usually stranded energy in that battery. There is energy on the scene. So there is a high-voltage potential risk or fire risk. They called the Tesla -- they just called up Tesla directly and the -- out of an abundance of caution, the Tesla representative said, you know, there could be stranded energy, and you should avoid the vehicle until you know what the risks are. I think they likely parroted the response guides, and they -- they have some guidance on how to safely remove the vehicle from the scene.
    >> And are those response guides relatively accessible? If I'm a responder in a small town in the Midwest somewhere and have to respond to an accident like this, would I know where to find that information, and would it be accessible to me?
    >> The response guides are published both -- Tesla has them on their website. The national fire protection association has a web page with hyperlinks for pretty much all electric vehicle manufacturers where you can access the emergency response guide for most electric vehicles that are available. And many fire departments have, like, iPad-style applications that they can also access these guides.
    So there are multiple outlets to acquire the response guides from the various manufacturers.
    >> Thank you. That's helpful.
    >> Member Chapman. Thank you.
    >> Let me clarify something earlier. What is the NTSB's position on NCAP? We generally think it's a very good thing, but it just needs some improvements. What's our official position on that?
    >> It is a -- could be an excellent tool to consumers. In 2015, in our special investigation report, we plead recommendations to NHTSA to expand it to include collision avoidance systems and especially ratings pore those, because there are deferences between them.
    >> If I can add real quickly. We've made other representations and have talked about these in our responses to NCAP 2.0, pedestrian detection is something we'd like to see. Again, we'd like to see ratings of the systems as opposed to just checking off a box. It is a series of things they plan to do in our last discussion with the administrator. He did mention this is something he thinks is a priority for them to move again on.
    >> Generally speaking, the system has raised the bar. Is that generally correct.
    >> With regards to crash worthy, it is true, yes.
    >> We are continually calling for enhancements to it. Including today. Staff will propose a recommendation to further enhance it.
    >> That is correct, chairman.
    >> So let me ask you a question about the driver engagement aspect of this car, and I guess this would go to Dr. Karol or Dr. Becic.
    Tesla allows the Tesla system allowed the -- allows drivers to keep hands off up to three minutes under certain driving conditions, including the speed at which the car was traveling. Is that correct?
    >> At the time of the crash, that is correct. Post crash, they've updated their amount of time this permits hands off wheel before warning is given.
    >> Three minutes for a driver to be potentiallyition disengaged. Most crashes have less than three seconds to detect and avoid a pending collision.
    I'm glad they're continually refining that.
    I did notice in the draft report the alerting times for Tesla vehicles that will be sold in Europe will different. How are they different from what Tesla currently has.
    >> In Europe, based on the EC, the economic commission, there is a requirement for various lane-keeping assist systems to have the latency for hands-off warning of 15 secs. So that is the time Tesla uses in Europe.
    >> 15 seconds, max, is what Europe allows. Is that correct?
    >> Correct. For the initial warning which is usually a visual only.

    >> Okay. And what is the maximum time under various condition that's the new upgraded Tesla system would allow before that first warning.
    >> They updated it to be a speed escalation system so that at 25 miles an hour, it will be 60 seconds. At 90 miles an hour, it will provide the first visual alert after ten seconds.
    >> Okay. Thank you very much. So let's go back to another aspect of this crash. The fact of the matter is, is that the gore area was not cross-hatched which is what I believe the MUTCD recommends some sort of chevron or striping in the gore, and that is correct. That's what the recommended practice is?
    >> In our recommendations from a San Jose crash, we made recommendations to federal highways regarding changing the MUTCD to basically be more more of a should versus an optional may requirement for the gore point.
    >> Let's talk for a moment about the San Jose crash. It's the same crash, different location. This was on highway 101 just like this one was. This was at the interchange of SR85 to a left HOV just like this one was. The difference was this was 85 and 101 north of San Jose whereas the San Jose crash was south of San Jose. But it's the same two roads with a left-hand exit, and in both case we have a damaged crash attenuator that the vehicle ran into that Caltrans failed to repair in a timely manner. That crash was in 2016, I believe. We completed our report in 2017 and issued several recommendations coming out of that.
    In the next round, I want to come back and talk more about the damaged crash attenuator and see what's going on there. We'll go to the next round.
    >> In the absence of NHTSA regulating and Tesla or other vehicle manufacturers taking action, we have issued recommendations to states.
    Can you talk about those recommendations? I believe we issued those after the Uber crash.
    >> Correct. Those recommendations to states pertained to testing of high-ly-automated vehicles which, clearly, we believe is a very important issue. But in the Mountain View crash or in the other three crashes, we are dealing with the production-level vehicle and the role of the state once the vehicle is production vehicle, meets all the FFV SS.
    >> Part of the reason we recommended it is because some there was a void somebody needed to fill and in that case, the states needed to fill.
    >> Correct. It was really a three-pronged approach for the industry to recognize the risks of testing on public roads for NHTSA to provide at least initial minimum safeguards and for states to either add those or add additional safeguards for test on their public roads.
    >> Thank you. The federal communications commission has proposed to reallocated spectrum within the 5.9 giga Hertz band for unlicensed uses, essentially undercutting the safety benefits of the V to X technologies. The board is currently reviewing comments in response to the notice to proposed rule making. Doctor, please discuss the importance of dickeddated spectrum for connected vehicle technologies and if you could also talk about any safety recommendations we've issued related to connected vehicles.

