[Rahulkool]

One of the Tesla model S met with fatal crash, first with auto pilot mode. Car couldn't detect the trailer which was merging in the car's lane from left side. Because of white sky and similar color trailer. It was tragic that the car went under the trailer from side and the roof was hit. Surprising bit is that the driver also missed the trailer. Maybe too dependent on autopilot ? The trailer should have a side impact bars ? i thought these were mandatory in US.

Tesla says that NHTSA is investigating the accident. Also this is first fatal accident in 130million miles have been done by auto pilot mode which is way ahead that 94million mile average of other vehicles.

https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tragic-loss

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/30/12...nomous-model-s

[heydj]

Hopefully investigators will not take undue harsh measures against autopilot, instead objectively look at the data to improve the system. Everything said and done I doubt AI will ever get human intuition.

[GTO]

Same driver had a near-miss in April and praised the auto-pilot system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5rraWJq6E

“Tesla Model S autopilot saved the car autonomously from a side collision from a boom lift truck. I was driving down the interstate and you can see the boom lift truck in question on the left side of the screen on a joining interstate road. Once the roads merged, the truck tried to get to the exit ramp on the right and never saw my Tesla. I actually wasn’t watching that direction and Tessy (the name of my car) was on duty with autopilot engaged. I became aware of the danger when Tessy alerted me with the “immediately take over” warning chime and the car swerving to the right to avoid the side collision.

You can see where I took over when there’s a little bit of blip in the steering. Tessy had already moved to the right to avoid the collision. I was not able to slow down even more due to the heavy traffic (cars were behind me). Once I got behind him I slowly added more room between us until he exited. I was not tail gating after the incident.”

Source

I don't think the world is ready for 100% reliance on self-driving cars. And even when the developed world is, India will take a couple more centuries. Our driving conditions are simply too unpredictable.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by heydj

Everything said and done I doubt AI will ever get human intuition.

The same was said before machines/automation replaced humans in several other jobs.

Barring this incident, if all the vehicles on the road are driven by AI, it will become a much much safer place even with today's technology compared with being driven by humans.

[vinit.merchant]

Originally Posted by GTO

India will take a couple more centuries. Our driving conditions are simply too unpredictable.

Less of the driving conditions (read as Infra) and more of driving manners and habits.

[dZired]

Originally Posted by Rahulkool

Surprising bit is that the driver also missed the trailer. Maybe too dependent on autopilot ?

Driver of the Truck invoved in this accident claims that the Model S driver was watching a Harry Potter movie inside the car at the time of accident.

The Tesla driver was "playing Harry Potter on the TV screen" and driving so quickly that "he went so fast through my trailer I didn't see him."

Source

[Altocumulus]

In India in Auto Pilot mode our cars would be standing, not moving.

However, back to topic, one of the mentioned sources has a diagram of the accident released by the police. It clearly shows arrogant driving by the trailer driver assuming the car would stop. On the other side, the driver wasn't paying attention to the road.

[Acharya]

Folks,

Came across following news on Tesla driver being killed, as autopilot failed to differentiate between bright daylight and white color side body of a trailer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...ecb_story.html

I've never been a big fan of extensive use of technology in drive assists, for me nothing can beat a sensible human being in driver's seat. Nevertheless, technological advancement and it's use is inevitable in auto industry.

Tesla points out that this is the first fatal accidents in 130 million mile of autopilot operations, fair enough.
At the end of the day, why ride a car (u can't call this driving a car) if you do not wish to drive it, take something which is driven by a common driver (e.g. Train/Bus/Flight).

Mods: Pls remove the thread, if inappropriate.

[VPSuchin]

"A check of Baressi’s driving history shows that the Palm Harbor, Florida owner/operator has been cited several times in the past year-and-a-half for failure to comply with maintenance standards, Hours of Service (HOS) regulations, and traffic laws.

His record shows two unsafe driving violations — a failure to obey a traffic control device in Virginia in March, and an improper lane change in Connecticut in January 2015. Two vehicle maintenance violations were issued in Maryland in May 2015 (for unsafe tire depth and an inoperable lamp), and three HOS violations were recorded in Virginia in January of this year. Those violations included driving beyond a 14-hour duty period and having a record of duty status that wasn’t current.

The crash occurred at 3:40 p.m. on May 7, so the sun would have been hitting the side of the trailer facing Brown’s eastbound vehicle. Weather reports from the area show sunny skies and temperatures in the low to mid 80s. Brown’s car crested a slight rise as it approached the unsignalized intersection, so it’s possible that rising heat from the roadway and glare obscured his vehicle from the truck’s position when the decision was made to turn.

