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San Lorenzo family blames Tesla Autopilot for crash that killed teen son: lawsuit
- Thread starter cwerdna
- Start date
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
AP does limit the speed at which you pass slower moving cars. I'm not sure why it didn't do that in this case.
I've never seen the purported "cut in detection" work though. It doesn't seem to respond to other vehicles until they're almost entirely in your lane. The new beta FSD seems to see turn signals so maybe it will do a better job in the future.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Most ACC systems don't either, especially ones that rely only on radar (they don't have a sensor to detect lane change signals). That's why these are L2 systems, where the driver has to be paying attention while using it, and also why police will write tickets for the drivers, not the car. It's not a valid excuse to blame the car, given the driver is the one driving. If it's a known limitation of the system that is well documented, it's not a defect, the ODI document I linked points to that.
Basically I have a hard time seeing how a judge or jury would lay blame on the system in cases of inaction that is expected as part of the design specification (it's different for example if driver stepped on brakes and brakes didn't respond). The only cases where I see you can even begin to make that claim of defect is if an accident happened due to active action by the system and the driver had no time to override it (for example if the system actively swerved into a car in another lane, giving no time for driver to react). That's obviously not the case here.
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EVNow
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, IMO, thats what the lawyers are hoping for. Few lawyers actually want a trial - they want an easy negotiated settlement.
While I agree the driver is at fault. I also, however agree that this is one of the many situations that make my EAP usage very limited (almost never). AP simply ignores situations like the one in this scenario where in either (or both) adjacent lane the traffic is at a standstill. On the HWY most (not all unfortunately) drivers will slow down substantially as experience says there is a +101% chance someone is going to switch into the lane that is still moving (often without signaling). AP on the other hand is oblivious as long as it’s lane is clear. It will literally maintain hwy speed ignoring what is obvious to even a novice driver. No idea how to fix this but reason #52 why I never use EAP if there is another vehicle within 2 car lengths of me
How is that any different from a regular cruise control (smart or not)? Where in the manual for the car does Tesla “encourage” drivers to not pay attention? Again, have you read the manual? Have you read the warnings that you agree to in the car when you enable AP?
The bolded is incorrect. Tesla released an update back in 2019 (2019.40.2) to address adjacent lane speed.
As an example, I was on AP on the Interstate (I-5) northbound where another interstate connected/exited. At the time, the traffic was backed up in the two right lanes exiting onto the other freeway. But the three northbound thru lanes were wide open. I happened to be in lane 3, adjacent to the two exit lanes, and when I came up upon the two lanes at a dead stop, AP dropped my dropped from 65 to 45 in a couple of seconds. It's really frustrating when AP does this while in the car pool lane.
btw: since this was a connector to another freeway, the odds of someone pulling into my lane were maybe 1%, not 101%.
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Either my car somehow didn’t get this 2019 update or something else is wrong but I still observe the same EAP behavior when adjacent lanes are at a standstill (or very slow). Also not sure where you live but just because the lane that is slow is for an exit does not mean a driver won’t unexpectedly (again, often without signaling) move out of that lane into the non slow middle hwy lane. The only two hwy accidents I have ever actually seen happen were in this scenario thus I am particularly sensitive to avoiding these type of situations - and avoid EAP usage if I observe this situation happening.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Someone up thread said this might have been removed in future updates due to people complaining. You basically have two competing types of owners:
1) Ones that don't want the car to interfere with how they want it to operate, meaning if they set the car to blast down the road at much higher speeds than adjacent lanes, that's what it should do without any attempt to slow down. Doing so may be treated as "phantom braking". Basically the car should err on the side of doing as little braking or slowing down as possible and let the driver make the decision to do so if necessarily.
2) Ones that want the car to play it as safe as possible (like for example slowing down for adjacent lanes).
Tesla has a strike a balance between the two.
Doesn't matter what the manual says. If the product has the effect of causing Tesla drivers to pay less attention or delay their reactions to things that happen on the road, and the product makes silly mistakes like this, it likely meets the criteria for being defective.
Also, the difference between this and normal cruise control is that normal cruise control behaves in a predicable manner, while this one has frequently changing behavior sure to sodtware updates and sporatically and unpredictably misses all sorts of things that a decent driver would catch.
rxlawdude
Active Member
And if a bull had teats, it would be a cow.
UncleCreepy
Member
I think you're contradicting yourself here. Let's assume for a moment that AP was indeed as unpredictable as you say. Thus, the unpredictability ("frequently changing behavior"-your words) would become predictable which would cause a reasonable person to pay attention at all times (apart from the fact that they were warned multiple times not to blindly rely on AP).
Didn't this fatality accident also happen back in 2019? So it's hard to say if the vehicle had the update or not.
yes, it does matter what the manual says, most definitely when dealing with liability. And AP does not "cause drivers to delay their reactions", what delays their reactions is the driver deciding they need not bother to pay attention despite repeated warnings not to do this in the manual.
Your argument seems to be "I want the car to be able to so X .. it didn't do X .. so Tesla are liable". As a legal argument that seems rather weak.
Mrcarcrazy
In need of a shrinking gun to zap a plaid with.
Seatbelts save lives. I’ll just leave it at that.
it isn’t removed.... my car shows a visualization of the slower lane....
I know right?
Wonder how much money I can get out of chlorox for this bottle of bleach I just chugged!
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
We aren't talking about the car not being able to detect the other lane being slower, but rather if AP is actively reducing speed in response to the slower lane.
rxlawdude
Active Member
You can sue a guy in Florida for that, too. But Chlorox has deeper pockets.