    >> We are very strong supporters of connected vehicles technology. I believe we made our first recommendation in mid '90s. '95. And in 2013, e ire youd recommendations to NHTSA to require the technology to be installed on all highway vehicles from light to heavy vehicles. But -- in 2017, NHTSA issued an NPRM to mandate collision connected vehicles technology using specifically DSRC which stands for dedicated communication to be installed on all light vehicles. We saw that as a very, very positive moment for the safety of connected transportation in general even though it lacked highway vehicles. Most recent FCC proposal to limit this -- the available bandwidth, based on the DOT research which shows that the -- if FCC goes along with the proposal that the interference from the wireless devices would make any connected vehicles technology communication between vehicles and infrastructure functional infeasible. It would motor vehicle be possible, which means the decades of research would go down the drain.
    In the crashes, I believe, all four we investigated today and in the Williston crash, we made recommendation or reiterated recommendation from 2013 believing that connected vehicles technology would have been beneficial in preventing is that crash. And that is the precise strength of the connected vehicles technology compared to the weakness of vehicle-based sensors, which is detecting a hazard, knowing exactly what the hazard is, and predicting its path.
    >> If I could just add, NHTSA projected 80% of collisions could be affected by V to V systems. I've lost track of who said -- vice chairman said the 37,000 fatalities we're seeing, affecting 80% of those would be a huge game changer and deciding we need more access to our communication devices instead of safety is unfortunate.
    >> Thank you very much.
    >> Thank you. Member Graham.
    >> Thank you. Want to ask questions on data Tesla receives from their vehicles. It's my understanding they receive data from all vehicles and they use that to incorporate design changes into their autopilot system. Is that correct?
    >> Yes. That is correct. The vision system is a machine learning-type system. So the more cars that are out there collecting the information from the environment, it comes back and the software engineers and so forth will continue to update their systems to make the vision systems smarter so it won't steer into gores hopefully in the future.

    >> Okay. Do the users have to sign any kind of agreement to allow the data to be shared with them?
    >> There's a lot of signatures that are required when you purchase a vehicles that collect data. So yes, I believe there is a requirement. At least, I could see that in the owner's manual. There's a whole section on the data collected and who owns the data.
    >> Okay. Thank you.
    >> You can opt out of it. There's an option in the car. You can opt out of spend -- and also a lot of the updates are done by wireless. So if you don't have a wireless system hooked to your vehicle, it won't update until you take it in for service to the service cent jeer thank you for the clarification.
    Now, event data recorders are not required. Is that correct?
    >> That's correct. And if you do have one installed, it's governed by 49CFR part 563, I believe, you had in your presentation.
    >> That's correct.
    >> And how long ago was that regulation set? How many years? Roughly. That long ago. I'm assuming it's a pretty old regulation. Maybe a little outdated?
    >> Yeah. Yeah. 2006, I think, is when --
    >> 2006, okay. So going on 14 years old. Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions.
    >> Thank you very much. Member Chapman. Great. Guess that brings it back to me.
    So we were talking about in the previous round -- I was questioning about saying this vehicle had crashed into I damaged crash attenuator. This is not the first time we've seen that. 20 miles away, we saw a very similar crash where there was a damaged crash attenuator that Caltrans had failed to repair in a timely fashion. So what I want to know is, if the crash attenuator wasn't damaged, do we believe that the driver would have survived?
    >> Yes. We did an analysis of that, and had the previous collision that happened prior to this one not collapsed that attenuator and had it been operational, the driver would likely have survived.