Regardless of whether the truck driver was at fault, the failure of the Autopilot to detect and respond to the danger is a huge blow to the automaker and the reputation of its safety-minded technology. Earlier this week, a video emerged that showed a Tesla Model S recognizing a pedestrian in front of the vehicle but repeatedly failing to brake while driving in Autopilot mode."

Source

[searchingheaven]

Originally Posted by GTO

I don't think the world is ready for 100% reliance on self-driving cars. And even when the developed world is, India will take a couple more centuries. Our driving conditions are simply too unpredictable.

Originally Posted by prabuddhadg

Well, it is possible to drive predictably. That has to be the key to safety on the road. Human intuition is required because people want to get there before others, by bending rules if necessary.

Pilot here. I would just like to say that even in an aircraft with the most advanced of autopilots, the pilot is still responsible for monitoring and ensuring that the autopilot is doing exactly what he or she wants it to do. You can't just set up the autopilot, tune in spotify on your phone and snore off for the entire flight. Autopilot is meant to be an assistive tool, and not as the primary driver of your car or the pilot of your aircraft. Theoretically speaking, I could teach you the basics of flying my aircraft on autopilot in 10 hours. But does that mean you can actually fly? No.

It's not fair to put any blame on Tesla at all. They explicitly said the car couldn't drive itself and that you should still pay full attention while using auto pilot. Tesla knew the car couldn't drive itself fully and made that fully clear to the customer. When a customer then ignores that and tries to let the car drive itself without paying attention, it's not Tesla's fault because they made it clear that the car wasn't capable of that. Blaming Tesla is like buying plastic tupperware that says not to microwave it, putting it in the microwave, then blaming Tupperware when it melts. Of course it melts! It said that on the box!

Although I have to say that I am not a fan of these auto-pilot feature in these cars, be it America or anywhere else. The American Psychological Association did a study on these semi-auto-pilot features in cars and found that reaction time in the event of an emergency is severely impacted when you don't have to maintain your alertness. No surprise there. I think that the technology development focus should be on mitigating risk for driver's inattentiveness or lapses in attention, rather than fostering a more relaxing ride in your death mobile.

[maddy42]

May the driver RIP. He relied too much on the tesla. If he had tried to correct he may have been alive.

The claim by the trucker can be to save his behind. He took a left turn even though a car was approaching him.

I wish the cops do a proper assesment and punish the guilty.

Tesla: Well this couldnt come at a worse time. The shareholders are already annoyed with their move to aquire solarcity, now this one would be a massive blow in their armor as they claim their autopilot is the safest out there and is used to sell more cars! Shareprices of the company are dropping which would make them scale down their plans if the investigation blames tesla for the crash.

Maddy

[sgiitk]

Tesla say the autopilot did 210 million km before this unfortunate accident. Worldwide (I guess it excludes India) the average accident rate is one per 100 million km. If true then it is excellent.

[v12]

Does the Tesla not come with any other collision warning systems which brake automatically when they sense an object ahead of it. I believe that would have prevented the accident in the first place.

An excerpt from Car & Driver

[Rahulkool]

Originally Posted by v12

Does the Tesla not come with any other collision warning systems which brake automatically when they sense an object ahead of it. I believe that would have prevented the accident in the first place.

An excerpt from Car & Driver

Tesla has an autopilot system which is more advanced than a mere collision warning system. Failure of that system is being discussed in this thread.

[katchkamalesh]

In a rat race to be first to roll out any state of the art innovations, OEMs push the limits of technology to provide an innovative offering, which tends be more complex and may require a considerable time to attain sufficient maturity.

At times OEMs oversee the effect of marketing on consumer. Case in point is the Autopilot system. Even after repeated warning consumers still went ahead and gave control of the vehicle without monitoring the system. You can see number of such instances in youtube.

Even if the consumer caused the accident, the very fact that autopilot (level 2 autonomous car) was engaged will make people believe that the system was at fault. This negative sentiment will affect the roll out of autonomous technology.

In general, a number of sensors such as Cameras, radars, ultrasonic sensors are used to monitor the road ahead. The model S is fitted with AEB system which will apply brakes if the vehicle detects that there is a possibility of collision. However in this case, the vehicle failed to detect the trailer because of the trailer's height, colour of the trailer and background of the sky. Hence the brakes were not applied. The car went underneath the trailer and Tesla's windshield hit the bottom of the trailer. Since the car was not able to detect the collision, the car kept going, leaving the road, striking a fence, crossing a field, passing through another fence and finally hitting a utility pole about 100 feet south of the road.