[HN Gopher] Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less s... ___________________________________________________________________ Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims Author : gnicholas Score : 371 points Date : 2022-02-02 18:53 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (twitter.com) (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com) | gameswithgo wrote: | EDIT: After reading the full paper and not just the twitter | graphs, some of what I said is wrong. That is, they also | controlled for age, and when controlling for age and road type, | autpilot was just worse. | | On the one hand I had the same suspicion about the unadjusted | data, on the other hand the fact that autopilot isn't _worse_ is | pretty promising! | | However, average human rates include people driving drunk, tired, | elders, teenagers etc. | | So at 43 when I am driving sober, I'm probably safer not using | autopilot. When I was 19 probably safer to use autopilot. | lbrito wrote: | >So at 43 when I am driving sober, I'm probably safer not using | autopilot. When I was 19 probably safer to use autopilot. | | That might work out for you, but if teens think like that _now_ | and avoid years of driving experience, they can't expect to be | any better at driving at 43 than they are as teenagers, which | kind of kills the argument. | gameswithgo wrote: | The skills are pretty easy to acquire, it is the maturity | that is hard. | gnicholas wrote: | > _the fact that autopilot isn 't worse is pretty promising!_ | | Presumably drivers take over when it makes mistakes, which | tilts the stats a bit. | | > _When I was 19 probably safer to use autopilot._ | | As a parent, I wonder about what safety tech I would let my | kids use when learning to drive. I want to make sure they fully | learn how to drive, which makes me think I shouldn't let them | use too much semi-autonomous tech. | | At the same time, it seems foolish to tell them not to use | blind spot monitors, or to even expect them to "check their | blind spot" the old-fashioned way if their cars have monitors. | | Interestingly, my father (in his 70s) tells me he'll never | trust blind spot monitors, so I'm seeing a generational | difference even between him and me. Too bad, since older | drivers probably could benefit the most from not having to look | back when changing lanes. Older eyes take longer to re-focus, | so it's more likely an older driver would miss something | happening ahead on account of having looked rearward. | tacLog wrote: | > At the same time, it seems foolish to tell them not to use | blind spot monitors, or to even expect them to "check their | blind spot" the old-fashioned way if their cars have | monitors. | | I have never owned a car with blind spot monitoring. Do | people really just rely on them completely? Even in dense | urban environments with bikes around? Or is it more of a | judgement call? Different perspectives on this would be nice. | | I have never seen the little light on the mirrors fail to | detect me while I am riding but I never trust a driver not to | just turn right cutting me off anyways. | | I am not trying to pass judgement just understand how these | driver aids change the way people drive. | gnicholas wrote: | I've never owned a car with BSM but have rented for | extended periods of time. I would expect that after a year | or two of using the system while also actively checking my | blind spot the conventional way, I would become comfortable | with understanding its reliability and limitations (if any) | and would adjust my behavior. | | Some Hondas pipe through a camera feed from the side of the | vehicle when you turn on your blinker, which wouldn't have | the same potential weakness for cyclists that you mention | with the binary sensor-based systems. | sdoering wrote: | > Different perspectives on this would be nice. | | Driving for ~25 years. Did quite some kilometers when I was | between 19 and 30. | | My current car is the first one with a lot of assistance | systems. I actually see them as additional safety level, | but as a first instance still use my senses. Blind spot | monitoring is something that I learned to value as a slice | in the Swiss Cheese Model of Security [1]. | | And I detect myself driving extra carefully when driving a | car without them. Way more careful than I was driving | before I ever had blind spot monitoring. | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model?wprov | =sfla1 | LeifCarrotson wrote: | It's practially a trope how in sci-fi movies with flying | futuristic cars, it's a demonstration of extreme competence | for a character to demand "manual controls" to pilot the | vehicle...like every normal driver does today. I expect | that will become more and more real-world. Even today, most | drivers don't know how to drive a manual transmission | vehicle, much less how to double-clutch one without | synchros or how to stop on ice without ABS. Those are | disappearing from public roads and from the capabilities of | average drivers, I expect that driving without aids will | follow in the same way. | | As part of my job, I end up renting vehicles pretty | frequently, they're often newer models than my daily and | have blind spot monitoring, backup cameras, radar cruise, | vision-based lanekeeping assist, etc. It's frightening how | in the course of a week you can get used to having to put | less effort into centering yourself in the lane, trusting | that cruise control will just keep a comfortable distance | from the vehicle ahead of you. Driving becomes a lot less | stressful. When I get back home and climb into my old | manual-everything beater, though, it's quite an adjustment. | | Regarding blind spot checks, yes, the Audi I recently drove | had alerts for that, the blinking yellow light in my | peripheral vision when cars were passing me was a nice | reinforcement, but I'm too conditioned to do head checks to | skip those. Likewise, reverse