    >> So we made a recommendation coming out of what we're calling the San Jose crash. So in 2017, as it relits to damaged crash attenuators -- see, on page 36 of the report. We called for Caltrans to modify your work order tracking system to show completion status and to include a means of providing reminders for when work orders, particularly those for proprietary devices, are overdue or incomplete.
    What is the classification of that response, of that recommendation?
    >> It's currently classified open await response.
    >> Does this mean they never responded athe all unlike the question I asked you earlier about the consumer electronics association?
    >> That's correct. In this case, they have not responded to us in writing
    . However, I'm going to pass this because has had a meeting with them.
    >> Well, but your meeting has been within the last year.
    >> One of the first questions I asked in March 2018.
    >> Okay. Two years. Okay.
    >> When I spended to the crash, a week afterwards, I basically addressed the fact we're seeing the same issue that we saw in San Jose and that was something that we'd be looking at in this investigation, which is one of the reasons this past summer we adopt recommended they adopt a report to fix the problem.
    >> So the bottom line is 1,044 days has gone passed -- has passed since we issued this recommendation, and it's still classified by the NTSB as open await response because they have failed to reply to us. Is that correct?
    >> Yes. That's correct.
    >> You know, I was one of the one-fifth of whoever sat at this dais at the time, and I voted for that recommendation. And I take offense to the fact that people just don't even respond to our recommendations. And that's troubling. Because that is the way we prevent future accidents is by issuing well-crafted recommendations that we believe, if enacted, will prevent accidents and crashes, reduce injuries, and save lives.
    And here's a government agency in California that basically has just not even replied. 1,044 days later.
    So let's talk about this crash attenuator. Before I do that, Mr. Karol, why is it that this crash attenuator -- this crash attenuator, the current crash we're talking about, it was damaged on March the something or another. Why was it damaged? Because of a previous crash. You got 35 seconds.
    >> The crash attenuator was damaged March 12th, 11 days before this crash occurred in Mountain View. The California highway patrol responded to the crash; however, they did not report the damaged attenuator. Then on March 20th, 3 days before this crash, Caltrans maintenance crews driving by saw it, put some cones out with a plan to fix it sometime in the future. Then three days litter, this fatal crash occurred.
    >> Thank you. Any questions on this side of the table?
    All right. I will continue, then. Thank you.
    This particular crash attenuator was damaged at least 12 times between 2006 and this crash -- just at this one location. According to Caltrans, of the eight left HOV exits in district 4, which this one was in, this one was by far -- by far -- the most frequently damaged attenuator. By agreement between California -- CHP -- California highway patrol and Caltrans, that agreement was revised in May of 2015. It says, and I quote, when frequent collision locations are recognized, Caltrans and the CHP should communicate to determine potential mitigations. End of quote.
    So what mitigations, given that this was a frequent location, what mitigations did they communicate regarding this particular left HOV lane at this location?
    >> Are you referring what mitigations they've taken since this Mountain View crash or before?
    >> No. Before. Because prior this this one there had been at least ten, 11 crashes in ten-year period -- 11-year, 12-year period.
    >> Yes. Our investigation identifies numerous times where the crash attenuator wasn't repaired for time periods of up to 45 days. One time, over 80 days. And so that is why we proposed the recommendation this past summer to California highway patrol and the CHP's governor-level administrator, the California state transportation authority. Since then they've responded with what actions they're taking.
    >> So we just got through saying a few minutes ago that if this crash attenuator had been in working form, this driver likely would have survived. And yet, this has been a problem with Caltrans not repairing these in a timely fashion. Granted, CHP didn't alert Caltrans in a timely fashion. But we've continually seen this as a problem. Do we have recommendations? I think we've issued previously to try and help encourage Caltrans and CHP to do a little bit better job. Is that correct?
    >> Yes. We made a recommendation this past summer to develop and implement a corrective action plan that guarantees a timely repair of traffic safety hardware and includes performance measures to make sure they track agency completion.
    The California state transportation authority responded this past December with the actions that they are taking both from a reporting access and also for better monitoring when these systems -- crash attenuators are damaged. I can go over those if you'd like the specific actions they're take or not depending on --
    >> That's okay.
    The bottom line is we've made recommendations and they are making specific corrective action. Is that correct?
    >> That is correct. There are a couple items within their corrective actions that are still ongoing such as they're updating their maintenance manual and conducting additional training. So that's why staff is proposing that the recommendation be classified as open acceptable response rather than closing it, because they still have more work to do.
    >> Thank you. Back to you.
    We issued a recommendation to the DOT H17-37. That recommendation says to define the data parameters needed to understand the automeated vehicle control systems involved in a crash, and it goes on and on and on.
    Again, that was issued to DOT. It's currently classified as open await response. Did the DOT reply in any form, fashion, shape to that recommendation?
    >> I'm going to say no, the DOT did not send us an official response. It's a little bit more complicated. It's sort of of the same thing happening with the state of California. We went to high level cabinet level in the case of former So to give a response. NHTSHA gave a response but when we received it it it didn't encompass everything we were looking for in the recommendation. Staff had a meeting with DOT and we discussed those differences and DOT's actually in the process of putting together a response. It didn't make it to us in time, it didn't make it through their review process in time to add to this meeting to add to the report.
    However, we are in communication and we're trying to -- to iron out our differences. Going forward. If.
    >> Yeah thank you to the DOT is not former I will replied and therefore it's classified as open await response.
    >> Correct.
    >> I'd like to point out that 4 USC 1135A states that, so this is the law. The law states that when the NTSB submits a recommendation about transportation safety to the secretary of transportation, the secretary shall give to board a formal written response to each recommendation not later than 90 days after receiving the recommendation. And you're -- what you're saying there is it accurate for me to say that has not happen>> That is that has not happened from the secretary of transportation, we did receive the NHTSH response within -- approximately that time frame.
    And that's what we're trying to work on going forward. Is to make sure that our communication with secretary level is clear that that is part of the expectation.
    >> Okay so was the -- can we consider. Okay -- I'm -- I'm latching on to the fact that it's currently classified as open unacceptable. I'm sorry -- open, await response. And so -- motive so did NHSTSA give us a written response? A formal written response.
    >> They gave us a written response but at the time staff didn't believe that it encompassed the entirety of what we were asking DOT to do.
    >> Okay. Thank you.
    >> And actually as a result of that not specifically responding to what we were asking them to do, staff is proposing that both of those recommendations change to open unacceptable.
    >> I am disturbed that in this report we call out a number of recommendations that are very late in being responded to. Call trance, thousand and 44 days. And Tesla 881. And USDOT and maybe they response responded maybe they didn't. But it's classified as an await response. Again this is. This is how we affect change is that through our recommendations become being implemented and it's Frankly disheartening that. These are not being responded to. What further questions might my colleagues have? Seeing no questions, let me pull poll to board on this.
    I have a -- I have a personal belief that the term autopilot may not be from a safety point of view the most well branded name. Does anyone agree with me on th>> Yes. It's just an observation. It's a neat thing. It'll steer your car. But -- I -- have a lot of time on autopilot at 35,000 feet. But I still had to watch that thing.
    >> It's not for us a lot less to hit.
    >> A lot less to hit at that altitude. So Mr. Sledgling if you would please read to proposed findings.
    >> Yes, sir as a result of this investigation staff has proposed 23 finds.
    Encourage encourage one none were factors in the Tesla's driver's actions in this crash. One driver licensing or qualification.
    Two familiar ryization with the vehicle and roadway. Three medical conditions fatigue or impairment by alcohol or other drugs and/or four weather conditions.

