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NTSB Wants Information on Tesla Autopilot Accident

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A Model S using Autopilot crashed into a firetruck near Los Angels on Monday prompting inquiry from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The Tesla driver was reportedly traveling at 65 mph when he rear-ended the truck. There were no injuries in the crash.

The Bloomberg report says the NTSB has not decided if it will launch a formal investigation. The agency is currently “gathering information.”

The Culver City Fire Department shared a photo of the accident.


The NTSB announced earlier this year findings of an investigation into the first known fatal crash involving a car using an automated driver assistance system. The agency said that “operational limitations” of Tesla’s Autopilot system played a ‘major role’ in the 2016 crash that killed one person. The driver’s 2015 Tesla Model S collided with a semi-truck while the car’s Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer lane-keeping assistance features were being used.

Tesla’s repeated line on accidents is that “Autopilot is intended for use only with a fully attentive driver.”

And, the NTSB noted in multiple reports that the driver kept his hands off the wheel for extended periods of time despite repeated automated warnings not to do so. Further, NTSB said the drivers hands were on the wheel for just 25 seconds during a 37-minute period that Autopilot was engaged. Still, the agency said Tesla’s system needs more safeguards – better systems to alert drivers and detect surrounding traffic.

Monday’s collision reportedly occurred while the firetruck was parked in an emergency lane at the side of the highway attending to another accident.

 
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And for those intelligent enough to understand what your tool does and doesn't do, then it is a useful tool to have.

Exactly AP is a tool ... period! That’s it!
It’s not a choffier and not an excuse for mistakes!
There will always be those who push the limits of common sense. While im sure a complete “self driving” auto is in our future, AP is not that. If you’ve drive with Tesla’s AP you know that and if you haven’t your a critic.
Beyond the discussion of what AP should or should not do or be able to do ... is the simple fact of driver responsibility. If you are behind the wheel of a moving object YOU are responsible for the actions of that moving object. PERIOD.
No “aid or tool” will remove that responsibility nor should it.
Just like many other aspects of today’s world the phrase “not my fault” is a first line of defense. If we practice common sense and take responsibility for our actions most of the “noise” would disappear.
Given the atmosphere of today’s life ... the deception, and manipulation that bombard us all daily ... I fear “personal responsibility and common sense” have become something we only remember fondly.

Hope I’m wrong.
 
The Tesla's radar operates much like a headlight transmitting on 77 GHz. Radars, just like headlights, flashlights and flash cameras, follow what we engineers call "the 1/r^4 law": the outgoing radio signal or light drops off according to the inverse square law and the return also drops off by the inverse square law. This creates a very well defined range limit that is hard to increase just by using a more powerful radar. (Consider all those idiots in a huge sports stadium trying to photograph the action on the field with a flash camera.)
After reading about the fire truck incident, I had the idea of putting radar reflectors on the back of a car as a little added measure of safety, perhaps. It could extend the range of the radar of whoever is behind me.
 
After reading about the fire truck incident, I had the idea of putting radar reflectors on the back of a car as a little added measure of safety, perhaps. It could extend the range of the radar of whoever is behind me.
There’s already a metal crossbar behind your rear bumper and your license plate and trunk are all metal. That’s not the issue.


The issue is that nobody in the industry relies on radar as a primary braking initiator since so many stationary radar returns exist all around the highway, like signs and road debris and guardrails. Tesla is claiming as of 8.0 they’ve started implementing radar braking but I’m not at all convinced they still have it on. It seems like they turned it on for a brief while and we all reported a bunch of overpass and phantom braking, and then it mysteriously stopped. IMO it didn’t stop because they magically figured out radar braking, but rather it was turned off while they collected more data for white lists and refined the algorithm.
 
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There’s already a metal crossbar behind your rear bumper and your license plate and trunk are all metal. That’s not the issue.


The issue is that nobody in the industry relies on radar as a primary braking initiator since so many stationary radar returns exist all around the highway, like signs and road debris and guardrails. Tesla is claiming as of 8.0 they’ve started implementing radar braking but I’m not at all convinced they still have it on. It seems like they turned it on for a brief while and we all reported a bunch of overpass and phantom braking, and then it mysteriously stopped. IMO it didn’t stop because they magically figured out radar braking, but rather it was turned off while they collected more data for white lists and refined the algorithm.

My example post from earlier this month ... additional detailed map 'tile' data that is downloaded to your car as you travel around. Just yesterday I was on a road that I traveled regularly where you go down a long dip and go underneath a railroad overhead pass (which radar would have hit). I've done this many time with AP1 and saw it worked perfectly with AP2.

The tile data also understand and marks this area with an overhead that radar would have picked up.

Tesla tiles:
ceSaECJ.jpg


Google street:
VM4Qqve.jpg
 
My example post from earlier this month ... additional detailed map 'tile' data that is downloaded to your car as you travel around. Just yesterday I was on a road that I traveled regularly where you go down a long dip and go underneath a railroad overhead pass (which radar would have hit). I've done this many time with AP1 and saw it worked perfectly with AP2.

The tile data also understand and marks this area with an overhead that radar would have picked up.

Tesla tiles:
ceSaECJ.jpg


Google street:
VM4Qqve.jpg


I've looked at the tiles quite closely as well. I completely agree and don't mean to say I think radar braking is complete vaporware. Without a doubt, Tesla seems to have whitelisting metadata in the tiles and the dev environment had more whitelist data than the current production 2016-05 tiles, but nonetheless, I just haven't seen any cases of radar only warnings or braking since early 17.17.x and before releases.

I'd love to be proven wrong here. It's a great feature and I'd feel safer with it, provided it's not at the expense of false positive braking.
 
Nissan stated their forward collision detect two cars ahead but I don't have a Nissan nor experience on it. I am curious whether Tesla emergency braking had kicked in ? There are times the forward collision warning kicked in (beep and red car on the panel) on my model S but sometimes it just didn't even if it is a closer encounter.
 
Nissan stated their forward collision detect two cars ahead but I don't have a Nissan nor experience on it. I am curious whether Tesla emergency braking had kicked in ? There are times the forward collision warning kicked in (beep and red car on the panel) on my model S but sometimes it just didn't even if it is a closer encounter.

Even when it looks two cars ahead it will likely not initiate radar based braking. That's extremely difficult to get right without false-positives, especially in situations like this where there's 4 lanes of completely backed up traffic and one fast flowing carpool lane. Letting two-car-ahead radar make too many decisions will just lead to the car slamming on the brakes all the time when it sees random slow moving traffic far ahead.

Of course, this could be an argument for why carpool lanes like this are inherently dangerous since it encourages large speed differentials between one lane and the rest.
 
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Someone please go invent a stopped/stationary car "beacon" that can be easily added to all cars. Preferably a license plate treatment that would act as a radar reflector with a unique signature. By 2022 all cars will come equipped with emergency braking systems.
 
Someone please go invent a stopped/stationary car "beacon" that can be easily added to all cars. Preferably a license plate treatment that would act as a radar reflector with a unique signature. By 2022 all cars will come equipped with emergency braking systems.

You could just get a rear bumper fascia that looks like the "generic silver totally not a 2010 Mercedes E-class" EURO NCAP blow-up doll. I bet every ADAS recognizes that.