Tesla drivers run Autopilot where it's not intended – with deadly consequences | Hacker News Reader

Tesla drivers run Autopilot where it's not intended – with deadly consequences

washingtonpost.com

To the moderators: I disagree with the OP's arguments and conclusions, but I don't think it should be flagged: The topic is interesting, and also important. It gets to the heart of a question that as a society we must answer: Who is, and who should be, held responsible for these accidents, today and in the future?

Why does the car allow self-driving in "conditions it's not intended"?

It's not like the car doesn't have the sensors to know! Just disable it.

Because it is not legally enforced.

Why does the car allow overspeeding? Why does the car allow the driver to use a phone while driving?

In the end it’s the responsibility of the driver.

(I’m not saying I agree with this view, but this most probably the one behind Testla choice, as well as… cost, obviously).

They should probably call it something other than 'auto' pilot.

Well technically, it does pilot and “auto”.

Nah. Most autopilots in general aviation will gladly let you kill yourself by flying into terrain or stall while trying to climb. They actually do less than Tesla autopilot, since you usually still control the throttle.

While you are right, using those autopilots requires a license which at least in europe is waaaaaaaay harder and expensive to get. Hell I am fine with people using something called Autopilot in the car if you get instructed on how-to, but you are absolutely not. Throw teslas and elons sometimes very misleading statements in the mix and I have to disagree with you ,sorry.

I agree, the hype of auto pilot was that it really was magically autonomous. But it's not. It's just fancy lane assist and you still have to pay attention. There's no jumping in the car drunk and getting it drive home.

The speeding one is an interesting analogy and a good question - why not force cars to cap their top speed at the highest speed possible on the freeway? I imagine the answer is that capping speed like that wasn't possible for the initial cars, and so people just got used to being able to speed and don't want it to go away now.

Possibly because there are circumstances in which speeding is necessary? I’ve been the driver and the passenger in a vehicle being driven to a distant emergency room. In both cases speed of arrival was of the essence.

> Possibly because there are circumstances in which speeding is necessary? I’ve been the driver and the passenger in a vehicle being driven to a distant emergency room. In both cases speed of arrival was of the essence.

There are ways to make speeding possible while keeping abuse minimal. For example mergency switch that could allow speeding but for example enabled alarm that in normal use would be to annoying and resetting would be neede. There are many ways it could be done in. I believe car nerds could think of something more reliable.

Also do we really know that emergency speeding saves more people than are killed due to speeding? We give such excuses, but are we sure it's really warranted?

> enabled alarm that in normal use would be to annoying and resetting would be need

So you want a driver in an already stressful situation to be nagged periodically with an alarm that "in normal use would be too annoying" (i.e. during stress, it will certainly be much more annoying)?

That doesn't sound like a good solution.

It happens but it’s quite rare that someone is in a situation where going that much faster than normal is actually a good trade (more likely that they’ll crash or get t-boned running a red light).

You could probably work with that by shifting the risk back to the driver: allow the override to work by disabling the entertainment system (few boy racers like driving in silence) and have it blink the lights, play a warning over the external speakers, and text the local emergency number to alert them. If you have a buddy bleeding out in the back seat, you will welcome the attention and the cops are going to escort you to the hospital.

Because even such basic feat is technically not possible, only on a minor percentage of roads. Even limits shown by Apple/Gmaps are often incorrect, the ones that are shown on a midrange 1y old car dashboard aided by camera+maps are laughable.

There's a max speed limit in the US. I believe the fastest Ive ever seen is 75 or 80. Set it to that.

Varies by state. I think 85 is the current highest, in Texas. No way to know if max speed limits will go up or down in the future.

These cars have internet connectivity and get software updates. They could be updated if the maximum speed limit in the entire state changes.

And of course every car will be surely connected all the time, downloading the update as soon as any law comes in effect that affects max speed in a given situation. Also the GPS will surely tell with 100% accuracy which state road you are driving. Also road status will be surely up to date both in state digital map and visual signing. Also there is no way someone could exploit this feature maliciously.

Consider that the effort of getting an update is less than your state DOT changing the legal maximum - and that people will be highly motivated. It’s not like they need to do this every day - in most states they’ll never do it in the life of not only the car but the driver!

Maximum speed in e.g. Germany is unlimited, so yeah technically that is already the case.

From what I understand, cars in Japan are all capped at 180 km/h, and cars that are capable of more often have a gps check to unlock automatically when on a known race track.

180 is still quite high but at least not completely insane as some of the gangs were before that limit. A number would probably need to be found for any country, state, etc but the tech is probably ready.

Not only would basic geo-fencing be simple, other mfrs have aleeady done it:

>Tesla’s commitment to driver independence and responsibility is different from some competitors, whose driver-assistance technologies are loaded with high-definition maps with rigorous levels of detail that can tip vehicles off to potential roadway hazards and obstructions. Some manufacturers, including Ford and General Motors, also only allow the technology to work on compatible roadways that have been meticulously mapped.

> NHTSA said it would be too complex and resource-intensive to verify that systems such as Tesla Autopilot are used within the conditions for which they are designed, and it potentially would not fix the problem.

So why not just TELL Tesla that it needs to operate within those conditions, and then enforce when it fails to do so? How can this regulatory body be so ass-backwards.

Why not tell automakers not to make vehicles capable of achieving speeds over 50-70mph?

Im not arguing with you, just pointing out that plenty of enforcements are in place related to automobiles and they are all "honor system" and "expensive to enforce", even speeding, which can largely be automated is still expensive to enforce...

People choose to speed - they don’t choose for their cars driving aids not to work as advertised.

If it is known that these aids don’t work in certain situations, then they should be prevented from being activated in those situations.

They don’t need to enforce all offences, just those reported, such as the one mentioned in the article. The car already collects its own evidence. What has changed since that incident? Incremental improvements no doubt, but it is STILL known that those aids do not work effectively, and shouldn’t be operated on country lanes, yet you can easily activate them with no warning.

Sure. Im not going to respond any further then, you should explore this further, because you are making hella assumptions and clearly don't understand federal/state traffic laws in the US.

Also, chill out, I was only suggesting a thought exercise about choice... not arguing with you.

What makes you think I’m not chilled? Are you responding to some other comment maybe?

It seems like if it was called lane assist cruise control, etc. it would be a lot clearer. I'd prefer that first to requiring geo locks, tracking, etc because people want to stare at their phones.

Yeah, well maybe if it wasn't called Full Self Driving less people would use it as such. Where the f is Lina Khan on this?

It's not. Autopilot is basically just traffic aware cruise control and lane keep. FSD is a paid add-on that does other stuff.

FSD and Autopilot are both words used to empower deceptive and dangerous marketing messages.

Jgalt indeed.

> neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/honesty.html

https://archive.is/PentB

Is there any solution to the recaptcha loop?

Don't use cloudflare DNS.

Thank you!

I only get this with Safari and Private Relay enabled. Works in other browsers fine in my experience (I use Kagi Orion as a secondary browser)

Add an entry for it in /etc/hosts

https://jarv.is/notes/cloudflare-dns-archive-is-blocked/

TL;DR Operator of archive.is blocks DNS requests from providers who don't pass ECS information to them resulting in issues like the redirect loop.

If you're on Firefox, add all the archive.today variants (you can get them on Wikipedia) to the Secure DNS blacklist in Firefox settings.

Why was this flagged?

One hypothesis is that Tesla fans flag negative stories.

Irresponsible people do irresponsible things -- film at 11.

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