    Finding two.
    The emergency response to this crash was timely inadequate.

    Finding three. The Tesla electric vehicle posts crash fire and related damage to the lithium ion battery presented unusual electrical hazards to first responder.

    Finding four. The Tesla's auto pie late lane keeping steered the spotter utility vehicle into the left into the neutral area of the gore without providing alert to the driver due to limitations of the Tesla autopilot visions processing to maintain the appropriate lane of travel.

    Finding five. The Tesla's collision avoidance systems were not designed to and did not detect the crash attenuator as at the end of the 2 gore. Nor did the national safety safety require that. And the forward collision warning systems did not provide an alert and the automatic breaking did not activate.

    Finding 6. The driver did not take corrective action when the Tesla's. Lane keeping system steered it into the gore area. Nor did he take evasion itive action to avoid the collision with the trash crash attenuator most it was by game application and distracted driving due to electronic device use remains high and additional counter measures are needed.

    Finding . A technological solution such as a lock out function or application that automatically disabled res highly distracting features of a portable electronic device while driving an effective counter measure for eliminating to device distraction while driving and

    finding 9. Strong company policy with strict consequences for using portable electron devices while driving is an effective strategy in helping to help prevent distractions and fatality,

    finding so it although the S OSHA has guidelines for companies to reduce mo for vehicle crashes by prohibiting to use of portable devices while driving to guidelines lack specificity are not widely adopted by companies and are seldom enforced limb limiting their impact in addressing the hazards of drivings. And

    finding is S. the Tesla awe 20 pilot did not pride provide a means of monitoring the driver's engagement with the driving task and

    finding 12. Although the lack of gore area road way striping at the mountain view crash location likely did not contribute to the crash. On going research led by the federal highway had administration can help to identify what highway infrastructures changes may be needed in the future to accommodate automated vehicles.

    Finding 13. The crash attenuator was in a damaged and nonoperational condition at the time of the collision. Due to the California Highway Patrol's failure to report to damage following is a previous crash and systemic problems with the California department of transportation maintenance division in repairing traffic safety hardware in a timely manner.

    Finding 14, if the crash attenuator at the US highway 101 state route 85 interchange had been repaired in a timely manner and in the functional condition before the March 233rd. 2018 crash. The Tesla driver would most likely have survived to collision.

    Finding 15. Because of monitoring of driver driving wheel torch is an effectivityive measure. Performance standards should be developing -- driver engagement and SAE level 2 partial driving automated systems.

    Finding 16. If Tesla Inc does not incorporate system safeguards that limit to use of the auto buy pilot systems to the conditions for which it was designed. Continued use of the system beyond it's design domain is foreseeable and the risk for future crashes will remain.

    Finding 17. The national highway traffic safety administration's failure to ensure that vehicle manufacturers of A SAE level 2 driving systems are incorporating appropriate system safeguards to eliminate these to the operational domain design compromise z safety and

    finding 18. In order perrer driving automation systems to be deployed in a high speed environment. Collision avoidance systems must be able to detect and respond to potential had hazards including roadside traffic hardware and execute forward collision avoidance at high speeds.

    Finding 19. The national traffic safety aadministration to oversight of automated vehicles is misguided because it relies on waiting for problems to occur rather than addressing safety issues proactive>>

    Finding 20, it is essential that the national highway traffic safety administration's sir surveillance and detective. Closely -- foreseeable misuse of automation and perform a forward looking risk analysis to identify partial driving automation defects that pose and unreasonable risk to safety.

