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Comment by WheelsAtLarge | Hacker News Reader

Question: if the guy thought the Autopilot was failing, why did he continue to use it?

It's the curse of SAE Level 3. The driver is responsible for monitoring a system that works fine 99% of the time, they start to feel a false sense of security and when it does fail they're not paying as much attention as they need to be.

This is also why SAE autonomy levels are a poor measure of a vehicle's capabilities, but that's another rant.

It's still safer than not having it.

Not if it requires constant supervision, yet lulls the driver into a false sense of security such that they are predisposed to not provide that constant supervision.

Arguably no, it's not. This is why Waymo stopped working on level 3 and switched to level 4/5 systems. It's also why most vehicle manufacturers up until now have only supplied ADAS features which provide backup to the human driver (lane departure warnings, emergency braking assistance etc.) rather than features which drive while using the human driver as backup.

There are a few coming out soon (SuperCruise, Pro Pilot) that will offer some degree of level 2/3 operation. It'll be very interesting to see how that goes liability-wise.

I heard of a similar situation, there are times when trains almost drive themselves so the engineers don't need to pay much attention. The problem is when things go wrong and they need to act. Sometimes the engineers are so involved in other things that they fail to act.

That's one of the theories given for the cause of the 2008 Chatsworth train crash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chatsworth_train_collisio...

I have used Tesla’s autopilot...it has its moments...I don’t think it can make decisions within 10 second windows before obstacles.

It’s also very dodgy at certain merges. I take it off autopilot.

On a slightly diff note: I wanted a demo of auto parallel parking and also reverse parallel parking and summon feature after the last update. I went to the Tesla showroom. They were super nice but refused to demonstrate due to liability issues. They stood aside and a little away ..gave me instructions. Worked like a charm and it was awesome...but didn’t inspire confidence.

I rented a Tesla Model S from Enterprise recently and learned they don’t enable Autopilot due to liability issues.

This is good to know. I was planning to rent one to show my family when they visit.

Autopilot or the Full Self Driving features? Autopilot itself is just lane assist and adaptive cruise control: the lane-changing features aren’t part of it.

From previous reporting on this incident in 2018:

> “The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision,” Tesla said. “The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/30/tesla-autopilot-was-o...

Also, the safety barrier that would've reduced the force of the impact had not been replaced after a recent accident just days before.

> Earlier this week, Tesla said the divider was missing a safety barrier designed to reduce the impact of a crash. The automaker provided an image of the location taken a day before the collision that appeared to show the barrier had not been replaced following a recent crash.

Reddit thread and Youtube video with a Model S driver reproducing the AP behavior due to the lane markings and uneven pavement:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/899i1w/my_mode...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVJSjeHDvfY&feature=youtu.be

That's the real question.

The title should be "Apple engineer killed in Tesla crash had previously complained about autopilot but continued to use it and didn't have his hands on the wheel when the crash occurred."

He needed to finish KrazyKupKakes level 18.

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