http://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-draws ... 1467319355

Semi truck pulled out in front of it and it didn't even touch the brakes. I guess Tesla's sensors can miss 76 feet long, 13 and a half foot tall objects in the road. May be a bit of a (forgive the pun) roadblock going forward.

Seems like it has been out a long time for that to be the first death. They are going to happen. The future of self driving will be in the insurance tables if it's safer than human driven.

Self driving is a big Brick thing he wants I think.

_________________
Elections have consequences.

They mentioned a "brightly lit sky" but I wonder if the sensors missed the big space under the trailer, which was perpendicular to the car. Sounds like a gruesome crash...flew right under/through the truck (possible decapitation?), across a field, through a fence, and into a pole.

_________________

Yup but I wouldn't consider getting in one on the highway right now. Tech is still too young.

This seems bad but a lot of non self driving cars had horrific accidents that day too.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Sure, but when someone misses the massive truck in the middle of the road and slams into it we just assume they were paying zero attention and blame it on that. We don't blame it on the principle of the human capability to drive, because everyone with a license knows not to slam into trucks. The human "tech" is fine, our sensors work.

Can't say the same about "autopilot"

The total number of accidents and fatalities will go WAY down with self driving cars. It's a numbers game.

We'll all be safer on the road with self driving cars even if they aren't 100% perfect.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I believe a lot of the issue is just around the ethical decisions. If a car has a choice to plow head-on into a semi or take out a group of kids on the sidewalk, which will it choose? When it's humans behind the wheel, it's just reflex/instinct. With self-driving cars, they would be able to make a calculated decision regarding which is the better choice.

Personally, I think they should program them to determine the aggregate wealth of the people who would die and to crash into the poorer group. Just IMO.

_________________

this says more about TESLA than about self-driving cars. shit company, shit cars.

I believe good dolphin made this case and I am stealing it but the answer is to protect the driver just like we have now while still following the law.

The true potential of self driving cars is to improve how they operate in a car crash to the point where you can be relatively safe in an accident because of positioning and the ability for things like the windows to get covered with a hard shell or even eject prior to the crash.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

the other aspect of this is having a miniscule number of self-driving cars navigating roads overwhelmingly populated by vehicles driven by drunk/high/medicated/stupid-as-fuck humans jibber-jabbering on their cell phones or texting lot lizards about meeting up at the next truck stop.

once all vehicles identify themselves to other vehicles in their space via a local-to-that-area network type communication, these sort of incidents disappear.

I'm also pretty positive that the car pool lanes will very quickly turn into self driving lanes who can then communicate to each other and potentially even have markers in the road that give off a signal.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I would imagine there will be a political debate over it that could go in a million different directions. I believe MANY would argue what you said in your first paragraph. Others will probably argue that we could determine some sort of cost-benefit to make a philosophical decision regarding what to do. And, of course, there will be financial and insurance institutions that will argue that the decisions should be made based on monetary ramifications. We'll probably be too old and jaded to care.

_________________

I love to drive long distances. I hope they don't take that away from me.

_________________

following the law is going to be the defense/default case for these situations. a few states/municipalities (Neb, Mass, Az, Michigan, New York City--after a century of basically letting drivers get away with murder, as long as they weren't drunk or otherwise grossly negligent--have started adopting these "moving violation causing death" statutes that make it a 1 year misdemeanor if a driver commits a moving violation (speeding, crossing center line, running stop sign etc) and that results in someone's death. Like happened with this chick:

http://upnorthlive.com/news/local/woman ... ed-to-jail

what's intersting is that some of these cases could/would have been prosecuted previously under negligent or vehicular manslaughter/homicide statues--which carried far lengthier prison terms. up to 15 years vs 1.

some, like the nyc statute, have a "rule of 2" that says if the person commits multiple moving violations and it results in someone's injury/death, they get bumped up to a higher class violation with a stiffer penalty.

The Goch woman above--based on witness testimony that she was doing at least 20 mph over of the speed limit + crossed the center line and took out a married couple on their motorcycles--would've been a candidate for negligent homicide prior to the moving violation causing death statute.

These quasi "strict-liability" criminal statutes feel like attempts to address what will happen once we have self-driving cars running people down. if the auto-pilot car did so and violated no traffic laws/committed no moving violations, chances are there will be no criminal or even civil liability attached to the car owner/"driver". But if the car breaks the law, then liability--both criminal and civil--with attach to the owner/driver/main passenger.

There is a warning on this car every time it is activated that says it "is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times.".

Can't really blame Tesla for this one then.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Here we go.

_________________

so the geniuses at TESLA don't have the technology to detect and then shut-down the auto-pilot when someone takes their hands off the steering wheel for, say, longer than the Eagles 'Life In the Fast Lane'?

I thought it was strange that any company would say that a car was ready for this type of stuff.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You can blame them for that.

But Tesla is going to lose to the Big 3 anyways.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

In April tesla release they had gone 47 million miles in auto pilot and were logging about 1 million new miles a day. Ball park that puts them at 1 fatality in 150 million miles. Govt stats say on average there is 1.3 fatalities per 100 million miles driven. Early read says its on par with human drivers.

Pretty good for a technology that isn't even ready yet.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Rocky 4 paved the way for this kind of stuff. Just one more reason it's a great movie.

_________________

With Paulie's robot? That thing was sweet....

_________________

I hate being on the brick side of the argument. But they are the ones pushing this out and forcing everyone to follow. I couldn't see any other manufacturer being first with this. Too much liability.

Anyone can hate on musk... But he as kept true to his vision where as jobs sold out.

Hey everybody laughed at wine fridges once and look at how great my life is now.

TESLA has issues beyond recognizing giant trucks right in front of their vehicles--like maybe a kill switch function when pieces of the car get lopped off all of sudden.

Looks like this zombie TESLA kept going even after hitting the truck and having its top ripped off: hit 2 fences and a light pole and then appears to be trying to get back on the road when it finally crapped out:

The car definitely has the fire and passion.

_________________
Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

I can't city and state governments allowing this. They would lose a large percentage of money from tickets.

_________________