    Finding 21. The national highway traffic safety administration's office of defects investigation has failed to thoroughly investigate the Tesla autopilot design regarding the tree degree to which drivers are usual currently misusing to system and foreseeable consequences beyond the operation aal design domain and the effectiveness of driver monitoring and ensuring driver engagement and

    finding 22. The vehicle performance data associated with activation and engagement of partial driving automation systems on vehicles involved in trash crash crashes are not required nor available on most event data recorders. And lastly

    finding 23, the standardized set of retrievallable data is needed to have independent assessment of automated vehicle safety and to foster safety improvemen

    >> Mr. Sledge thank you very much. Any proposed amendment. Seeing none I'll entertain a motion to adopt the finds as presented.
    >> So moved.
    >> Been moved by the vice chairman and seconded by member Homendy. Is there any discussion. Seeing none. All if favor of adopting the finds as oh proposed sipping signal with a hand and say Aye opposed there are none. The finds have been adopted unanimously.
    Mr. Sledglic if you're you'll read to proposed probably cause. Yes, sir the national transportation stay say board determines that probably cause of the mountain view California crash was the technical education la autopilot system steering to sport utility vehicle into a highway gore area due to system limitations and the drive driver's lack of response due to distraction likely from a cell phone game application and the over reliance on the autopilot partial driving automation system.

    Contributing to the crash was the Tesla's, the Tesla vehicle's ineffectivive monitoring of driver's engagement which facilitated ring to driver's come play San city and contributing to the injury was the impact that to the barrier that was damage and nonoperational at the time of the collision due to California Highway Patrol's failure to are report to damage following previous crash and systemic prones with California department of transportation's maintenance division in repairing traffic safety hardware in a timely manner.

    >> Thank you Mr. Sledglic any oh proposed amendments. Seeing none is there a motion to adopt the probably cause.

    >> So move sad is at vice chairman and member gram has seconded to motion. Any discussion?
    Seeing none. All in favor of adopting the probably cause as oppose proposed signal with the hand and say Aye.
    Opposed? There are none. The probably cause has been adapted unanimously. Mr. Sledge Lic if you'll read to proposed recommendations.
    >> Yes, sir. As a result of this investigation. The NS NTSB makes the following nine knew safety recommendation and four to highway safety administration and expand new car testing of forward collision avoidance system performance to include common obstacles such as traffic safety hardware.

    Cross traffic vehicle profiles and other applicable vehicle shapes or objects found in the highway operating environment.

    Second is evaluate Tesla autopilot equipped vehicles to determine if the system's operation rating limitations foreseeability of driver misuse and the ability to operate the vehicles outside the intended operational domain design pose a risk to safety if safety defects are identified use authority to use Tesla Inc takes corrective action.

    Third for vehicles equipped with level two automation work with SAE international to develop performance standards for driver monitoring systems that minimize driver disengagement and -- and account for foreseeable misuse of the automation and last to NHTSA while -- recommended in safety in the previous safety recommendation, required that all-new passenger vehicles with level 2 o automakes be equipped with a driver monitoring system that meets these standards and two new recommendations offered to occupational health and safety administration and the review and -- distracted driving to increase

    employee employers to need to have strong cell phone policy and prohibit it can electronic devices while driving aened the second reads modify your increase to use of the general duty clause sited cited in the 9 US. United States code section 654 against those employers who fail to address to hazards of distracted driver driving we have one recommendation to SAE international which reads for vehicles equipped with with level 2. Work the highway traffic safety administration to develop -- that will minimize driver disengagement and prevent automation complacency and account for foreseeable overreliance on automation.