cameras - I've driven many | work vans, pickups with headache racks, Jeeps with | scratched up plastic, pulled trailers and RVs, etc where | the windshield-mounted rearview mirror is useless; lots of | pros get used to backing up using the side mirrors only. | However, I asked my sister in law (who is extremely | competent at most things) to drive my truck for an errand | and she asked for help backing it out of the driveway - her | car has always had a backup camera, which is honestly lots | easier and she was completely uncomfortable using the side | mirrors. | | It's not hard to imagine that someone who only drives with | assistive tools would adapt to become dependent on them; | I'd argue it's more unusual to expect that they wouldn't! | FireBeyond wrote: | Perhaps pedantic, but also genuine curiosity, thinking | about it: | | > how to stop on ice without ABS | | My understanding is that ABS won't do anything to help | you stopping on ice, anyway. On ice, braking is hampered | by lack of traction on tires, whereas ABS is trying to | avoid the challenges of tires locking up, so you can | maintain (some semblance of) directionality. | FireBeyond wrote: | No. Even as a tech geek... I use it as an aid, but not as | the primary. Even when I'm driving a fire engine with a | dash monitor that has seven always on, always visible | cameras around it, I thought I'd use them a lot more than I | do. I do use the cameras in my car supplementarily too, | helps me dial parking perfectly, etc. But I still find | myself doing visual checks. | | But I also grew up and had my formative driving learning | years without the benefit of such aids. | rzimmerman wrote: | I also think it will be important for any future teenager of | mine to learn to drive without the regenerative braking that | Teslas default to. It's a much better driving experience IMO, | but I worry a new driver won't learn the "oh no hit the | brakes!" reflex if they rarely use the brake pedal. I'd | probably force them to learn with the car set to "normal" | ICE/idle--style for the first few months. | Psyonic wrote: | Is there actually a "normal" style? I've only done a test | drive but it seemed like there were various levels of | automatic braking, but none that actually allowed you to | coast. | spywaregorilla wrote: | The road and age adjusted graph shows tesla still being better, | by a trivial amount | weego wrote: | "Tesla Autopilot: Marginally better than the worst drivers on | the road" is quite the sales pitch | justapassenger wrote: | > So at 43 when I am driving sober, I'm probably safer not | using autopilot. When I was 19 probably safer to use autopilot. | | That's very dangerous thinking. Autopilot isn't self driving | and will actively try to kill you, from time to time, like all | driver assist systems. 19 year old are much more likely to | abuse autopilot and drive distracted/drunk. Only reason those | systems aren't crashing left and right is because drivers are | paying attention. | gameswithgo wrote: | It is only dangerous thinking with the most uncharitable | interpretation of what I wrote. | jiggawatts wrote: | I've heard Tesla owners describing autopilot as feeling like | being a passenger with a learner driver behind the wheel. | | That was my first hand experience also, it feels like I'm the | nervous dad gritting his teeth while the teenager does | something technically legal and safe but nerve-racking. | rurp wrote: | I'm not too surprised by this and bet a lot of HN folks suspected | that this was the case, but I'm really glad to see this come out | and hope it gets a lot of visibility. | | Controlling for confounding variables is a complicated and often | subtle process that many people don't have an intuitive grasp of, | so Elon's BS claims have probably been very convincing for many. | hnburnsy wrote: | From the paper: | | (1) Statistics obtained from Hardmanet al.(2019) (2) Statistics | obtained from Blanco et al.(2016) (3) Statistics obtained from | Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences | (2013) | | I don't understand how such chronologically disparate sets of | data could produce reliable statistics. The Telsa demographic | data (1) was from a "2018 demographic survey of 424 Tesla owners" | caditinpiscinam wrote: | How is it that Tesla (and other companies developing self-driving | capabilities) are allowed to deploy their products in the real | world? We make people take a test to get a drivers license -- why | don't we have requirements for self-driving systems? We require | that cars pass routine mechanical inspections -- why isn't the | software controlling these cars regulated? | bob1029 wrote: | This is the point that bothers me the most. Everyone is so | fixated on the things they can see and talk about (i.e. | regulate). The complex mountain of software running on these | cars is _the entire_ bucket of liability. | | How do you mandate software quality? I don't think testing | alone is enough if you seriously care about safety. Any test | can be gamed as tesla has aptly demonstrated so far. | Dylan16807 wrote: | There are requirements in some places, and maybe there should | be more. | | But on the other hand, even the most pessimistic examination of | this data doesn't seem to suggest that these cars are below the | "can get a drivers license" threshold. | dboreham wrote: | Because in the context of regulations, they don't claim it to | be self-driving. | FireBeyond wrote: | Exactly. Marketing: "Self driving!" "The driver is only in | the seat for legal purposes. The car is driving itself." | Legal: "Maintain control of the vehicle at all times." | | Same with Summon. Marketing: "Bring your vehicle to you while | dealing with a fussy child!" Legal: "Maintain attention and | focus on vehicle at all times. Do not use while distracted." | heavyset_go wrote: | Regulators are asleep at the wheel. | ActorNightly wrote: | Its kinda amazing to see the cognitive dissonance that people | have when it comes to "regulators". | | When these regulators get swayed by the car industry into | stupid stuff like 25 year import rule, or how they still keep | speed limits around which have nothing to do with safety as | they are based on outdated MPG savings initiative and end up | disproportionally affecting lower income people, they | rightfully are criticized. | | However, as soon as some manufacturer pops up and does | something that the public doesn't like, even for silly | reasons like not protecting people from themselves, people | immediately jump to wanting the "regulators" to do something | about it. Kinda makes it easy to see who has irrational hate | for Tesla/Musk versus those who actually care about | technology. | | The correct thing for the "regulators" to do is to make it | mandatory that every car has the same set of cameras and | instruments that Tesla cars do, and that data is streamed to | a publicly funded data warehouse where its open source and | available for anyone to use. | kevingadd wrote: | Regulation hasn't caught up with the technology, and even when | regulation exists regulators are very slow to enforce it. Uber | and Lyft were various degrees of blatantly illegal in many | places they operated, but it took regulators years to actually | do anything about it and at that point they were so well- | established that it rarely made sense to actually punish them. | It's a reliable bet to make if you've got investor millions to | spend on lawyers and lobbyists. | jsight wrote: | Because based upon this data it is at least as safe as not | deploying it. This data actually suggests that it is marginally | safer. | gnicholas wrote: | Underlying study is here. [1] Full disclosure, I co-wrote the | piece for The Daily Beast [2] that originally suggested that | Tesla's methodology was seriously flawed. I am not a Tesla-hater | though -- I just thought it was odd that the company was playing | quite so fast and loose with their safety claims. | | 1: https://engrxiv.org/preprint/view/1973/3986 | | 2: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-tesla-and-elon-musk- | exagge... | julianz wrote: | So that Daily Beast article has been up for more than 5 years | with nobody fixing the horrible typo in the headline? Wow. | rosndo wrote: | Daily Beast, not the Economist. | jacquesm wrote: | > I just thought it was odd that the company was playing quite | so fast and loose with their safety claims. | | That's because it's marketing, not science. | sandworm101 wrote: | And because it's Tesla, not Honda. | | Every car company does marketing. Few make over-the-top | safety claims about their products. This is the company that | decided to have its cars not stop at stop signs. Normal rules | don't apply to Tesla. | | https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60230072 | | "In recall documents, the electric vehicle maker notes that | if certain conditions are met, the "rolling stop" feature is | designed to allow the vehicle to travel through all-way-stop | intersections at up to 5.6mph without coming to a complete | stop." | yumraj wrote: | > And because it's Tesla, not Honda. | | And because it's Elon Musk, not some ethical CEO | aurelianito wrote: | Ethical CEO is an oximoron. | yumraj wrote: | I feel sad that you believe that. | rhino369 wrote: | The Silicon Valley Stop is the new Hollywood Stop, huh. | omgwtfbyobbq wrote: | It's not like Honda doesn't engage in puffery. | | Most retailers make over-the-top claims regarding their | products, including safety. | | https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-honda- | fine-2015... | NikolaNovak wrote: | I mean... I _am_ "Tesla Hater" in that I don't like the | direction they're proceeding in; but every human being I | ever met in real actual life does rolling stops under some | conditions. Last time I can confidently state that "I never | rolled through a stop at very slow speed" is when I was 17, | and only NOW do I realize how much of an annoying bum I was | :P. So if a car does a rolling stop through a stop sign | when there are no other cars obstacles or people, my | thought is 1. yes that's a breach of law as written 2. It's | what everybody else safely does. | | Kind of like in many jurisdictions, police will gently talk | to you if you drive 60kph on the freeway, or even if you're | doing 90kph in the left lane. Yes it's legal, no it isn't | safe. | enlyth wrote: | When I was a kid and we were living in Vancouver, my mum | told me how she did a 'rolling stop' through a stop sign | at 4am in the morning with empty streets, and a cop car | noticed it and gave her a massive fine. She was in tears | because my family wasn't earning much money at the time. | | For some reason I still remember this story decades later | and always come to a full stop at stop signs, that's how | I was taught in driving school and that's how I will | always do it. I'm a calm driver and I don't care if | people are annoyed by me, I will drive the speed limit | and I will not rush anywhere, it's not my problem that | someone else needs to speed because they woke up late, | safety should be the number one priority when you're | operating a vehicle. | ipaddr wrote: | Sounds like a ticket to fight as the cop working at 4am | would have a hard time showing up to court. | ceejayoz wrote: | In my area, cops have specific court dates; all their | tickets are set to be handled on the same day that's | already part of the cop's schedule. | sandworm101 wrote: | A) Cops don't work such shifts for the weeks/months it | takes to get a court date. B) Cops don't normally "show | up" in traffic courts. They can often appear via | electronic means. C) Cops have great respect for courts. | If called, they show up. | | D) If your only defense is the faint hope that the cop | doesn't show, the judge is going to rain hellfire on you | for wasting everyone's time. Court costs. Amended | tickets. Contempt. Unless you are about to lose