While automatic cars doing random things is certainly problematic, clearly the cause of the crash here isn't the tesla, it is other cars not respecting minimum safety distances and not able to stop when there is a traffic jam ahead.
Drivers are indeed expected to always be prepared for sudden stops even at the highest speeds.
If a human driver did it deliberately as the Tesla did (since it was designed to pull over and stop) then I would consider it a criminal level traffic violation on the part of the stopping car.
It was deemed to be be 100% my fault. Here, if you run into the back of the car in front, it is always your fault. No exceptions.
It makes sense: you should always leave enough room to stop, so I couldn't really complain. But, if everybody did that on that particular busy roundabout, it would result in gridlock.
I drive for several years, and can say my brain relies heavily on this sort of predictable stuff like "that car has free intersection in front of it, it will move forward".
If you think like a good citizen, yes.
In a country north of UK the law was once the same. People with worn down cars would find the perfect opportunity to slam their brakes, intentionally get hit from behind and claim insurance.
If it had been a large deer, of course he should have stopped, at that point it's the safety of the people inside the car.
In law for insurance purposes it needs to be clear cut, person behind is almost always at fault. But that doesn't mean they are the cause of the accident in all cases. There is nuance to these things, and part of that is that braking for a rabbit, or using Level 2 automation, is increasing the chance of an accident happing on the road.
If the way you drive increases the risk of someone driving into the back of you, even if they haven't left enough space, you are at fault in my mind.
If the possibility exists that a driver in front of you may stop suddenly why not always leave a minimum amount of space for a safe stop considering there is virtually no downside to doing so?
Being a safe driver is being aware that other people, including the people behind you, may not be leaving enough space. Suddenly stopping for a rabbit, from a speed of 50mph, is f-ing stupid and massively increasing the risk of a serious accident on the road.
Using a Level 2 automation that can randomly stop for no reason is not safe driving, you are increasing the chances that someone who is too close drives into the back of you.
Just because someone else is driving unsafely doesn't absolve you of the responsibility of being aware of that and not driving safely yourself.
The reasoning doesn't make sense because it is applied retroactively. The parent poster doesn't want to take responsibility for their unsafe driving practice and tries to place the blame on the other driver.
Cars suddenly stopping in front of you isn't some unpredictable rare event. You are told this as part of the licensing procedure, and this is the reason minimum safety distance exists. The solution is obvious and known to any licensed driver. As such, it is unreasonable and unacceptable, to not follow the minimum safety distance.
For example, pedestrians crossing a bike path. Because a lot of people clearly don’t walk often they will just walk out without looking. People aware of their surroundings will look both ways. As soon as you see someone do that you can pass close to them without spooking them because you know they’re aware.
My point here is a ton of this comes down to acting predictably. Even a simple act like looking at someone will alleviate a ton of uncertainty.
The barriers to fully autonomous self-driving are huge and not necessarily technical. Acting predictably, being able to explain actions, drivers driving differently because another vehicle is automated and cultural differences.
Intentionally stopping inside a tunnel is a pretty clear cut case of dangerous driving over here.
I still suspect it would be classed as dangerous driving as there wasn't a need to stop and they did find a safe place to stop.
If it did suddenly brake though and it was the car, that seems like something Tesla should be liable for. The time taken for any driver, when a car starts automatically braking, to assess the situation and override isn't going to be enough to avoid the dangerous situation.
The car does stop pretty suddenly.
My driving school teacher used to say: always remember that the car ahead of you could suddenly stop at any time for a reason that you might not know.
The car ended up half it's length.
Yes, you should remember that vehicles can suddenly stop. This means keeping a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you, and looking beyond that vehicle to anticipate what is going to happen. However, a vehicle illegally throwing itself in front of you and doing basically an emergency stop because it just feels like it is not something a reasonable driver is expected to predict.
If you look at the video, you can see that the first vehicle is almost at a full stop when it hits the Tesla - its driver performed as expected. The second vehicle comes to a full stop before hitting the first one, so that's also going quite well. The third vehicle (a rather large truck) doesn't brake but instead swerves into the other lane, almost hitting another car. This dooms vehicle number four, which suddenly finds itself mere feet away from a stopped vehicle. Five through seven are tailgating and never see it coming for the same reason. Number eight is able to stop in time.
