Tesla driver gets killed with AutoPilot active

[kameshss]

THE FIRST FATALITY IN AN TESLA IN AUTOPILOT MODE.

 

A Tesla Model S with the Autopilot system activated was involved in a fatal crash, the first known fatality in a Tesla where Autopilot was active. The company revealed the crash in a blog post posted today and says it informed the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the incident, which is now investigating.

 

The accident occurred on a divided highway in northern Florida when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither the driver — who Tesla notes is ultimately responsible for the vehicle’s actions, even with Autopilot on — nor the car noticed the big rig or the trailer "against a brightly lit sky" and brakes were not applied.

 

Because of the high ride-height of the trailer, as well as its positioning across the road, the Model S passed under the trailer and the first impact was between the windshield and the trailer. Tesla writes that if the car had impacted the front or rear of the trailer, even at high speed, the car’s safety systems "would likely have prevented serious injury as it has in numerous other similar incidents."

 

"AUTOPILOT IS GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME, BUT IT IS NOT PERFECT AND STILL REQUIRES THE DRIVER TO REMAIN ALERT."

 

Quote

 

The accident occurred May 7th in Williston, Florida with 40-year-old Ohio resident Joshua Brown driving. The truck driver was not injured.

Tesla says Autopilot has been used for more than 130 million miles, noting that, on average, a fatality occurs every 94 million miles in the US and every 60 million miles worldwide. The NHTSA investigation, Tesla says, is a "preliminary evaluation" to determine if the Autopilot system was working properly, which can be a precursor to a safety action like a recall.

 

In the blog post, Tesla reiterates that customers are required to agree that the system is in a "public beta phase" before they can use it, and that the system was designed with the expectation that drivers keep their hands on the wheel and that the driver is required to "maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle." Safety-critical vehicle features rolled out in public betas are new territory for regulators, and rules haven't been set.

 

 

Some autonomous driving experts have criticized Tesla for introducing the Autopilot feature so early, with a Volvo engineer saying the system "gives you the impression that it's doing more than it is." In other words, the car handles most situations so smoothly that drivers are lead to believe that the car can handle any situation it might encounter. That is not the case, and the driver must remain responsible for the actions of the vehicle, even with Autopilot active.

 

Source: The Verge.

[vanished]

Oh great now people are going to go running away from self-driving cars again for another decade...

[g12601]

Well then. Uhhh, btw, shouldn't this be in the tech news section?

[kameshss]

2 minutes ago, g12601 said:

Well then. Uhhh, btw, shouldn't this be in the tech news section?

Is this tech news? I don't think so.

 

or is it?

[minibois]

I'm not sure if that image is form the crash, the clothing the ambulance people are wearing looks like what the Dutch ambulance people wear and through the blur of the car I can see the license plate's left side is blue (which may be the Europe part of the license plate) and the rest is white, indicating it can be a number of countries (including, but not limited to France, Sweden and many more), but I feel like it's probably Germany.

 

EDIT: I reverse image searched the picture and it's from a crash in the Netherlands with a Tesla car and a truck. Nothing on the nationality of the driver though. Image not clear enough to see it too (but it looks like one letter though, so likely Germany)

[Dash Lambda]

I'm not sure why it's important that autopilot was active, it's not like Tesla was touting it as a perfectly safe system or anything. They specifically say that it's not entirely reliable and tell people not to trust it with their lives. This is driver error.

[AresKrieger]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Oh great now people are going to go running away from self-driving cars again for another decade...

 

They're coming for you watch out 

[theninja35]

7 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Oh great now people are going to go running away from self-driving cars again for another decade...

I'm okay with that. I'd rather drive the car than have it drive me.

[Scruffy90]

10 minutes ago, kameshss said:

THE FIRST FATALITY IN AN TESLA IN AUTOPILOT MODE.

 

A Tesla Model S with the Autopilot system activated was involved in a fatal crash, the first known fatality in a Tesla where Autopilot was active. The company revealed the crash in a blog post posted today and says it informed the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the incident, which is now investigating.

 

The accident occurred on a divided highway in northern Florida when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither the driver — who Tesla notes is ultimately responsible for the vehicle’s actions, even with Autopilot on — nor the car noticed the big rig or the trailer "against a brightly lit sky" and brakes were not applied.

 

 

(not sure if it's the actual image from the accident)

 

Because of the high ride-height of the trailer, as well as its positioning across the road, the Model S passed under the trailer and the first impact was between the windshield and the trailer. Tesla writes that if the car had impacted the front or rear of the trailer, even at high speed, the car’s safety systems "would likely have prevented serious injury as it has in numerous other similar incidents."

 

"AUTOPILOT IS GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME, BUT IT IS NOT PERFECT AND STILL REQUIRES THE DRIVER TO REMAIN ALERT."

 

 

Some autonomous driving experts have criticized Tesla for introducing the Autopilot feature so early, with a Volvo engineer saying the system "gives you the impression that it's doing more than it is." In other words, the car handles most situations so smoothly that drivers are lead to believe that the car can handle any situation it might encounter. That is not the case, and the driver must remain responsible for the actions of the vehicle, even with Autopilot active.

 

Source: The Verge.

Unfortunately this had to happen sooner or later with autonomous cars in order for there to be progress on the tech. 

[kameshss]

6 minutes ago, Minibois said:

I'm not sure if that image is form the crash, the clothing the ambulance people are wearing looks like what the Dutch ambulance people wear and through the blur of the car I can see the license plate's left side is blue (which may be the Europe part of the license plate) and the rest is white, indicating it can be a number of countries (including, but not limited to France, Sweden and many more), but I feel like it's probably Germany.