your | license, you don't want to roll that dice. If you go to | court to fight a traffic ticket you better have an actual | defense. | sokoloff wrote: | I've shown up to contest all but one traffic ticket I've | ever received*. It's up to the state to prove what I'm | being accused of; I am not required to admit to it or | passively pay the fine without appearing if I choose. | | I've won many (outright or gotten reductions to non- | moving violations) and lost some, but I've never had a | judge "rain hellfire on [me]" or anything even remotely | similar to that, even in cases where I pled "not guilty", | listened to the state's case, and presented no argument | in my defense. | | * I got a camera ticket in Switzerland on a business trip | that I did just pay rather than traveling back to appear | and undoubtedly lose. | Grustaf wrote: | That's a very odd reason to contest a fine. Clearly it | was justified. | ipaddr wrote: | It may not have been. Can the case be made, is there | proof, will anyone show up? Contesting a fine takes time | but the judge can reduce the amount if it was unusually | high. | hangonhn wrote: | I wonder if that might be a function of how roads near | you are designed. I live in the Bay Area and there are | definitely certain roads and intersections where I don't | feel safe not coming to a full stop and looking both | ways. It might be because of hills or that the other | direction has no stop sign, etc. Maybe where you live | roads have better visibility but at least in my | experience in my part of the Bay Area, I often find | myself needing to be very careful at some stop signs and | has consequently been doing complete stops. | bambax wrote: | > _Yes it 's legal_ | | IDK about the US, but in France the speed limit is a | target speed; if conditions are good (weather, | visibility, traffic) you're supposed to drive at or near | maximum speed. It's illegal to drive too slow, and | there's a specific fine for this. | | https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0 | 000... [in French] | FireBeyond wrote: | In Australia (I left 15 years ago) it was stated that you | were required to drive at the _maximum_ speed that met | the conditions: | | - not exceeding posted speed limit | | - appropriate for environmental conditions | | - your ability to safely control the vehicle | | And failure to do so could be fined. | jonathankoren wrote: | In the US it's legally a max. I have seen -- although | rarely -- entire lines of cars pulled over and ticketed | for speeding on an interstate (limited access, multilane | divided highway, max speed 65-70 mph (104-112 kph)) | Driving too fast for conditions, is a different fine, so | if it's foggy and you're going the posted limit, you | could also get fined. | | You can get ticketed for driving too slow, but I've never | seen it. I've only seen a minimum speed posted on an | interstate (45 mph (72 mph)), but conceivably you can get | ticked anywhere for impeding the flow of traffic. | jacquesm wrote: | > You can get ticketed for driving too slow, but I've | never seen it. | | I have (very gently) forced a car off the road once in | Germany with the police on 112, a very elderly gentleman | was doing 30 Kph on the autobahn and caused one near miss | after another. Police came and helped him to get home, we | talked for a while and it turned out that it was his | first trip in a long time to go and see his sister in | another town, he'd gotten lost and was frightened out of | his wits by all the traffic zooming by. | | I don't know how it ended, he probably kept his license | because clearly there was no officer around to witness | the event but I'm pretty sure he avoided the autobahn | after that. | pinkorchid wrote: | The law that you linked says that drivers aren't allowed | to drive at an unreasonably slow speed, and defines that | to be (for highways, with good weather, and just on the | leftmost lane) 80 km/h. | | It doesn't say that the speed limit is a target, or that | you're supposed to drive at or near it. | bambax wrote: | Yes, but it's how we're taught at driving school. I think | it's written down somewhere but can't find it at the | moment, so the article I linked to is the closest I could | find. | cgriswald wrote: | > ...but it's how we're taught at driving school. | | It doesn't matter. People have all kinds of things they | are taught about driving from their parents, instructors, | and even official documents that don't carry legal weight | ( _e.g._ , a highway patrol website). | | Even when these types of ideas are good ideas, they | aren't binding and you can't count on others to follow | those rules. The only true rules of the road are the | subset of the laws that are enforced; where enforcement | might be done by law enforcement officers, civil judges, | or insurance company adjudication processes. | rtikulit wrote: | On a public road I almost always come to a full stop, and | if I don't I recognize it as an error. That's the law and | there are very good reasons for it. It's an unambiguous | standard of performance, for example. Arguments for | rolling stops based on personal utility are selfish, | IMHO, and arguments pleading utility to others are | disingenuous--the rolling stoppers say that it's safer to | rolling stop because of the rolling stoppers? Please. | Think it through. :-) | | (Part of the reason I do it is because as I age I would | like to ingrain habits that will make me a safer driver | even as my cognitive ability declines.) | | Near me there is an intersection where the same cars | drive through on a daily basis and where the drivers have | habituated themselves to rolling stops. Yes, it's almost | always fine. But I have been almost T-boned twice, and | was hit once, fortunately with minimal damage. And even | though they do not have the right of way, their habit of | rolling stops regularly pre-empts the actual rules of the | road, and they cut off drivers who have the right of