Uh oh, another Tesla autopilot crash fatality
 

The first of its kind, a fatality in Autopilot mode. RIP

https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tragic-loss

That's a problem with tractor trailer design. They aren't made with the safety of other vehicles in mind, as the trailer is often just at about head height for most passenger cars.

Interesting to see that there have been fewer fatalities per mile in autonomous mode than for standard driving. I figured this would eventually be the case, but didn't realize it was already that good.

I think their autonomous miles with no fatalities isn't that great when only compared to every other car on the road numbers. How many fatalities per mile are there in 0-5 year old $50,000+ sedans? They basically are trying to say, "Hey at least it's safer then an 11.4 year old Camary or Accord." because that is the average car, and I bet those cars in isolation actually beat the Tesla claim. Me thinks 30% above average fatality rate is not what a $75,000+ car shopper is going to be doing a lot of bragging about.

PS, Now consider this was a dry, clear, daylight, perfectly straight road, with no alcohol or speed involved. What is the average fatality per mile in those conditions? Again, without the autonomous feature activated I have heard Tesla bragging about being the safest car ever on the road. I bet this means you are 10 or even 100 times more likely to die if you use the autopilot. In their defense, one data point is not really useable, but they shouldn't try and use it either.

I guess the driver here was the same driver that recorded the near miss with the utility truck posted here before. Makes me wonder if he wasn't a little to dependant on a driving aide. I thought the utility truck incident was an easy thing for a human to spot, evaluate, and avoid without the drama assigned to the "near miss" of the autopilot oblivious to dangers until the last moment. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this driverless car stuff, just pointing out Tesla should do less bragging about it, and humans need to be more aware of the limitations. The pioneers always take the arrows.

I'm guessing that in general, high end luxury cars have a lower fatality rate than the national average, which will include things like barely legal old jalopies on bald tyres.

Sample size of one proves nothing of course.

That was my first thought as well. Fatality rate on freeways/highways, where autopilot is likely almost exclusively used, is going to be dramatically lower than on other roads.

I heard that the auto pilot system cut accidents by 50% in Tesla's.
In this case it sounded like the Tesla was driving into the sun as well, so a human driver wouldn't have done anything different.

This grabs my attention.

1) I wasn't there, but some amount of time passes before a jacknifing trailer makes it into your lane from the other side of the freeway. He could have panicked, he could've had a terrible reaction time, but I'm not convinced the driver was watching the road. Brightly lit sky is nicely included by the lawyers as some explanation, but the brakes were never applied in a fatal head on collision?

2) Who is familiar with the model S's sensor array? Am I wrong in thinking color and contrast doesn't matter at all here? The whole white trailer thing feels like a cop out. At some point before or after the high speed convertible conversion, the car should have done something if they wanted to call it autopilot.

Its fairly likely the driver wasn't present, and missed one of the most critical moments of his life because he was letting the car pay attention for him. If so, its very unfortunate and a little humbling. Regardless, the Tesla never knew what hit it, either because of a reflection and some sunlight, or because Tesla didn't anticipate obstacles above the hood. If I remember right, another driver tried to sue them because he left his car to self park (which he's totally liable for) and it repeatedly bumped into the back of a tractor trailer. Tesla is learning some harsh lessons, but just like every other manufacturer, they aren't going to let us know if they really got it wrong

My $0.02

NYT has more. The guy was a tech geek and a big Tesla proponent.

http://nyti.ms/2992FVh

The guy had a dash cam plus the Tesla's camera should store some am out of time before a collision. I bet you could see the semi just fine. The problem was the driver wasn't watching and the car thought it was an overhead sign.

Tesla sensors cannot see above their beltline
 

This was first report of an autopilot mishap with a truck trailer. The narrow cones of the sensors are primarily aimed at bumper levels, but not at the higher space above it. The cars just went under the high clearance trailers because the sensors don't 'see' them. The impacts are deadly because they are at windshield/greenhouse/head/skull level. Tesla owners should not to use the Autopilot mode until Tesla and other autonomous vehicle manufacturers add more sensors aimed ABOVE their beltlines. Sad but inevitable lessons in the advancement (and DOT requirements) of autonomous vehicles. Man Claims His Tesla Model S Crashed Into A Trailer All On Its Own

Clarification of the crash from the police report diagram, below.

