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Comment by readams | Hacker News Reader

I think you'll find suddenly braking in the middle of the road poses its own dangers.

The "Autopilot" (aka Lane Assist) of my VW does that. If you don't get your hands on the wheel after it wants you to do (which is about 10-15s) and after a first warning it will hit the brakes with a lot of power for the fraction of a second.

So it's not actually stopping but giving you a clear signal that you should do something and would wake you up if you fell asleep. I don't know if it will come to a stop if you also ignore this warning, because it's not something you want to test with other participants on the road behind you.

I think that's the important difference: This system actively disencourages the driver from fully relying on the system while Teslas implementation does not seem to do it.

Apologize for not googling this myself: what mechanisms do autopilot programs have for detecting traffic conditions behind them, in terms of camera/radar/algorithms? Are they less robust than the mechanisms governing detection in front of the vehicle?

I guess the current lane-assisting and adaptive cruise control systems don't do anything at all. Most cars only have ultrasonic parking sensors in the back and probably a parking camera which both don't have any range. They probably rely on the fact that vehicles behind them should drive in the normal safety distance and that following cars are responsible for avoiding rear end collisions.

Agreed, but Tesla might need to get more aggressive now ("Confidence lost, resume control, emergency braking") and have the tail lights go to 100% brightness before braking is applied (to give the driver behind them ample time to slow).

The clue stick comes in many forms.

Including "put your hands on the wheel" x2

If you're instructing the driver to do something, and they don't, your last option is to fail as gracefully as possible (which is "what is the best path forward in the distance I need to stop at emergency braking rate + I must notify the vehicle behind me as soon as its clear I will take automated action, even if that's before I apply braking force").

That's fair! I guess no one wants automated cars forcing those behind them to rear-end, but eventually it does have to make this sort of decision.

In real life, with real driver nobody taking care of what's behind. Automatic action or not. The distance should be safe.

People doesn't drive correctly and this is all the fault of automatic vehicle, that make me sad.

Going off-road like it did seems safer than stopping on a highway. Sure there was damage, but far safer for the unconscious* occupants than being rear-ended.

(* I use "unconscious" because this guy was not paying attention, but also because it appeared to the car that the driver was dead)

Every other car model with an 'automatic driving' or 'autopilot' feature will begin to slow if you ignore prompts to put your hands on the wheel.

Tesla is the only car manufacturer that does not have a gradual emergency braking system implemented.

Slowing down smoothly surely must be safer than continuing to power down the road with no confidence where the road actually is!

Hey, while we're at it, why not make the car flash its hazards and call an ambulance for its non-responsive driver?

I'm sure it.can detect whether or not there are vehicles behind it.

As long as it's not too bright out and the object isn't highly reflective and there's no glare and it's not too high and...

Given that the sensors can't detect a semi completely blocking the road, I'm reluctant to make any statements about what the Tesla can and can't detect.

It can detect a car immediately behind it with the ultrasonic sensors. There is a reverse camera, but it's not hooked up to the autopilot system (just used for showing on the display).

So, no, it can't really detect cars more than a few feet behind it.

Sure, but it's probably easy to check for the system that slowing, even a bit fast, is less dangerous than full frontal collision with a post.

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