way. | | That this is due to the normalization of deviance is | abundantly obvious. | jacquesm wrote: | They way to deal with declining cognitive ability is to | stop driving, not to perform rituals. That said, you | should still follow the rules, but mostly because they | are the rules. Not because you are following arguments | based on personal utility, because they are selfish, | IMHO. | Swenrekcah wrote: | Safety rituals are extremely useful exactly because | accidents happen when you have reduced capacity without | realising it. | | Doesn't matter if it's because of lack of sleep, work | stress, cognitive decline, etc. | rtikulit wrote: | I'm struggling to respond constructively to your comment. | Think about all the phenomena that make up "cognitive | ability" and all of the possible dimensions and | properties of "cognitive decline". | | It should be obvious that your advice is not in any way | useful or actionable. And rituals are a very well | accepted strategy for dealing with situations which | demand consistent and good attention, where human | cognitive variability causes problems. | | A couple of famous examples--checklists used by aircraft | pilots, or the pointing rituals used on Japanese | railways. | sandworm101 wrote: | It is one thing to note that humans regularly break the | law. It is another thing to task people with programing a | robot to break that law. I'm very sure that many people | break the speed limit regularly. But I would never expect | to get away with programing a car to break that limit. No | sane person would ever tell an employee or customer that | rolling stops are OK, not in writing. | | And 5.6mph isn't rolling. That's beyond a walking pace. | That's jogging territory. Any cop watching an | intersection would ticket this. | NikolaNovak wrote: | I fully support the noble notions and idealistic ideas. | | But let's make it real, and let's ask a question about | the real world: | | Does that mean that expectation is all automated cars | will go exactly the speed limit on the left lane of North | American superhighways? | | If so, those cars will inherently be a danger to life and | limb. I don't care about any self-righteous driver who | indicates houghtily " _I_ drive speed limit on left lane | of American super highway ", I've spoken to advanced | driver safety instructors, highway police officers and | city councilors who all agree those people need to bloody | well move it along - it's just not _safe_. | cgriswald wrote: | > Does that mean that expectation is all automated cars | will go exactly the speed limit on the left lane of North | American superhighways? | | In the vast majority of states this would also be | illegal. If Tesla decides it safe, they should be able to | just rewrite the rules, though, right? | sandworm101 wrote: | Yes. For a company to program illegality into a product | opens them up to untold liability. Normal car companies | program their speedometers to read slightly high (5% | ish). This keeps them from being into lawsuits by people | who claim that an inaccurate speedometer contributed to | the severity of a crash. Any car company who programs a | car to drive faster than the limit _will_ be either | liable or have to pay lawyers in every crash involving | such cars. Even if their car doesn 't cause the crash, | the fact that it was speeding will contribute to the | severity of the accident. It would be like programing a | robotic bartender to serve kids who are underage but look | old enough to pass for 21. Corporate lunacy. | sebzim4500 wrote: | >Yes. For a company to program illegality into a product | opens them up to untold liability. | | People have been saying this for years yet Tesla is not | being sued into nonexistence. Presumably their contracts | are written well enough that if the user tells the car to | go above the speed limit that's on them. | sandworm101 wrote: | Because incidents involving these programs are very | small. At the moment there are very few Teslas on the | road in comparison to other car companies. There would | statistically only be a handful at most of such | accidents. But give it a few years until there are 10x or | 20x as many teslas on the road. Then the class actions | will start. That is if, like here, Tesla hasn't already | recalled all such vehicles. | frosted-flakes wrote: | There's a difference between the driver setting the | cruise control above the speed limit, and a computer | unilaterally deciding that it should run a stop sign. | aspenmayer wrote: | > Does that mean that expectation is all automated cars | will go exactly the speed limit on the left lane of North | American superhighways? | | It's already against road rules to stay in the passing | lane when cars behind wish to pass, regardless of the | speed limit, or if you're already driving at it. If cars | behind desire to overtake, give way. This is already | codified. No need to blame the cars or the self-driving | tech. It's the human driver who bears responsibility for | what the car does or doesn't do, as are the only ones | able to countermand the autopilot. Blaming Tesla for any | of that seems like dogpiling and behind the point. | [deleted] | sokoloff wrote: | That depends on the jurisdiction. In my state (MA), I can | use the left lane while passing other traffic even if | there is traffic behind me who wishes to go faster than I | am. | hedora wrote: | Not in California. Left lane fast, right lane slow isn't | the law, and you can pass in whatever lane you'd like. | | Studies show that, adjusted for congestion and weather, | SF Bay Area drivers have some of the highest accidents | per mile in the country. | Calavar wrote: | > And 5.6mph isn't rolling | | Most cars idle at 5 to 6 mph, so _any_ roll through a | stop sign is likely to break the 5 mph mark. | | > Any cop watching an intersection would ticket this. | | Not sure where you live, but this is absolutely not the | case where I am. I have only ever once