    We have one recommendation to manufacturers of portable electron twices which include Aplpl and Lenova G LG Motorola and Samsung and SONY and the recommendation. Distracted lock out mechanism or application for portable electron devices that will automatically disable any driver distracting functions when the vehicle is in motion. But that allows to device to be used in an and emergency in and install the mechanism as a default setting on all-new devices and apply apply it to existing commercial devices during major sufficient software updates we have one recommendation to Apple Inc reads. Develop a company policy that bands ban it is nonemergency use of portable devices while driving by all employees and contractors driving company vehicles and operating portable electron devices or using a portable electronic device to engage in work related communications.
    You good, sir?
    Okay. So there are several reiterated recommendations I'll read those now.
    So as a result of the our investigation the NTSB implements these two. Which are the to the national highway safety administration and open unacceptable action and the first one is recommendation H 15-144 which develop and apply testing protocols to -- forward acollision a -- passenger vehicles at various velocities including high speed and shy velocity differential and second H 17-38. Develop a method to vary phi that manufacturers with level the automation systems incorporate safeguards that limit to use of automated vehicle control systems to those conditions for which they were designed.
    We have several remember e member recommendations in which we're reiterating and reclassifying I'll read those that entail as told l of five recommendation and first to the US department of transportation and recommendation H 17-37 and define the deat a parameters needed to understand the automated vehicle control systems involved in the crash and parameters must have to control status and the frequency and duration of control actions to adequately characterize driver and vehicle performance before and during a crash and we're going to reiterate this and reclassify it from open await response to open unacceptable response.
    There are two recommendations to the national highway traffic safety administration. First one is H 17-39. Which reads. Use the data program parameters to guy question defined by the US department of transportation in response to safety recommendation H 17-37 as a bench Mark for new vehicles equipped with automated control systems so they can capture data affect to control status and frequency and duration of control actions needed to adequately characterize driver and vehicle performance before and during a crash. The captured data should be readily available to at the minimum National Transportation Safety Board investigators and national safety administration investigator and reiterating from open acceptable to response. To open unacceptable response and the second to NHTS, and recommendation H 17-40 and reads define a standard format for reporting automated control day a and require manufacturers of the vehicle equipped with automated control systems to report incidents crashes and vehicle miles operated with some such systems enabled. Again we're reiterating this recommendation and reclassifying from open acceptable respond 20 open unacceptable respond and response and two recommendations to Tesla incorporated and first one H 17-41 which is incorporate safeguards that limit the automated control systems to the conditions for which they were deny dedesign and reiterating and reclassifying from open await response to open unacceptable response and second recommendation is H 17- 42 which reads develop applications to more effectively sense the driver's level of engagement and alert the driver when the engagement is locking lacking while to control systems are in use and again reiterating and reclassifying from open await response to open unacceptable response.
    And there are two previously issued recommendations that we're reclassifying in the report. The first one is to consumer electron association which is now the consumer technology association. This is recommendation H 11-47. And it reads, encourage the development of technology features that disable to functions of portable electron devices within reach of the driver when a vehicle is in motion. These technology features should include the ability to permit energies use emergency use of the device while to vehicle is in motion and have the capability of identifying occupant seating positions as to not interfere the use of the device by pass lengers and recommendation to open await response to close no longer applicable and the last member recommendation is to the California State Transportation Authority, and it reads, the recommendation H 9-13. And it reads develop and implement a corrective action plan that guarantees timely repair of traffic safety hardware in. And includes performance measures to track state agency compliance with repair timeliness and we're going reclassify from open initial response received to open acceptable response and that concludes the recommendation.
    >> That's quite a mouthful so thank you for reading all of that. Any proposed amendedments.
    >> I have a question.
    >> Yeah question. Mr. Swetzig I'm sorry to do this since you had to read all that. Can you read the third one to NHTSA one more time and the -- recommendation 7 to SAE which seemed to go together. There was some confusion up here about some differences in how they read.
    >> So ma'am this is the new recommendation to NhHTSA so number three?
    >> Uh-huh.
    >> So my -- script says for vehicles equipped with level the automation work with SAE international to develop performance standards for driver monitoring systems that will minimize driver disengagement prevent automation complacency and account for foreseeable misuse of the automation and then the one to SAE reads according to what I have for vehicles equipped with level the automation work with the national traffic highway safety administration to develop performance standards for monitoring systems that will min mights driver disengagement -- and accounted for overreliance on automation.
    >> There are two different words there I want to make sure that we're using the right word in the one to NHTS a the two words with are the. And then the one to SAE in these two go together and it's foreseeable overreliance on automation. Is that one and the same because they go together.
    >> I'll turn that over 20. I have. --
    >> Misuse.
    >> We have one version that says misuse and both areas and one version up here that says misuse in one area and overreliance in the other.
    >> Misuse on both.
    >> I have -- since we're voting, I have overreliance on the one to SAE.
    >> Yeah that's the problem.
    >> Staff agrees that those -- two recommendations are actually worded differently I will. And we would like to propose that both of them and with the way that NHTSA recommends account for foreseeable misuse of the automation.
    >> So that would mean that the one to SAE international recommendation number 7 at the end should read foreseeable misuse on automation.
    >> Foreseeable -- I'm sorry of the automation.
    >> Of the automation.
    >> Misuse of the 2 automation.
    >> Of the awe automation.
    >> You read it again Mr. Slezzik so we know what it says just seven since we aren't changing the one to NHTSA.
    >> One moment. Let me make sure I get it. To SA international for vehicles equipped with level the automation work with the national highway traffic safety administration to develop performance standards for driver monitoring systems that will minimize driver addition engagement, prevent automation complacency and accounted for foreseeable misuse of the automation.
    >> Okay. Does anybody have any question about -- about what recommendation 7 actually says?
    I mean, what it -- what we're voting >> Nope.
    >> Okay. All right. Are there any proposed amendments we're going to treat number 7 as if it was. As if it was it's proposed the exactly the way you just read it.
    >> Slight editorial change we can consider that.
    >> Are is there any -- any proposed amendments for the recommendations?
    Seeing none? Is there a motion to adopt the?
    >> So moved.
    >> Findings, excuse me the recommendations as propos>> So moved.
    >> It's been moved by the vice chairman and seconded by Member Chapman. Any discussion. Seeing none. All wanting to adopt the recommendations as oh proposed raise your hand and say Aye and proposed there are none. The recommendations have been adopted unanimously. Member Homendy thank you for calling out that difference. I'm not sure how that happened where you is a different version than, than we do. But. There's three of us.
    >> There's three of us that have the same.
    >> Okay. Good well thanks for catching that. I try to read these things. Okay.
    With that, does anyone have any additional issues for discussion?
    Is there a motion to adopt the report as presented?
    >> So moved.
    >> By vice chairman has moved.
    >> Second.
    >> Member gram has seconded it. Any discussion? All in favor of adopting to report as presented? Please signal with a hand and say Aye. Opposed there are none. The report has been adopted. Unanimously.
    >> Do any members plan to -- does any members wish to reserve the right to file a concurring or dissenting statement, please make that intent known now.
    >> I'd like the reserve the right.
    All right. Member Homendy has reserved the right and you're entitled to that certainly so I'm going to the wrap it up unless anyone has any. Has anything else to say. So in closing, thank my colleagues, I thank my colleagues. What the public doesn't see is that we, we get this report about 30 days in advance. We all read it. We all meet individually one on one with staff. We make comment, we write memos to say what we believe should be changed. Staff then brings it back to us and tells us how they may or may not revise the report. So it's a lot of work to get to this point. Thank all of you for that preparation. For the good debate and good discussion this afternoon. Special thanks to our office of highway safety particularly to investigator in charge Dr. Tom Barth good to have you in Washington and international resource special list Don Carol good to have you in Washington as well you know I always say this because it's always true. I hate to just -- say thank you to -- to particular individuals because nothing we do around here happens without an entire team. You see some of the team sitting right here. But we couldn't do what we do without the program and the support staff. And all of those people are here to support what we're doing today. So thank everyone for the good effort to help us do our jobs.
    This tragic crash, it clearly demonstrates the limitations, limitations of advances driver assistance systems who are available to consumers today. There is not a vehicle currently available to US consumers that is self driving. Period.
    Every vehicle sold to US consumers requires to driver to be actively engaged in the driver driving task. Even when partial driving automation systems are on.
    In this crash, we saw several facets. We saw and overreliance on technology. By the driver. We Saudis traction by the driver. We saw lack of policy prohibiting PED use by employers. By the employer of this driver. We saw infrastructure failure, Caltran CHP they didn't do what was required to fix this barrier. And when all of these combine, we end up with a tragic accident and one less father that's coming home to the child he had just dropped off to school that morning.
    We urn Tesla to work on improving automatic -- autopilot technology and for NHTSA to fulfill its oversight speedometer to ensure that correct corrective action is taken when necessary. It's time to stop enabling drivers in any partially automated vehicle to pretend that they have driverless cars. Because they don't have driverless cars. I'll say it for the third time. We've issued very important recommendations today. We've reiterated recommendations. If those recommendations are not implemented, if people don't even bother to respond to them, then we're wasting our time. Safety will not be improved. Those recommendation resip cents they have a critical job to do. And we're counting on them. We're counting on them do their job. So that we can prevent crashes, reduce injuries and save lives. We stand adjourned.
     
