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Comment by xxpor | Hacker News Reader

Because autopilot has nothing to do with the crash. You're supposed to pay attention and take over at any time.

Why does anyone drive any car when the manufacturer isn't liable for mechanical failures that could cause a crash? I'm much more worried about a suspension part failing and my wheel flying off than autopilot doing something dumb.

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They behaved irresponsible, but Tesla could really use actual driver attention monitoring. It should not be possible to have no one sitting in the driving seat. They seem to have a broken attention monitoring system that is easily tricked.

They are working on a camera based solution though it's imperfect. You can see examples of it running at https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1379928419136339969

Yeah I generally agree with this. Forget the camera stuff the other commenter mentioned, the seats have a weight sensor already for other stuff like making sure you don't get out of the car when it's not in park. I can't believe AP doesn't use that, unless the owner here bypassed that by shorting the circuit or something.

> Why does anyone drive any car when the manufacturer isn't liable for mechanical failures that could cause a crash?

Manufacturers absolutely are liable if there is a design problem. This is the entire reason recalls exist.

One could certainly argue that Tesla's laissez faire attitude toward autopilot safety constitutes a systems engineering design failure, making it grounds for a recall.

They're not liable when the componets are used outside of their reasonable limits. You don't see recalls for shocks that fail after 200,000 miles, and leaving the driver's seat entirely should fall under that bucket too.

>when the manufacturer isn't liable for mechanical failures that could cause a crash

uhm. Ever heard of the GM ignition switch defect? Ford Pinto? I'm sure there's more where a manufacturer is liable for mechanical failures that cause a crash.

Completely different situation. That doesn't involve the consumer not following instructions.

Gotta treat it like cruise control.

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