 

EDIT: I reverse image searched the picture and it's from a crash in the Netherlands with a Tesla car and a truck. Nothing on the nationality of the driver though. Image not clear enough to see it too (but it looks like one letter though, so likely Germany)

I'm not sure about the image either. That's why I mentioned " (not sure if it's the actual image from the accident)".

[WkdPaul]

2 minutes ago, Scruffy90 said:

Unfortunately this had to happen sooner or later with autonomous cars in order for there to be progress on the tech. 

Except, the technology wasn't at fault here.

[Cracklingice]

11 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Oh great now people are going to go running away from self-driving cars again for another decade...

Until the Government assures me that self driving won't be outlawed or made cost prohibitive as a result - let the idea burn.
Also that the cars won't personally identify you, lock you in the car and drive you straight to the police station any time they want you there.

[Enderman]

9 minutes ago, theninja35 said:

I'm okay with that. I'd rather drive the car than have it drive me.

 

5 minutes ago, Cracklingice said:

Until the Government assures me that self driving won't be outlawed or made cost prohibitive as a result - let the idea burn.

 

theres a reason you're not allowed to fly the plane when you go traveling

some day you wont be driving a car either

[forthe48]

Always a shame to hear about stuff like this, I hope it doesn't set the technology back too far. Not surprised to hear that the Autopilot software didn't so much "cause" the accident as it did "fail to prevent", just as the driver did.

[Speedyv]

I understand why everybody here wants to side with Tesla. But, the Volvo engineer is correct. It lets people that don't look into stuff too much have a bloated sense of confidence in the capabilities of the car. It gives the impression that it is a polished product when the average Joe Tesla owner has access to it. 

[DildorTheDecent]

Wonder how he didn't react in time. Pretty sure Tesla still want the driver to intervene should anything happen at all.

 

Swerve or hit the brakes usually does the job. 

[minibois]

7 minutes ago, kameshss said:

I'm not sure about the image either. That's why I mentioned " (not sure if it's the actual image from the accident)".

Well I confirmed it's not from the crash in Florida your post is about.

Here is more confirmation:

http://www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/251340472/Tesla+slaat+over+de+kop+op+A2+na+botsing+met+vrachtwagen,+bestuurder+gewond.aspx

It's a local (local as in based in and targeted towards that province/state) news channel and website. They said the driver is Swedish. They didn't say anything about auto pilot or anything close to that (despite what one of the commenters says)

I looked up a couple more sources, none proving this incident (the one in the picture) had anything to do with the autopilot. One did reference it, but not specifically said this incident was caused by it (and he sounded very biased against Tesla, so I wouldn't believe him)

[Dash Lambda]

8 minutes ago, theninja35 said:

I'm okay with that. I'd rather drive the car than have it drive me.

Except that a well developed automated system would be a better driver than you, or any other human, could ever possibly be.

Driving can be enjoyable, but people die quite often and traffic is very inefficient. The sooner this technology gets out of its infancy, the sooner that improves.

[kameshss]

2 minutes ago, Minibois said:

Well I confirmed it's not from the crash in Florida your post is about.

Here is more confirmation:

http://www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/251340472/Tesla+slaat+over+de+kop+op+A2+na+botsing+met+vrachtwagen,+bestuurder+gewond.aspx

It's a local (local as in based in and targeted towards that province/state) news channel and website. They said the driver is Swedish. They didn't say anything about auto pilot or anything close to that (despite what one of the commenters says)

I looked up a couple more sources, none proving this incident (the one in the picture) had anything to do with the autopilot. One did reference it, but not specifically said this incident was caused by it (and he sounded very biased against Tesla, so I wouldn't believe him)

Ok, I'll remove the image. Here is the video of that I found a video regarding the accident that you mentioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdzOolr4S4A

[AresKrieger]

5 minutes ago, Dash Lambda said:

Except that a well developed automated system would be a better driver than you, or any other human, could ever possibly be.

Driving can be enjoyable, but people die quite often and traffic is very inefficient. The sooner this technology gets out of its infancy, the sooner that improves.

In the future it may be (better that is), but lets say we run into one of those moral dilemmas where you either put yourself in grave danger or others such as pedestrians, which does the car choose, I know I'm not driving into a wall to save a jaywalker who came out of now where, but the car might.

[vanished]

19 minutes ago, g12601 said:

Well then. Uhhh, btw, shouldn't this be in the tech news section?

@kameshss Actually it totally could be.  We've had autonomous stuff in tech news before because it totally is, and your OP seems to qualify (source links, quotes, and your opinion).  I'll move it in there if you want.

[kameshss]

3 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

@kameshss Actually it totally could be.  We've had autonomous stuff in tech news before because it totally is, and your OP seems to qualify (source links, quotes, and your opinion).  I'll move it in there if you want.

Yes please then. I reported earlier.

[Dash Lambda]

2 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

In the future it may be (better that is), but lets say we run into one of those moral dilemma where you either put yourself in grave danger or others such as pedestrians, which does the car choose, I know I'm not driving into a wall to save a jaywalker who came out of now where, but the car might.

Situations like that are why they should never take control away from the driver, but... I can't imagine a self-driving system being designed to do anything that would harm the occupants, just for the sake of PR alone.

[GoodBytes]

Thread moved to Tech News forum section.

[othertomperson]

"Autopilot"? I wasn't aware that Tesla had commercial self-driving cards. I thought what they had was more like a type of cruise control...