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  7. SMAlset

    SMAlset Well-Known Member

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    #3047 SMAlset, Feb 25, 2020
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2020
    Thanks for that Bhzmark! It all went by so fast so glad you grabbed the text considering the wait for the written report. Might want to correct the "Saudis traction" error in the CC to "saw distraction" for clearer reading. That cc error was pretty funny. ;)

    They did state that it was believed that had the crash attenuator been repaired that the driver would have lived. They did come down kind of hard on both Caltran and the CHP for not communicating in a timely fashion to get that location which had a high incidence of accidents there at the attenuator fixed prior to the accident. As for Tesla at one point it sounded like they wanted Tesla to adopt the same standards for hands off wheel alerts as in Europe which I believe one of the guys said was only 10-15 seconds.

    The phone issue really gets me. Like what do they propose for some person buying a Target phone from Consumer Cellular who uses the phone in the car? Go after AARP or someone like that? I'm sorry but trying to have companies punish an employee for using a phone (and what if not a company phone) in their car just seems ridiculous. Are they suggesting employers somehow review employees phone call usage and try to match up to times they are driving and then dock the person's pay or something? I didn't think this was well thought out at all. The Model X driver was on his own time going to work and not on company time to further illustrate the point but they cited Apple all the same.
     
  8. mhan00

    mhan00 Active Member

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    Not really true. People who have used cars that have cameras monitoring drivers' eyes have noted that it's still easy to defeat it by just glancing up from your phone every so often. Build an idiot proof device, and people will become better idiots.
     
    • Like x 1
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  9. SMAlset

    SMAlset Well-Known Member

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    I also thought it was mentioned that only head movement was being used in most cars with driver tracking (and do we really want beams being projected into our eyes, I don't), otherwise systems with eye movement was very costly and there was concern that all cars including lower end priced cars could have the same safety features. I think the woman on the panel kind of dismissed the cost of some of the safety devices/features but let's face it it has to be factored into a car. Wasn't she also the person who said that she signed up for a Tesla forum to kind of "spy" on comments people were making and then said she'd probably be booted off it?
     
  10. diplomat33

    diplomat33 Well-Known Member

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    Camera monitoring systems work very well and are way better than Tesla's system. With Tesla's system, you can easily satisfy the torque requirement WITHOUT ever looking at the road. At least, with camera monitoring systems, yes, you can satisfy it by looking up from your phone, but that's the whole point! You are forced to look at the road from time to time and by looking at the road, you can see what is happening. The NTSB report showes that the torque system was ineffective because Huang satisfied the torque but never looked up from his phone so he never even saw that his car was accelerating to 75 mph straight into a crash barrier and AP was blissfully unaware that Huang was not actually paying attention.
     