The oncoming truck turned left across the Tesla's path. Seems like a pretty big visual target for a human to miss. Its "visual mass" would have grown rapidly (much moreso than a car's) as it began to turn.

The Tesla was headed east at 4:40 PM, so it wasn't driving into the sun.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016...superJumbo.png

Oh, and the truck driver is claiming the Tesla was speeding and had a movie playing on its screen. (As if that absolves him from turning directly in front of it.)

Tesla says the car won't play movies when driving.

Everybody's trying to cover their butts, except one person who can't.

Autopilot shouldn't be able to speed? I could be wrong. and driver shouldn't be able to see the stereo/nav screen from his truck...

However, I'm sure it's the only time he's watched a car try to T bone him at full freeway speed. Being the only car that doesn't coast down a little with the rest of the drivers who were watching the road would make the Tesla look like a speeder. Thanks for posting the report. If he had a dash cam, the footage should clear a lot of things up

I also see where they quickly said the radar identified the truck as an overhead sign. Seems to me they probably knew that because they have had problems in testing with braking being applied when going under bridges and overhead signs. So they probably had to "tune" it out some. Obviously a little too much as a 3' high sign or bridge should not be tuned out.
This also makes me question how well it will do in the rain, and snow, or with animals and darkness. I personally will brake if a deer is standing on the side of the road, does this car? I doubt it, as it will then brake for all kinds of things on the side of the road. Does the car know the habits of whitetail deer compared to a mailbox like a human does?
They need to stop calling it autopilot. with autopilot the pilot could pass out and the plane can go to it's destination and land itself just as well as the pilot could. Most crashes are from the pilots ignoring what the plane is telling them to do (besides bombs and missiles that is). This is just adaptive cruise control.

Here in the USA tires have to have a specific amount of tread to pass inspection. More trucks are using side panels under the trailers to reduce air drag so they would be more detectable. The sensor should be set for 2 meters minimum safe height. Deer are very unpredictable. Even sensing for body heat would be tricky. Sound devices or beeping the horn in one second intervals seems to work best so far. I still pray for the deer on rural roads.

Not just deer, either. Hereabouts there are also wild horses, antelope, open-range cattle, the occasional bear, and various other critters that I haven't personally encountered. All of them have different reactions to oncoming traffic.

Not true. Your basic autopilot system is very much like cruise control: it holds altitude, speed, and heading. What you're perhaps thinking of is an autoland system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland In fact, there have been cases where a plane's crew was incapacitated due to sudden depressurization, and the plane just continued on the preset course under autopilot until it ran out of fuel. There was one such case a few years ago involving a well-known (to those who follow golf, if not to me) pro golfer.

I saw a Tesla Sedan just north of Pittsburgh not long ago but not yesterday. Was it him? Perhaps not but it makes me wonder.

So it never occurred to try this scenario out during testing knowing that the sensors have a very narrow field of view?
Sounds like this ones on them.

My open exhaust turbo diesel suburban keeps them away I never see any deer while driving it.
On my wifes car we have almost hit so many deer I put new head lights (because the old ones were turning translucent) and rewired it for 100 watt high beams.

Might be just your good luck, 'cause I've seen a number hit by semis & large pickups/SUVs.

Around here the deer mostly come out around dawn & dusk, while it's light enough to not need headlights. Though those headlights sure would help with the open range Black Angus cattle :-)

A coworker once said deer were scared of little black boxes on bumpers.

Dad said he used to see semis taken out by elk.

LOUD PIPES SAVE DEER!

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On topic:

Tesla Faces Backlash Over Autopilot Technology in Wake of Crash

One of the things I don't get here is that (according to the reports I've see) the Tesla was travelling well above the speed limit. Doesn't having its 'autopilot' system allow this (illegal by definition, and arguably unsafe) behavior automatically make Tesla at fault?

It does seem that this is yet another instance of Musk's particular version of hubris (for want of a better word): a condition where after making one brilliant move, you feel compelled to go and do a couple of really stupid things to compensate. As for instance building (fairly) practical electric cars was a good move; wasting your company's limited capital and laying yourself open to massive lawsuits by trying to develop self-driving tech (and competing with companies that have lots more money, too)... well, not so smart :-)

Only "report" I heard about speeding was from the truck driver who turned in front of the car, so that's suspect. Have you read otherwise?

