I have a Y LR 2023, 6300 miles, and just did a long freeway drive using FSD Beta 11.3.6. I am a glider pilot, and as such I think that the attention alert system Tesla uses is poorly conceived and hazardous. Pilots are taught to scan, scan, scan for hazards. But making the alert you are required to quickly respond to, appear as a small blue text notice in the lower left side of the screen forces you to frequently take your eyes off the road ahead, and drop them to where this appears when it does (about once a minute) lest you miss it. That is unnecessarily unsafe. Yes, if not responded to, it then escalates to flashing blue at the top of the screen, which is better (and should be the first warning). However, you then have very little time to respond before it disconnects and gives you one of the 5 dings prior to disconnecting FSD for two months. If there was a heads-up display, it would work better. But at the very least, it should appear at the top left, and allow you to turn on an audio beep with the first display as a settings option. Do better, Tesla!
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Positioning of attention alert leads to less safe supervision
- Thread starter melmalinowski
- Start date
mgs333
Member
I absolutely agree, I'm getting better at minding that area in my peripheral vision but it should be in the upper left. At least it's not in the lower right corner
Apparently the audio alert which AP had has been eliminated so driving down the road staring only at the screen is considered the correct way to use FSDb.
Because old-fashioned, stuck-in-the-mud, me erroneously holds onto the wheel in AP (and the one time I used it, FSDb) with two hands, I often miss the lower warning because it is blocked by my right hand/arm. And since my eyes are mostly focused ahead out the window, with mirror scans, as you said, I can easily miss the upper screen warning. But I've never missed the audio warning and since my hands are on the wheel, adjusting the thumb wheel is an easy way for me to cancel the warning. So I've never had a strike.
I'm not comfortable driving with only one hand hanging on the wheel. Both literal comfort (my shoulder and wrist hurt after about an hour) and safety comfort (you can't take over steering quickly if your hands are not on the wheel.) I'll one-hand drive at times to put on sunglasses, put down my sun visor, change a radio station (which used to be easy to do, mostly by touch, but on the Tesla is terribly complicated and I haven't really figured out how to scan reliably for new channels on a cross-country drive), or sip tea or a cold beverage. But in general I'm only comfortable driving with 2 hands on the wheel. One hand doesn't feel comfortable and certainly not by my knee nudging things just enough to defeat the software.
Because old-fashioned, stuck-in-the-mud, me erroneously holds onto the wheel in AP (and the one time I used it, FSDb) with two hands, I often miss the lower warning because it is blocked by my right hand/arm. And since my eyes are mostly focused ahead out the window, with mirror scans, as you said, I can easily miss the upper screen warning. But I've never missed the audio warning and since my hands are on the wheel, adjusting the thumb wheel is an easy way for me to cancel the warning. So I've never had a strike.
I'm not comfortable driving with only one hand hanging on the wheel. Both literal comfort (my shoulder and wrist hurt after about an hour) and safety comfort (you can't take over steering quickly if your hands are not on the wheel.) I'll one-hand drive at times to put on sunglasses, put down my sun visor, change a radio station (which used to be easy to do, mostly by touch, but on the Tesla is terribly complicated and I haven't really figured out how to scan reliably for new channels on a cross-country drive), or sip tea or a cold beverage. But in general I'm only comfortable driving with 2 hands on the wheel. One hand doesn't feel comfortable and certainly not by my knee nudging things just enough to defeat the software.
I veto the beep. We have enough beeps as it is and I don't know what any of them mean.
I agree that drawing the driver's eyes to the screen is a really bad move. Fortunately, we are using an autonomy system, so it's somewhat forgivable. I would prefer to see the blue pulsing warning be the first level of warning. It can be picked up by our peripheral vision more easily than Yet Another Black Bar Message. Then make the second level warning be a short audio warning. Emphasis on short. "Warning, steering" or some such thing. I'd like this to be a general pattern for the car, where different voices could be used to help understand which part of the car is upset (i.e. the car shutting down is a very different kind of warning). For the hearing impaired, introduce a setting to let the car know, and turn the audio warning into a more prominent visual one. For example, replace the entire screen with the words "Warning. Steering". Or a big blue pulsing version of the big red steering wheel.
I've never had a strike because my peripheral vision works well enough to spot the black bar messages. But when I'm distracted by the antics of the drivers around me, I can occasionally reach the point of hearing that audio alert.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
People with glasses have higher peripheral vision issues.
Anyway, one good thing is they are reducing the nags. Hopefully soon they will not nag unless warranted by what the interior camera sees.
legendsk
Member
After the 2023.7.10 update, the cameras got much worse - the car doesn't see things it used to see? And the nags were improved by the previous update, but this one made the nags as bad as ever. And having to watch the lower left corner of the screen for a nag warning every 15 seconds or so is very distracting and IMHO a safety issue.
