Another autonomous driving death

[brush]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tesla-says-deadly-crash-involved-autopilot-system_us_5abf8fb1e4b055e50acdf3c4

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Sounds like pilot error, so to speak. These cars tell you when you have to take over

and in this case the driver was so advised and did nothing.

So while there will be a learning curve for these, I suspect most issues will be pilot error. I want a driver-less car.

[dalton99a]

2. Well, the shortage of human drivers is acute

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Maybe they should keep those things off public streets until the bugs are worked out.

[BootinUp]

4. That would make too much sense

This is like a fad for the techies with money to blow.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

5. The whole idea that the human driver needs to be on alert seems flawed.

Maybe it works better than I imagine, but seems to me that if you have to be paying attention every second in case the autopilot needs you to do something, then you may as well be driving. If their attention is focused on something else, how well is the average person going to be able to respond?

[Ms. Toad]

9. I'm guessing similar arguments were made about cruise control . . . n/t

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

10. If so, they were far less cogent arguments.

While using cruise control, the only thing you expect not to do is have your foot on the gas the whole time.

[Ms. Toad]

11. It was a pretty significant change when it was introduced.

Anytime you remove anything you need to focus on while driving, you increase the risk of disaster if the system fails. It is far easier to space out while driving if you are not constantly having to monitor and adjust your speed.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

12. True, if you're on a long stretch of highway.

But, you still have to steer, which, even on a highway, requires constant attention. So, cruise control doesn't come close to being as big a deal as self-driving cars.

[Old Crank]

6. How do you continue to drive

on a section of road where you have already noticed problems as if there are no problems. One would think that as a driver you would be more alert in those areas that have been shown to be deficient based on your own experiences. Also ignoring the warnings is not good also.

Replying to another theme here. You can't work the bugs out until you are on the road. The Uber car that ran over the pedestrian had a driver whose job was to be there for safety issues. The driver was not looking at the road for a good period of time before the crash. Obviously there was a problem with the Uber's car system that didn't detect what they should have but that is why the emergency driver is there for.

I think that the death/injury rate is still much lower than regular drivers. The cars will get better with more data. More data comes from more practice on the roads.

[brush]

7. The back-up driver concept doesn't seem to work well as the back-up was the weak link in both deaths

Even more in this one as the car even alerted him.

[JI7]

8. This is the problem i see with these cars

The drivers don't pay attention as they are supposed to and even instructed to do as in this case.

These are not 100 percent autonomous but that's how the drivers will treat it and accidents easily avoidable will happen.

It's a people problem. Just look at how people text and other things that distract.

So they will just have to come up with more reliable fully driverless cars.