  11. SMAlset

    SMAlset Well-Known Member

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    Sure. Just like those that install devices to intentionally void Tesla's wheel torque safety feature they had to implement. There are just drivers who will do what they want to do and find ways around what ever it is they feels takes away from their driving. We've seen that plenty.
     
  12. MP3Mike

    MP3Mike Well-Known Member

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    Was he really on his own time? My understanding is that he was a game developer for Apple, was he using/testing one of Apple's games? I know as a salaried employee my employer considers any time I do anything for/related to the company as company time.
     
  13. bhzmark

    bhzmark Active Member

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    On probable cause, cleaning up the transcript. I don't know what the bracketed words were. I wasn't listening. just capturing.

    The probable cause of the mountain view California crash was the [technical education la?] autopilot system steering a sport utility vehicle into a highway gore area due to system limitations and the driver's lack of response due to distraction likely from a cell phone game application and the over reliance on the autopilot partial driving automation system.

    Contributing to the crash was the Tesla vehicle's ineffective monitoring of driver's engagement which [facilitated ring to driver's come play San city] and contributing to the injury was the impact [cushion to?] that the barrier that was damaged and nonoperational at the time of the collision due to California Highway Patrol's failure to are report the damage following previous crash and systemic prones with California department of transportation's maintenance division in repairing traffic safety hardware in a timely manner.
     
  14. SMAlset

    SMAlset Well-Known Member

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    From what I read he was on a Chinese game that had just come out (he had been to a conference on gaming like the other day in SF I thought I read) but I did not get the impression that it was an Apple game. I don't play games on my devices. Does Apple even make games? thought that was all third party stuff just sold in their App store. I know the source I recall reading about this from..thinking this was in the depositions the NTSB had with various people while investigating the accident...and was part of the info released a few weeks back.
     
  15. MP3Mike

    MP3Mike Well-Known Member

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    The first one was [technical limitations of the].

    I don't recall the second one.

    I think the third one was "impact [attenuation] barrier".
     
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  16. power.saver

    power.saver Supporting Member

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    [technical education la?] = technical limitation of the
    [facilitated ring to driver's come plan San city] = facilitated driver complacency
    [cushion to?] = attenuation
     
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  17. Az_Rael

    Az_Rael Supporting Member

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    My company (megacorp size) absolutely bans use of company phones while driving unless using a hands free device. Texting, e-mail, etc is prohibited. If you are caught, you will be reprimanded up to and including being fired.

    I am kinda surprised other big companies don't have similar policies, figured it was standard practice for limiting liability.
     
    • Like x 1
  18. SMAlset

    SMAlset Well-Known Member

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    Found the NTSB report on the game. This is from the Cell Phone Records and Data Recovery Factual Report.

    "NTSB reviewed the logs and identified the “sgz” process to be a gaming application known as “Three Kingdoms” mobile edition, with a build version of 1.4.0. The game was released on November 15, 2017, by Hong Kong based Black Beard Games Limited and its content is in Chinese. Build version 1.4.0 was released on March 21, 2018, two days before the crash.

    The game is a world building, strategy game with multi-player capability. In the game, players from around the world are placed together on a map grid of more than 1 million tiles, and players recruit generals, develop cities, create squads, and develop alliances with other players to compete against others. When playing the game on a mobile device such as an iPhone 8 Plus, most players have both hands on the phone to support the device and manipulate game actions. The log data does not provide enough information to ascertain whether the Tesla driver was holding the phone or how interactive he was with the game at the time of the crash.

    A look at historic CrashReporter logs from the driver’s device shows a pattern of active game play, every day from Monday, March 19, 2018 to Friday, March 23, 2018, between the hours of 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Wakeup resource logs were dropped each day showing that the driver was using the “Three Kingdoms” game during his trip to work:

    • March 19, 2018 at 09:03:21

    • March 20, 2018 at 09:18:53

    • March 21, 2018 at 09:37:53

    • March 22, 2018 at 09:21:31

      NTSB queried the wife of the Tesla driver (through the family attorney) whether she was aware of her husband playing the game “Three Kingdoms” on his phone. The wife responded that her husband loved to play games on his phone, but he never did so while driving. Additionally, the wife advised that she did not recognize the game “Three Kingdoms” as something her husband was interested in."
     
    • Informative x 1
  19. SMAlset

    SMAlset Well-Known Member

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    I would think that companies that employ people as delivery personnel would have something like that as part of the job during business hours. But for people traveling to and from work from their home, these guys are on their own time. Does your company regulate your phone usage during non-business hours and the weekend? In this accident case the driver had not started his business day at work and just left his child at daycare, wasn't on any phone calls but was on a phone playing a game.
     
  20. MP3Mike

    MP3Mike Well-Known Member

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    But it was an Apple owned phone. So he was using a company owned phone while driving. I would think it is certainly in their rights to say that you will not use a company owned device while driving. If you are using your own personal phone while driving that would be different. But then again companies can have a no smoking policy where you aren't even allowed to smoke in your own home on your own time, so yeah, they can do it but how would they actually enforce it?
     

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