Starting up the car, put the reverse, creep mode on, and the brake does not work

[Andyw2100]

If there is a kid in the rear view camera and I have 5-8 feet of time to stop from running him over, the majority of people are going to keep slamming that brake pedal.

And you know what? If you had been driving one of the Teslas that had the problem it would have stopped. Do you know why? Because the Teslas with the problems still had brakes. They never lost their ability to brake. They lost some of their power assisted braking, or whatever the correct technical term for it is. And you are absolutely correct that your first instinct when you press on the brake pedal and it doesn't work is to press harder. And what happened in this case when people did that is that their cars stopped. (I know because I had it happen to me, and I posted about it upthread in post number 42.)

End of story. Hypothetical child in imaginary rear-view camera saved.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

If there is a kid in the rear view camera and I have 5-8 feet of time to stop from running him over, the majority of people are going to keep slamming that brake pedal. The minority, *might* think about putting it back in park.

And even with this bug present, that would have stopped the car just fine. It's not that the brakes didn't work, the boost just wasn't there for all of 3 seconds, tops. And in that time, unless the person floored it in reverse, they would only be going a couple miles an hour. "Slamming that brake pedal" still stopped the car.

And about your concern about computer controls making mind boggling, insurmountable, last minute, life and death decisions, I pose this question to you: Do you think people are any better?

I agree that some times computer controls will get it wrong, and some times there will be bugs, and this will lead to tragedy. But it will still be an order of magnitude less than with nothing but people at the controls at all times.

 

[DavidB]

[In an emergency], the majority of people are going to keep slamming that brake pedal. The minority, *might* think about putting it back in park.

I would prefer to believe that the majority of people would think, "1st solution did not work. Try 2nd solution!" While I agree that some people will keep trying the same failed behavior over & over again, I am reluctant to believe that the majority of people work like that.

How is staying focused on the surrounding traffic the point of autopilot? If I'm doing that, I'm just raising my anxiety level constantly. "Should I take over now? What about now? That truck is too close, maybe I should take the wheel? Does the car see that motorcycle back there?"

If staying focused raises your anxiety level to unacceptable heights, perhaps you should let someone else do your driving. When we drive we are, as you point out, moving in "multi-ton killing machines." Autopilot or no autopilot, that should always be in our awareness, and we should drive accordingly.

I think there is a point where autopilot features need to pause until every other car out there is autopilot...

You logic is flawed. With that logic, no innovation will ever happen.

Someone responsible and smart (davidb) should start writing a curriculum/policy/procedure on how to drive a car on auto pilot.

Flattery will get you nowhere. My curriculum would lack necessary details and be more in line with Click & Clack's closing line, "Don't drive like my brother!"

 

[Cyclone]

I would prefer to believe that the majority of people would think, "1st solution did not work. Try 2nd solution!" While I agree that some people will keep trying the same failed behavior over & over again, I am reluctant to believe that the majority of people work like that.

There have been case studies (Google for more info) around this in ICEs. These studies were conducted to unravel why there is a relatively high prevalence of people (commonly elderly) driving into buildings or through car washes, etc. They have found that typically, the mention association is NOT that they didn't hit the brake (1st solution) and try something else (2nd solution), but that their reaction was to hit the brake harder. In the scenario of this thread, that would work great. In the case studies, it has been the case where the person pressed the gas by accident, but thought they were hitting the brake. Thus, when they didn't stop, they pressed hard and essentially floored the gas.

So while I would like to feel that individuals will think "first solution didn't work, let me try second solution", most people will react "it didn't take, try harder!"

 

[breser]

Having driven one of those vehicles in that Toyota recall for a decade, I will tell you that the issue was not software related at all. In every case, it was driver error using floor mats (rubber or otherwise) where they did not use the built-in hooks to keep the mat from sliding up to interfere with pedal operation.

This presentation by Philip Koopman covers the issue pretty well:
A Case Study of Toyota Unintended Acceleration and Software Safety

It's honestly not clear that there was no software problem. Toyota's software design was flawed in many ways. The engineers that reviewed this design did not say the software was safe and could not have resulted in Unintended Acceleration (UA). What they did say was they could not find evidence that the software or hardware caused the UA in the testing they conducted and that the failure to find such evidence was not proof it could not occur (page 9 in the above presentation).

Some of the accidents have no fixes for the involved vehicle. Consider the Bookout/Schwarz case which involved 2005 Toyota Camry vehicles. That model year has no recalls or fixes to avoid this acceleration (page 12). Toyota claims that the driver pressed the gas when they meant to press the brake, but there are 150 feet of skid marks. Jury found against Toyota (page 13). Toyota ultimately settles this and other cases and nothing else has gone to trial (page 15).

So I don't think it's nearly as cut and dry as you present it. We'll likely never know exactly what happened in these crashes. I just hope Toyota and other automobile manufacturers have learned from the situation.

 

[jerry33]

If there is a kid in the rear view camera and I have 5-8 feet of time to stop from running him over, the majority of people are going to keep slamming that brake pedal. The minority, *might* think about putting it back in park.

Of course if the parked the safe way--that is backing in and driving forward out...
(Ducks and runs for cover)

 

[wk057]

The braking bug seemed to start at .113 and was fixed when I got .116.... since we're on .140 now I think the dead horse is dead...

 

[supratachophobia]

Is there another thread pertaining to autopilot evolution where we can continue this discusion?

Regarding the thread topic: Yes, problem was fixed. Yes, it was quick. I just think we should all be vigilant for the next time it happens.