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Comment by __alexs | Hacker News Reader

Suddenly stopping at high speed is generally considered (at least in the UK) dangerous driving and will get you prosecuted and probably mean you lose your license at the very least. If it results in a death then you can get a life sentence in prison for it.

Intentionally stopping inside a tunnel is a pretty clear cut case of dangerous driving over here.

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However there can be many reasons why a car has to stop suddenly: for example, a child might suddenly cross the road, or the driver might feel he or she is having a heart attack.

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 longest delay on a motorway I've ever had (get out of the car, walk the dog, hang around for a couple of hours in 32C degree heat) was a case of a driver of a small car having a heart attack, slamming on the brakes, and getting rear-ended.

The car ended up half it's length.

In this case the Tesla stopped because of what you might charitably call a breakdown. This would probably get you out of the dangerous driving conviction but if it happened multiple times would probably result in a recall on the vehicles to fix or disable the faulty part.

This happend on a highway. The Tesla switched lanes into oncoming traffic moving faster than itself. It immediately started braking for no reason. On top of this, it all happened in a tunnel entrance.

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.

From what I gather from the article the car didn't suddenly stop.

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 article links to another article with a video recording of the accident: https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-auto...

The car does stop pretty suddenly.

-- not only does it stop suddenly - applies break - signals into a new lane - changes lane into new lane - breaks hard - well actually - if you watch the video frame by frame - it starts to initiate a left hand turn for lane change before it even signals - if a driver did this to me - sure i hit them --

> If it results in a death then you can get a life sentence in prison for it.

Can you provide an example of someone getting a life sentence because of an accident caused due to braking? That doesn't sound right.

I think they're referring to the offence "Death by dangerous driving" and it now can carry a life sentence[1], but you would really have to be doing something exceptionally bad to get a life sentence - it would have to be deliberate, likely a repeat offence, and have other aggravating factors for that sentence. Real sentencing in the UK is very lenient- famously an American woman killed a teenage motorcyclist when she was driving on the wrong side of the road, claimed diplomatic immunity and fled the country, she eventually returned to the UK to be sentenced to... 8 months in prison suspended sentence.

[1]:https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/it...

She didn't return. She deigned to attend the trial via video link from the US.

This is completely untrue in almost every aspect. Drivers being prosecuted, let alone convicted, for sudden braking simply does not happen.

That's not the way the law works in the US. People are legally responsible for hitting something in front of them but not for getting read ended after slamming the breaks. Partially this is why the Tesla system is so trigger happy about braking. Brad Templeton goes into the design/legality issues around the accident in some detail here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2023/01/11/an-8-c...

Do you have a citation for that? I have always understood the rules to be that you should always remember the car in front of you can make an emergency stop at any time for any reason, and it is always your fault if you hit them (unless they just moved into your lane).

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.

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