Uh oh, another Tesla autopilot crash fatality

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

...I just received a memo stating that employees with access to chemicals...

Sounds like someone in the government doesn't know much about science. (What a surprise :-() I mean, if it ain't chemicals, it's radiation, right?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Disagree! Rear crash avoidance is a basic defensive technique taught to 16 year-olds. (By good driving schools.)

Explain just what you can do, please. Cars to either side, so you can't move that way. If you go ahead, you hit (or are hit by) the cross traffic - and become legally at fault, too.

I've used it once in my life - to avoid becoming paste on the front of a semi that barelled too fast into a freeway construction zone bottleneck stop, tire smoke billowing from its locked wheels.

Different situation, no?

[MetroMPG]

If there's no escape route to the side, and no car yet stopped behind you, you don't stop at the back bumper of the car in front of you or at the stop line. Now your escape / crash mitigation room is the space you left in front of you.

Of course this assumes the car behind is actually braking.

[MetroMPG]

If you go ahead, you hit (or are hit by) the cross traffic - and become legally at fault, too.

At most intersections outside of residential neighbourhoods, the stop line is probably far enough back from actual cross traffic that there's usable space.

Obviously not every crash is avoidable.

[freebeard]

jamesqf -- 'Someone in government' probably used the word 'precursor'.

MetroMPG -- That's the way my Squareback went. I watched the guy in my mirror and thought "He needs to stop. He'd better stop. He's not stopping!". I was halfway gone around the [left turning] car ahead of me when he buried his right headlight in my right taillight. Total.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

...I just received a memo stating that employees with access to chemicals will be subjected to a background check every 3 years... it sounds like the government is now in control of who is allowed to work, and where. Of course, this enormously expensive program will do nothing to improve the safety of anyone, but at least the government has a new tool to arbitrarily harass people in new and creative ways.

I imagine they will catch people, but whether they are actually a threat is another matter entirely.

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Disagree! Rear crash avoidance is a basic defensive technique taught to 16 year-olds. (By good driving schools.)

I've used it once in my life - to avoid becoming paste on the front of a semi that barelled too fast into a freeway construction zone bottleneck stop, tire smoke billowing from its locked wheels.

Apparently my Drivers' Education class was less than good. Old Mech used to say the police told him he was legally required to "take one for the team," while he ran a red light, avoided an accident, and the other driver thanked him.

I always figured that if I saw someone was clearly going to rear-end me, if there was not a car in front of me, I would turn right. Let people honk at me. They might be t-boned by the vehicle trying to rear-end me. If there is a vehicle in front of me, do I have time to set the parking brake and jump out of the lane?

[wdb]

I once avoided being rear-ended by driving into the left turn lane. I was very lucky.

[redpoint5]

I once avoided a high speed collision (65 MPH) with someone who pulled out in front of me from a side street with just a second to react. Swerving hard left, the Subaru flew off the raised roadway, over a ditch, and landed into a farmers field. No damage was done, and I found an exit from the field after driving a quarter mile.

Autopilot would probably start braking before I could ever react, and reduce the speed of an "unavoidable" collision. I can't see it ever choosing the fly across an oncoming lane and land in a field option.

[freebeard]

My father avoided the identical collision (left turn into his lane) by rolling his pickup into the ditch — and spending two months in the hospital. Since the vehicles never touched, her insurance company refused to pay up.

So the autonomous cars should go for a glancing blow without bodily injury, to establish legal facts.

Heck, they should continually calculate all potential multi-car chain reaction collisions. ....because of the 'trolley problem'.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Now your escape / crash mitigation room is the space you left in front of you.

Of course this assumes the car behind is actually braking.

So you're supposed to stop several hundred yards from the light, or the car ahead? That's how long it would take to get up to a faster speed than the non-braking* vehicle that is going to rear-end you. And you'd still have to brake again to avoid ramming into the cross traffic, so in general the best you can expect to do is to somewhat mitigate the collision.

Of course sometimes you can get lucky: perhaps the following driver looks up just in time to start braking so that extra space allows you to avoid the collision. But that's not always the case. And it's ignoring the fact that (at least around here) if you leave much more than a car length between you and the crosswalk/car ahead, someone from an adjacent lane will pull into the space.

*Cause the driver is e.g. yakking on a cell phone and doesn't even notice the light/line of stopped vehicles.