heard of a traffic | officer ticketing for this. On the other hand, I see cops | watch on as people ignore "no turn on red" signs and let | them get away with it pretty much every day. Let alone | rolling through an intersection at 5 mph. | jmisavage wrote: | I've gotten a ticket before for a rolling stop. It | happens. | jlmorton wrote: | > This is the company that decided to have its cars not | stop at stop signs. Normal rules don't apply to Tesla. | | It's a driving profile which must be turned on that | implements behavior extremely common among the driving | public. My Honda with Traffic Sign Recognition and adaptive | cruise control lets me set the speed above the speed limit, | too. | | Our traffic laws are in many ways ambiguous, such that even | the police officers enforcing the laws will readily admit | you're allowed to drive above the posted speed limit. When | traffic rules are interpreted ambiguously, it's not that | strange for a driving profile to do the same. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | The driving public knows when it _can 't_ take such | calculated risks. Does the ML classifier know what it | isn't seeing? | somethoughts wrote: | It could also be that being slightly controversial and | possibly factually incorrect is by design in the "any press | is good press"/"it's better to ask forgiveness than | permission" kind of way. When you are a relative newcomer | going against legacy incumbents with much larger ad budgets | and fighting to live another day such guerrilla marketing | style tactics can be advantageous. | | The trick is to realize when you've jumped the shark and | are now the established brand and wean yourself of the | "fast and loose" approach. | [deleted] | contravariant wrote: | So to summarize: | | - Freeways account for 93% of distance travelled with Autopilot | | - Freeways account for 28% of the distance travelled by regular | drivers. | | - "vehicles on non-freeways crashed 2.01 times more often per | mile" | | a quick back of the envelop calculation suggests merely driving | on the freeway lowers accidents per mile by ~40%, which | accounts for most of the difference between Autopilot and | regular drivers. | avs733 wrote: | so in sum, Thomas Bayes just kicked Tesla square in the ass? | [deleted] | RyEgswuCsn wrote: | So it sounds like it's Simpson's paradox [1] at work. I had | always wondered why many people are slow to accept self-driving | cars despite the claims of them being statistically safer. I | think that explains it --- to make consumers confident about | the self-driving technologies, it is not enough for them to be | able to handle the "easy" kind of driving (e.g. on highway and | under relatively good visibility conditions) better than | humans; they need to demonstrate that they can drive better | than humans in the most challenging driving environments too. | | I guess this is the classic scenario where human intuition is | defeated by carefully presented statistics. | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox | chaxor wrote: | Can you explain how Simpsons paradox applies here? | chemengds wrote: | It's more traditional sampling bias than Simpsons paradox | RyEgswuCsn wrote: | The performance appears to be superior due to a large | proportion of the driving is done on easy environment. | oblio wrote: | The thing is, you don't even need Tesla "self driving" for | that. | | Adaptive cruise control, tech we've had for what, 20+ years? | is more than enough for most highways, it takes out ~80% of | the stress/boredom of driving, especially since lane changes | are minimal and curves are gentle. | | The hard parts of driving (aka not highways) are the real | problem, as expected. We solved the easy parts in 2000 and | who knows if we'll solve the hard parts by 2050. | CSSer wrote: | I have a car with adaptive cruise control and lane assist, | and most of my morning commute (on days when I go into the | office) is driven on the highway. Most of the time I don't | turn it on because I'm in a self-perceived hurry to get to | work, so I forget. | | You know what would be really nice? Something that detects | when it's safe and reasonable to suggest turning on | adaptive cruise control so I use it more. Maybe something | like detecting I've driven a few miles at a consistent rate | of speed above a certain threshold. | | The hard parts are definitely the problem, but there are | lots of easy wins left on the table too. | oblio wrote: | Isn't it just 1 button on the steering wheel to turn it | on? | | I definitely hope your car doesn't put it in some hidden | menus on the central screen. | Melatonic wrote: | I would personally hate for that to be on but I can see | your point. Maybe a simple hardware switch for on / off | and adaptive cruise control turns on once you are over | 65mph for more than 1 minute and will only adapt +-15mph | total? | RyEgswuCsn wrote: | For sure. Though even non-tech people are well aware that | adaptive cruise control cannot get us to true self driving | but "AI" allegedly can. | kybernetikos wrote: | > it is not enough for them to be able to handle the "easy" | kind of driving (e.g. on highway and under relatively good | visibility conditions) better than humans | | Is there any evidence that they do the easy stuff better than | humans? I would want to see it compared with cars of similar | age and cost driving on similar roads. I'm pretty skeptical | that such a comparison would in fact be favourable to Tesla. | nradov wrote: | People are slow to "accept" self-driving cars because they | don't exist in a form that anyone can actually buy. | Regardless of safety or lack thereof, I can't purchase a real | SAE level 4+ vehicle today at any price. | [deleted] | wilde wrote: | I think traditional auto makers have done a much better job | of communicating to consumers what the tech can actually do. | We don't have self driving cars (which implies that they can | drive in those harder