He was on a freeway when it was set, but still above since the speed is 65. The freeway transitions into a surface street and this seemingly occurred at the first light after the transition.
(It turns out that's possible. California provides a GIS data digest of fatal accidents maintained by UC Berkeley. Data collection ends at 2021, but the 2016-2021 data set shows 22 crashes coming up on that intersection. https://tims.berkeley.edu/tools/gismap/).
Or we could limit the assignation of blame to the individual who is solely responsible for controlling his multi-ton high-speed vehicle at all times when operating in public thoroughfares.
... which is not to say they shouldn't do it. In fact, in the 21st century with ubiquitous communication we could even consider mandating that of all cruise controls. But if we were to codify that into law, we'd want a data source a touch more reliable than whatever Google, Apple, an Waze have cooked up as the speed limits on each road in the map (since those limits are currently at the safety threshold of "advisory to estimate travel times," not "someone could die if these numbers are wrong").
all the maps have built in speedometers with an alarming red rectangle when you are speeding.
the data for what the speed limit is is generally public, or very obviously derivable from principles-first, common sense engineering
autopilot has more than enough data to know its not on a freeway, and shouldn't be doing 60mph+ between nodes on a graph
By "all the maps," do you mean "Apple, Google, and Waze?" If so, see my previous statement; they're offering a driver-assist, but they're not ultimately responsible for your safety so their data doesn't need to be fully accurate. Tesla is pulling its data for the in-car map from Google. Nobody is going to try and sue Google if they're in a crash because "the little red box that tells me I'm speeding didn't show up, Your Honor." And Google has made clear that it indemnifies itself from such liability in provision of the map data (i.e. "You're holding it wrong" if you wire Google's idea of what speed limits are directly into the control plane a life-or-death machine).
So Tesla would have to take ownership of that problem directly... Put its own fleet of cars on the road to drive around and photograph speed limits. They could actually hypothetically do that given the cameras on the Teslas if they push data from the driver back to HQ. What's the data licensing agreement look like on owning a Tesla? Does it already grant Tesla that privilege by virtue of someone owning their car?
> the data for what the speed limit is is generally public, or very obviously derivable from principles-first, common sense engineering
Public, yes, but must be consolidated, validated, and kept up-to-date. And the principles-first "common sense engineering" does not describe how America's roads are actually labeled and structured, sadly.
> autopilot has more than enough data to know its not on a freeway
Does it? I don't think Autopilot has any concept of what road it's on; it's not consolidated with the Tesla's navigation map. It's viewing the road directly and looking for local lane markers and obstacles.
Such a consolidation with the global data to understand current speed limit would imply new design safety constraints for both the Autopilot and the onboard map systems.
It's also sometimes unclear about where transitions happen.
It also never accounts for actual speed of travel diverging substantially because citizens including Police have collectively decided that a different speed is more reasonable.
Basically such a system would probably be completely useless enough to ruin all cruise control.
do you actually drive in the US?
there's no shortage of stretches of perfectly straight road where the speed limit drops for no apparent reason.
Do you mean they're actually reading the signs as they pass on the road, or they have a map associating the current position on the road to a speed limit for that road?
If the former, the cutting edge of that technology I'm aware of isn't good enough to trust it to a safety system. And that's before we factor in added risks like "speed limit sign was obscured by a passing truck while the car drove past it so the car maintained speed."
If the latter, that's possible but it's not where Tesla is right now. Tesla doesn't own its maps, it's trusting Google, which doesn't certify the speed limits are correct enough in its map data to wire a safety system to that output.
I can't speak to what trucks do, but those are commercial vehicles, and have very different performance characteristics from cars.
That's an extremely strong assertion. Do you believe all car makers are breaking the law by making cars that can drive 80+ mph? By having cruise control that can be set at 80+mph?
In the US, that is an almost universally useless feature. Standard freeway speed is 10 over the limit.
It really depends. In my experience in the Northeast, when speed limits are 70-75 mph in more rural locations, I don't see most cars traveling at 85.
This is likely where we're headed... especially with fully autonomous vehicles.
It'll probably still be possible to hack them to go any speed you want, though... and certain cars like emergency and military vehicles will have no limit.
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8729084,-118.2881048,3a,75y,...
I'm also extremely surprised that there's a 20 mph drop. While it's only a recommendation, the Uniform Vehicle Code and Model Traffic Ordinance suggests never changing the speed more than 10 mph at a time, and having no more than six such changes in a mile.
See page 28 of this PDF, as I was looking for this information specifically in relation to the Florida DOT, which does a pretty good job of following this rule:
https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa1304/res...
like a stop light?
The purpose of a traffic calming measure is to force slower driving via involuntary driver behavior or physics. Things like painting obstacle-like objects in the road to startle unattentive drivers, rumble strips, unnecessary curvature onto soft embankments so failure to make the turn doesn't risk injury, unnecessary narrowing of the road via cones or soft baffles (because people will subconsciously drive slower when they feel like their vehicle is inches from a barrier).
A common mis-design of highways is to assume traffic lights are sufficient for that purpose, and the result is creation of a high-crash location.
Has a traffic engineer ever been held legally responsible for accidents that result from their design?
In this sense the term “engineer” is someone that requires a license and training (like MDs or lawyers). States require engineers to “stamp” designs that they are taking responsibility for. Sometimes “city planners” LARP as (unlicensed) civil engineers and make designs that get built, which is somewhat problematic but happens.
Stamping and signing off on a design means legally accepting liability. How often they get prosecuted is rare. One famous example is Boston’s Big Dig fatal tunnel collapse. Of course politics and money had a big role in that case.
None. The answer to how much culpability the traffic engineer should have is "none". Freeways end that's what they do and there's no expectation that they won't have a light, or a traffic jam or a deer or some other obstacle in front of you that you'll have to stop for. Lights crossing two-lane highways happen all the time outside of urban areas.
Drivers are, appropriately supposed to be alert enough to see a red light up ahead. Of the twenty-two accidents you cited how many do you think would have been prevented with more signs?
For that matter it's not the autopilot's fault either its the fault of the idiot driving (or not driving as it were).
And when you dig into the five-year numbers, you find that while 22 is quite a bit, there have been more on the straightaway highways north-southbound east of the intersection and on the cloverleafs (If I were to hazard a wild-ass guess, based on California driving experience: driver going highway speed failing to realize traffic came to a standstill on the highway due to back-pressure of people exiting the cloverleaf at rush-hour).