Good question though. The car undoubtedly knows the speed limit, unlike "dumb", old cruise controls.

...and unintelligent drivers.

The real long-term trouble for any carmaker is that in papers you read "autopilot fault".Not "over-confident driver fault". Back in days of socialism we had signs saying "NESPOUŠTĚJ OČI Z TRATI!" (always watch the road). I suppose tesla is saying that anytime you activate its autopilot mode.

^ "If you're reading this road sign, you're not paying attention to the road."

I fail to understand why this is even a story, if I were driving my 1980's suburban and crash into a blantly large easy to see object while accellerating, would it garner the same response?

On this note I believe all of the newer than 2006 safety features should be banned and cars should disable all electronic devices while driving.

Anything that allows people to be less mindfull on the road doesn't belong in a car and that includes auto pilot.

In my mind the guy deserved to die, he was doing things that should never be done on the road and was being a danger to everyone out there that day.
survival of the fittest I guess,

luckily his stupidity did not kill anyone else as is more commonly the case when people are being dumbarses staring at screens.

To be honest I don't view what he did much differently than getting hammered and driving, no difference.

Hopefully this incident is instead a wakeup call to attack the true cause of most accidents as opposed to trying to cover for morons.

I suppose I am the only one who believes in personal responsibility and that doesn't include a machine.

The rumor has it that the Tesla driver was watching a movie on a portable player.
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I also wonder about the amount of time that the driver would have had to react even if he was paying attention. It seems like the truck turned across right in front of him. Which comes down to driver intuition which a computer will never have. As a motorcyclist I have learned to predict the behavior of other motorist actions before they make them based on subtle "body language" cues of their vehicle.

Considering it's a transport truck (bigger, slower) and he went under the trailer presumably behind the trailer's 'kickstand' (longer), he should have had much more time to react than had it been a car.

Bingo. . .


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Tesla and Google Take Different Roads to Self-Driving Car

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/bu...iving-car.html

So inattentive driving causes fatality... I guess the only thing that's new to this story is the over-confidence built by giving humans a false hope of a car that can drive better than the human can.

http://www6.pcmag.com/media/images/2...johnny-cab.jpg

Yes. For instance From https://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/02...ary-negligent/

That also would explain why the truck was making the turn at that point. If the driver saw the Tesla in the distance and assumed it was travelling at normal speed, he would have thought (correctly) that he had time to clear the road before it got there,

Does Florida allow radar detectors?

If not, and if he was in fact going that fast, he'd be even more of a fool since he wasn't watching out for speed traps.

85+ mph on any road that is not a limited access divided highway is insane. I'm sure Tesla's black box knows exactly how fast he was going.

Apparently he didn't care, as it's reported that he'd collected numerous speeding tickets. I suppose if you can buy a Tesla, the fines are just small change.

Chronic wreckless fool. It's a miracle he didn't take anyone with him.

Interesting side note. No resulting battery fire. Even though the front of the carwas stuffed in by the pole it finally hit.
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http://gas2.org/wp-content/uploads/2...dent-Brown.jpg
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I'm always watching for cars leaning left/right within their lane, a lot of the time its all I get before someone cuts in next to me. I really wish everyone drove with the level of awareness that the average motorcycle does. If you aren't guessing what traffic is doing, then you're forced to react and make split second decisions instead of anticipating and planning your reaction. Race car drivers react almost before things happen because they anticipate and plan before things get sideways. If you get your thinking out of the way beforehand, your reaction times shrink dramatically.

Autopilot really shouldn't be marketed as such. There's too much nuance and intuition to driving that most people don't pick up on, let alone a computer program. I'd expect the trucker signaled a long time before making that move, and even if he hadn't, it takes seconds for a tractor tailer to completely block the roadway like that, which is an eternity if you're watching the road. If you can avoid smashing into braking traffic during rush hour, then an 80ft trailer should be much more predictable.

He either wasn't paying attention, and would've made similar mistakes in another car, or was leaning heavily on autopilot watching a dvd, and let the car make the mistake for him