The speed limit here is 50mph. Assuming they were driving the speed limit, the typical stopping distance would be 174 feet. I can assure you, nobody keeps a distance of 174 feet between them and the car in front.
Can you provide an example of someone getting a life sentence because of an accident caused due to braking? That doesn't sound right.
[1]:https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/it...
Conversely if you need to stop suddenly, e.g. something has crossed the road in front of you (or you think it has), you don't worry about the vehicles behind, you just stop.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2023/01/11/an-8-c...
People often forget about the most important traffic rule: it is not allowed to cause an unsafe situation.
But you would need to prove that incorrect automatic breaking is intentional, which has not been proven in any court I know of.
You are putting other people into an emergency situation which is endangering everyone around you.
It's not that simple. If it was it would be legal to break check someone and it would be that persons fault for crashing in to you.
The driver's account, as quoted here, doesn't even make sense. In the first sentence it says he was driving along in lane 1, the car slowed, and he "felt an impact."
The next part is contradictory, citing a different lane (2), a different cruising speed, and then a lane change... and no impact. WTH?
The second video here clearly shows it crashing into the Tesla:
https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-auto...
> While automatic cars doing random things is certainly problematic, clearly the cause of the crash here isn't the tesla
The Tesla changed lanes, moving in front of the second vehicle, and immediately applied the brakes. That is 100% the Tesla's fault.
The cause of the crash is the Tesla. You are not allowed to stop on bridges, in tunnels and several other places. The crashes starting with the Nth car and not the 1st is normal. Reaction time of the first car eats into the reaction of the second and so on until there's no more time to stop. Understand that cars further back do not see the car in front of them applying the brakes and slowing down, they are seeing a car moving at normal speed instantly crashing. Minimum safety distance is not as big as reaction time plus stopping to zero, that would be huge.
edit: to make it clear, we are debating whether the Tesla is at fault, not whether the other could have avoided it. Creating a dangerous situation still puts you at fault, you can not be allowed to do so at any time on the grounds that everybody else should avoid you.
Creating a dangerous situation is not acceptable on the grounds that other drivers should be able to avoid it.
Try to park on the highway and claim the people who crash are at fault and see how it plays in a court of law
The Tesla autopilot failure is really bad, for sure, but those human drivers should be banned for life. There’s no excuse for ramming into a traffic jam because you weren’t paying attention.
Edit: occurs to me that possibly I’m being overly harsh here. Is there something about the dynamics of traffic that puts the cars three or four slots back at greater risk when somebody unexpectedly stops? I would assume that the immediately following car is at the greatest risk, but after that everybody is at successively less risk as they should all be slowing and should all see each others’ brake lights.
It's a different situation when someone is slamming on their brakes from highway speed with nothing ahead of them.
1. It's the fault of the driver behind, for not leaving space
2. It's impossible to leave space, because cars will move in if there is a large gap
3. Why is this a problem?
"To keep a smooth traffic flow, some highways also have minimum speed limits. If you drive slower than the minimum speed you can halt the traffic flow and create a dangerous condition. Even if there is no minimum speed limit, those driving too slow can be as dangerous as those who drive too fast."
https://dmv.ny.gov/about-dmv/chapter-8-defensive-driving#yre...
The first driver has some reaction time needed so he’ll start breaking after the Tesla starts breaking. Which means, assuming they were at the same speed initially, that the 1st car will have to break a bit harder than the Tesla.
Then the second car will be in the same situation, it will have to break a bit harder than then first. 5 cars later, you are at the hardest possible breaking power, as it’s ultimately limited by adherence.
So, if there’s not a larger gap in the thread of cars somewhere to allow for breaking less hard than the car in front, it’s more or less inevitable.
To mitigate it, each driver needs to look 2 or 3 cars ahead, not just at the car in front. Everybody should do that but it's understandable if they don't (and it might be hard to see clearly, especially in a dark tunnel).