conditions). We have cars that are good | at lane keeping on freeways. | | I wish Tesla would celebrate that victory rather than double | down on lies. | andrepd wrote: | >I am not a Tesla-hater though -- I just thought it was odd | that the company was playing quite so fast and loose with their | safety claims. | | If you're still surprised by this you've not been paying | attention to how Telsa operates. | maxdo wrote: | That's a stupid projection of a paid media. | | Most of the car brands underperform compare to them in terms | of safety. But because other brands release millions of | boring cars with 0 innovation they are not criticized. | | If cheap Ford model rollout a car that has 3 of 5 in term of | safety, or drag until last legally allowed moment to | introduce a mandatory safety feature, no one is going to | write "Ford/Car brand X is horrible". It's just a boring CarX | brand car. | | In fact there are so many cars with mediocre crash test | results on the road. There are so many car brands that | implement in a cheap way safety measures. Like mandatory | backup camera. In half car on the market you can barely see | an image during the sunny day. No one is posting scary | articles like " Toyota screen is killing people while driver | is backing up" | | Facts: Tesla was the first to introduce such wide range of | safety features in every car they sold. They don't make | safety a premium feature. They invest in own crash test | facilities. Only Volvo is kind of on par. | | You can calculate a lot and argue a lot but you can't deny | facts: | | - every tesla car has an exceptionally good crash test | results | | - drivers are more distracted nowadays mostly due to phones | | - Any car that has similar to tesla safety features is more | safe on the road. These are stop on a traffic light , | emergency stop if there is a person, collision avoidance | system, slow down near police car, signal if there is car in | a blind zone | | - Tesla is a major contributor of this AI driven safety | features mass adoption | | - Tesla has lots of measures to return distracted customer | back to the driving as opposed to any car on the road 10 | years ago | | - Tesla was first to introduce over the air updates of | software and firmware. Brands like GM is still planning to | bring in 2023. They were able to deliver number of safety | features instantly over the air. Infamous cops cars crash is | a good example of it. | | It is really hard to understand how you can make conclusion | that safety is not a priority for tesla despite so much | resources this brand invest in safety. | | Autopilot is a tool. You can miss use it, sure. But if you | care about safety it's hard to match with what they offer. | | You compare 0 with some number. A 10 y.o. car with cruise | control 10 has 0 smart safety features. Tesla now has Y | features with X amount of effectiveness. You can debate what | is X. But it is stupid to compare 0 vs ( Y * X ). It's just | safer. Period. | | Other car brands don't even dare to release such numbers. | ummonk wrote: | It wasn't much of an accomplishment for Tesla to introduce | safety features across its lineup, when its lineup | consisted of luxury cars. | | Today, other car manufacturers are standardizing safety | features across their model lineups while manufacturing | cars that are a third the price of the cheapest Tesla. | jliptzin wrote: | A third the price but still pouring disgusting fumes into | our neighborhoods | ummonk wrote: | The disgusting fumes are almost exclusively from diesel | trucks and very old cars. Manufacturing affordable (no, | the Model 3 is not affordable) new cars helps take old | cars off the streets and make our neighborhoods cleaner. | maxdo wrote: | BMW is a luxury Car, you still have to pay for safety | extra. That's the difference. One car brand make it | mandatory, other ask you extra dollars for every safety | camera to install. | ummonk wrote: | BMW is hated for a reason, and most car manufacturers | (not just Tesla) would compare favorably to it. | | Pretty much every major manufacturer makes safety | features standard on the base models across their lineup | today. | dmitriid wrote: | > Autopilot is a tool. You can miss use it, sure. But if | you care about safety it's hard to match with what they | offer. | | 1. It's not autopilot, by any measurable criteria | | 2. As the adjusted data clearl shows, it's not that hard to | match it. And since you mention Volvo, they definitely | match it. They are honest enough though not to call it | "autopilot", or "full safe driving" or pin the plame for | its failures on the driver. | maxdo wrote: | The author is projecting his assumptions based on 400 | people questioned. Is it fair. | | Most Cars volvo produced is not as safe simply because | Volvo is still making most of the money on Gasoline car, | and they are less safe vs electric. Do we need to create | a screaming article "Vovlo is deliberately making money | on old tech that kills people"? Again volvo is a premium | brand, so they don't want to invest more in EV to make | your car more safe. They also promote hybrid Cars that | has highest chances to catch on fire compares to EV and | regular ICE cars. | | But yeah, naming of an optional feature is so much more | important compares to real tech, crash tests etc. That's | a logic media is trying to put in our head. Don't think. | ummonk wrote: | What makes you say gasoline cars are much less safe than | electric? | oblio wrote: | > Again volvo is a premium brand, so they don't want to | invest more in EV to make your car more safe. | | Dude, really? | | https://group.volvocars.com/company/innovation/electrific | ati... | maxdo wrote: | Volvo's plans all in the future, it's just a commitment. | today is there in 2025, tomorrow web designer put another | beautiful article with 2030. Gasoline cars is less safe | to the same car with the same set of airbags just because | of It's physics e.g. lower center of