Since he was demonstrating his product on national tv, he certainly better have been showing off stock software on a stock car.
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Model X Crash on US-101 (Mountain View, CA)
- Thread starter mookhead
- Start date
Since he was demonstrating his product on national tv, he certainly better have been showing off stock software on a stock car.
There is a high dependence on the exact sequence of events/ positioning of vehicles in the Mountain View accident.
With a following distance of 1, the worn right gore line, and a leading vehicle, it is questionable whether what AP could see and what it crossed met the criteria of a lane (realizing of course that there was a lane line which is discernable with ground truth data or sufficient field of view).
Side thought/ realization: at T-8, the car was going 65 and following a lead vehicle at T-3 it was reported to be accelerating from 62 MPH. That means the lead car was either going slower than 65 (and the Tesla slowed to match), or the lead car slowed down in that time span.
Possibly, the lead vehicle made a maneuver that necessitated a lower than limit speed and/ or the Tesla was closing on the vehicle, in which case the following distance may have been even less...
Made up senario:
Tesla following vehicle in 101 fast lane.
Lead vehicle slows to cross gore
AP slows but still gets closer to lead vehicle, this reduces camera field of view of the road.
AP now follows lead car to the left over the worn right gore line (limited view).
AP sees the left gore line and stops following the lead car.
Lead car continues on 85 offramp.
This is certainly possible. But there are enough videos to see AP2 tends to turn (center?) towards a gore when it gets confused by the lane markings even when there are no cars around - including in that particular Mountain View location - that I believe we know now this incident could have happened even without a lead car.
IMO it is still possible the lead car wasn't in the gore area at all in the Mountain View case, that the Model X slipped there by itself as it lost the left lane markings. The report fits this scenario if mentioning a lead car is simply a red-herring - it may have remained in its lane all the time and the Model X was recognizing it as a lead car (so technically following a lead car), but still may have decided to leave the lane into the gore and stopped "following" as the lead car faded from view. Tesla saying there were 5 seconds of unobstructed view (retrieved images from car?) could fit this scenario too. Just speculation, of course.
In any case, slipping into the gore by AP2 has been shown on video even without lead cars, so this seems to be something AP2 can do. It seems the later versions of AP2 seem to "err" towards taking an unsafe steering action in these situations, instead of keeping a neutral direction and alerting the driver for example when it gets confused. I think one current speculation is this has been a result of the new(ish) lane centering feature for wide lanes?
So, IMO this certainly differs from events where simple passive lane following ends up in a disaster...
I wonder if part of the answer isn't simply that AP2 should be far more aggressive in handing back control (or just sounding an alert) where it gets confused in some way. Has it gotten too confident? I remember when AP2 was new, that is certainly how many city street/intersection tests ended, with audible bongs as it lost its way - that was better than trying to do something it wasn't capable of doing... (I only use AP2 on divided roads these days, but I was testing back then.)
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It's unfortunate that so many things lined up "just wrong" and this accident occurred. I do think one of the most important factors (besides the driver not paying attention) was the state of the crash attenuator. Had it been reset, the driver probably would've walked away from the accident even if all the other factors remained the same.
Just this morning, I was reading this thread and the poster mentions falling asleep and hitting a"crash cushion" and surviving the impact:
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Check out this crash into a crash cushion
Caught on video: Man flies through windshield in violent crash at Florida Turnpike toll plaza
Caught on video: Man flies through windshield in violent crash at Florida Turnpike toll plaza
NeverFollow
Active Member
FlatSix911
Porsche 918 Hybrid
I am willing to bet that the smart crash cushion was reset in a matter of hours to protect the toll workers.
It's a tragedy that the Mt. View crash barrier took over 10 days to be reset by the regional CalTrans workers.
Over 10 days NOT being reset... NOT in time for the next impact.
In other words they didn't reset it until someone else hit it.
Hard to know how many other impacts there hit a non reset barrier. We know there were other fatalities at that location.
krouebi
Member
Hi,
referring to the video above, very amazed to read:
"Officials say there were five people in the vehicle and all survived."
referring to the video above, very amazed to read:
"Officials say there were five people in the vehicle and all survived."
Yeah, I guess maybe he survived because he came to a stop relatively slowly - a bit like a skidding motorcycle accident. I bet he didn't just walk away from it though!
Barklikeadog
Active Member
FlatSix911
Porsche 918 Hybrid
Kant.Ing
Member
krouebi
Member
Hi,
well, it's an improvement on what it was before.
But seen from Europe, one wonders what a gallon of white paint costs in California??
Over here, the chevrons are twice or thrice as many, and at least the lengthwise limitation line to the right side of the gore area could also have been painted, while they had the truck out.
But OK, it's better than nothing, and maybe the paint comes from China, and has been impacted by the latest Trump tariff increases
!
Kind regards from Northern Italy,
Krouebi
well, it's an improvement on what it was before.
But seen from Europe, one wonders what a gallon of white paint costs in California??
Over here, the chevrons are twice or thrice as many, and at least the lengthwise limitation line to the right side of the gore area could also have been painted, while they had the truck out.
But OK, it's better than nothing, and maybe the paint comes from China, and has been impacted by the latest Trump tariff increases
!Kind regards from Northern Italy,
Krouebi
Still no sign. homicidal CalTrans
https://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/0-6120-1.pdf
Maybe they decided the best way to reduce the frequency of sign hits was to not have any signs.
Attachments
Why are you reading this thread if people posting to it bothers you so much? Posting “shut up” isn’t useful or nice.
Thank you, @TEG for posting the pic of the chevrons. It is nice to know that even Caltrans can be shamed into action, even though it looks like there is still a lane line they still haven’t repainted. I think it disgusting that they left this kill zone without proper marking or a functioning attenuation barrier.
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