> He said that the Tesla did not slow down but that he was able to stop, still hitting the crossbar and damaging his windshield.
So this guy has been in a similar position before and still let the car barrel towards the train hoping it would stop this time? I don’t buy his story.
The fog is an interesting situation too, as non-vision technologies would struggle here too.
At the point where it crossed the road the train was moving sideways relative to the car. In the range direction it was close to stationary relative to the ground (and the crossing arm was entirely stationary, of course). So I think radar would be unlikely to save this case. If the radar was looking to the side, so it could see the train cars approaching at high speed and predict that they would enter the road, then maybe. But this seems like it would also potentially have a lot of false positives e.g. at overpasses. Perhaps for that reason, I believe automotive radars like the ones Teslas used to have generally only point toward the front. And if the train had been stopped in the crossing, as they sometimes are, the radar would be unhelpful no matter where it was pointed.