Tesla reports two new fatal crashes involving Autopilot or FSD Beta | Hacker News Reader

Tesla reports two new fatal crashes involving Autopilot or FSD Beta

electrek.co

33 pointsrurp29 comments

Serious question: How is Tesla legally allowed to beta test machines capable of killing on pedestrians who are none the wiser and have no business with Tesla?

The fatal crashes might have been Tesla's passengers, but the article doesn't specify. The question still stands though.

Tesla/Elon fans will tell you because human drivers also kill alot of people therefore we should also let robots kill people because as long as they statistically kill less people than human drivers they are therefore "safer", so it's fine to let them kill people as well, otherwise it's a double standard if only the human drivers are allowed to kill people and the product of their favorite mega corporation and meme lord is not allowed to kill just as many people while trying to learn how do drive.

So now you have humans and robots out to kill you on the streets. What a time to be alive.

Good summary of the facts.

Sounds like it’s not “safer”, it’s just safer.

Depends on the statistics you use to claim that they are "safer".

It's not so easy because money is fungible. Instead of buying a rich person gokart you could buy an F-150 which will protect you the old school way (with lots of mass and metal around you).

And have money to spare to order an Uber if you are too high/drunk to drive. And you can also select the Uber with the greatest mass/height and metal around you

That's a good argument to discourage both humans and robots from driving cars.

That sounds like a perfectly good argument unless you are challenging the premise that it's less likely to kill someone than a human driver?

Is it not possible that driving is an inherently dangerous activity, and unless you don't move at all there is some risk of an accident?

In which case you are holding Tesla to an impossible standard, which we don't hold human drivers do.

We send human drivers to jail. That's not an Impossible standard.

Can you tell us what threshold for self-driving cars is allowable then? Half the rate of human drivers? One-tenth? And explain why they are expected to be better.

Jaywalking was invented as a crime to put the blame on the pedestrian rather than the car/driver. There was a huge lobby by automobile manufacturers to change the status quo and transfer liability.

Because people want to use it, are using it, and there needs to be a force to stop them from using it. If the risks are not absurd, people simply don't care.

The same could be said about driving in general (which kills over 100 people on an average day just in the US). People either underestimate or don't care how dangerous driving is.

In Europe it's not...

Because regulators in Europe care a bit more.

Part of it is that Tesla lies about the safety of these things. We still haven’t gotten to the bottom of the switching off the FSD right before a crash scam.

Another part is that their legal team will aggressively attack anyone online suggesting their cars are anything but perfect.

If the technology was actually safer on average, your question would still be legitimate, it’s a question for society to decide what future we want.

The fact is, being a pedestrian has become far more dangerous now due to texting and large SUVs, always be vigilant.

From the article(and a comment): From the table the vehicle was stopped and struck on the right side at the time of the accident. Not quite sure what ADAS has to do with it, unless it is FSD Beta and put the vehicle in a dangerous position which seems unlikely. I don’t know why people assume FSD or autopilot is some kind of magic. Same as seatbelts statistically speaking they will save a lot more lives than they will claim.

Musk/Tesla is leading the pack of the worst unintended consequence of 21st century policymakers.

Regulators turned a blind eye and government subsidies fed the monster in the pursuit of clean energy policies.

You disagree with the government subsidizing the transition to consumer EVs and away from ICEs?

One can agree with the idea behind the subsidies and also recognize the unintended consequences at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive.

subsidizing electric vehicles does not automatically involve self driving. those are completely independent technologies.

> subsidizing electric vehicles does not automatically involve self driving. those are completely independent technologies.

Are you sure you’re replying to the correct thread? I’m not sure who you are trying to correct because no one here even implied something counter to your statement.

The U.S. National Highway Transportation Safety Administration rates all cars for safety and shows that Teslas are statistically extremely safe cars (www.nhtsa.gov). The Institute for Highway Safety rates several Tesla models as top safety picks as well (https://www.iihs.org/ratings/top-safety-picks/2022/all/tesla...).

The question we all want to know is if using the self driving features make them more or less safe. There is no independent data to show either way.

I don’t think we will see independently reported data anytime soon.

Anecdotally the features in a Tesla make them ridiculously safer over any other car I have driven. My Model 3 has saved me from a collision numerous times.

I need to test my cars. Some of you will die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

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