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Comment by codemac | Hacker News Reader

Good to hear that Tesla knows it's an issue.

Bad to hear that they released it knowing this was an issue, because I wouldn't expect myself to be able to react to this.

Humans are not capable of handling these types of nuances well at speed. Being an active driver and being an inactive driver that needs to stay alert enough to catch the few cases where you run into "known issues" is just not going to work well.

As I'm typing it I'm suddenly having a wave of guilt for all kinds of software bugs I've written where the answer was "it's a known issue".

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This is how the main character's father dies in the movie Disturbia, in the opening scene. The car they're following suddenly swerves aside to reveal a stationary truck. This is why you always leave a large gap between you and the car in front of you. It's almost impossible to avoid otherwise if the car in front of you can't be seen around.

Tesla is not a self-driving car at this point. The fact that people rely on this as the primary means of breaking is completely crazy.

When you only have to brake in 1% of the use cases, and the "Autopilot" handles the other 99%, is it really that crazy that a driver does not instinctively recognize that 1%?

Or is it crazy to expect a user to be able to react instantly to the 1% use case?

This is not very different from any normal car with cruise control.

Perceptually it's very different. And it's perception that matters a whole lot here, unfortunately.

A normal car with normal cruise control does not keep itself in a lane. Nor does it adjust for the speed of other cars. All it does is make your speed a constant; you still have to steer and initiate any and all braking or overtaking maneuvers.

Some do adjust speed. The point being, neither is a fully automated auto-pilot - the human behind the wheel is always responsible for stopping the vehicle or steering away from obstacles in an emergency.

It isn't a matter of recognizing the 1%. You should be braking for yourself 100% of the time. If you occasionally fail to do so, the car will manage to save you 99% of the time.

It is crazy to see a situation in which you should brake and to intentionally choose not to with a non-autonomous car.

However, adaptive cruise control is not a new thing. Other car brands does not have this issue.

I disagree: Most ACCs have exactly the same limitation.

Am I the only one thinking this issue is going to seriously injure/kill someone sooner rather than later, and then Tesla will be having a big problem?

If a person was behind that stopped van, trying to figure out what the van's problem was, or if they had the van jacked up on one corner to change a blown tire, this same crash could easily have been fatal.

This already happens with "dumb" cars, and anecdotally, I've heard this independently from multiple tow truck drivers / roadside emergency responders that they specifically park their vehicles, and stand in specific spots, to avoid getting sideswiped or smushed. You also see this with state police conducting traffic stops in the highway: they pull their vehicle over, but not completely in line with the person they pulled over, giving them a little protection by putting their vehicle in the way... or they approach on the side of the vehicle that isn't adjacent to traffic.

Stationary vehicle, in a traffic lane, on a major artery, is a bad situation whether or not your car is piloting itself.

This is an artefact of the sensors (radar) used. Since resolution and processing is insufficent right now, everything that is stationary is ignored.

I have a recent BMW with ACC that shows the same behaviour.

It's not an ultra rare event (I experience it roughly once every other day) and it's also not a problem as a driver.

Also with ACC: Just swerve right and ACC will happily crash you into any other stationary object like a lamp post or a wall.

If you read the driver's own comments on YouTube, he did react to the situation in time. His decision of action however was in error. He decided to take partial control of the vehicle by grabbing the steering wheel to change lanes and merge right. What he needed to do was take full control of the vehicle by tapping the brake to disengage the cruise control aspect of the AP.

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