gravity, no engine | in the front that can kill you during forward collision, | battery at the bottom serve as a protection layer during | other type of crashes. | | In fact tesla is about to release structural batteries | cars, that will use battery as part of the cars body, | makes it even more safe. Model Y with structural pack | will be out in March 2022. | | Volvo at this moment promoting hybrids and ICE that | doesn't have this features, because it's bloody business. | And money is money. | | Just compare real actions of Volvo who claim one of the | safest brand and Tesla. | oblio wrote: | Did you even read the article I linked? I have friends | that have the XC40 Recharge... | | > In fact tesla is about to release structural batteries | cars, that will use battery as part of the cars body, | makes it even more safe. Model Y with structural pack | will be out in March 2022. | | I'll believe that when I see it. How's the Tesla Semi | release going? Especially since structural batteries are | still an active research topic that actual researchers | think will be in mass production in 5 years or more. | [deleted] | ummonk wrote: | Yup. Autopilot on aircraft is very different because | pilots don't have to be ready to take over on a moment's | notice. | | Of course they have to be monitoring the flight but they | can be generally assured that the autopilot won't decide | to just fly into a mountain with only fractions of a | second for the pilots to intervene. | laen wrote: | There are moments a pilot has seconds to react and | disengage autopilot. | | Example: Traffic Resolution advisories require a 5 second | reaction time and 2.5 seconds for any follow-on | reactions. This reaction time includes the time to | disengage autopilot and also put the aircraft into a | climb-or-dive. Studies show that a situationally aware | pilot takes at least 2 seconds to start the reaction, and | another second to achieve the proper climb/descent. There | are other times on e.g. approach, or ground collision | warnings with even narrower margins for disengaging | autopilot. | | Pilots generally know when they need to be hyper-aware | with autopilot and so do competent Tesla drivers. If | there are issues with the name "autopilot" for Tesla, the | same argument needs to be made for aircraft | manufacturers. | JaimeThompson wrote: | > If there are issues with the name "autopilot" for | Tesla, the same argument needs to be made for aircraft | manufacturers. | | If a drivers license required as much training as a | pilots license then you might have a point. | dzader wrote: | "Boeing instructed pilots to take corrective action in | case of a malfunction, when the airplane would enter a | series of automated nosedives. " | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings | ummonk wrote: | Indeed, Tesla's autopilot behaves a lot more like MCAS | than like an airplane autopilot. | sokoloff wrote: | > It's not autopilot, by any measurable criteria | | It does seem quite comparable in capabilities to the | actual autopilot in aircraft. And that's what's confusing | to people; most don't realize that an autopilot is a | control used by a driver or pilot to reduce their | workload. (As a pilot, I am still logging flight time as | the "sole manipulator of controls" during the time the | autopilot is engaged.) | watwut wrote: | And that "confusion" was created intentionally by Tesla. | So that it is easy to pretend it was not deliberately | pretending higher capabilities while giving yourself | option to pretend you are not. | | You know like that claim about human being there just | because of pesky regulations and laws. Not because human | would be needed. | ummonk wrote: | The kind of environment that a car is in (and the kind of | monitoring required by the driver) is much more akin to | autoland than autopilot. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | > But because other brands release millions of boring cars | with 0 innovation they are not criticized. | | That's not actually why. | | It's because carmakers are _huge_ advertisers. You get on | their bad side, they pull their advertising. | | Tesla's advertising consists of Elon Musk's Twitter | account, so Tesla gets the reporting the others would get | if the authors weren't reliant on the subjects of those | stories for their paychecks. | FireBeyond wrote: | > Facts: Tesla was the first to introduce such wide range | of safety features in every car they sold. | | Please itemize these "wide range of safety features" for us | that other manufacturers do not have or did not have until | Tesla innovated them. | | > They invest in own crash test facilities. Only Volvo is | kind of on par. | | Audi owns one, for just one. | [deleted] | maxdo wrote: | Sure, https://www.tesla.com/safety | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KR2N_Q8ep8 | | Tesla roll out cars in generations. So just take a $40k | Model 3/Y platform was introduced in 2017 and compare it | with any car been introduced that year. My friend bought | a BMW in 2019 for similar money, it doesn't have half of | that. Maybe you can have them but you have to buy extra | packages for extra money. | | Tesla don't sell safety features for extra price. The | only extra feature is Autopilot. But hardware, camera's , | lane departure avoidance, blind spot collision warning | etc in every car. | | You can even take such a simple feature as forward | collision warning system. When you drive it is super | accurate it uses the same data and models from Autopilot | to predict when there is a crash. If your slowing down | dynamic is not good or the car in front/back change it | dynamics it will warn you immediately. Only this feature | saved me several times from collision. I'm not a good | driver. | | As I said in 2022 there are many car brands that catching | up in some cases they doing better. And this is good. | | Human is a bad, constantly distracted driver. Technology | is the only way to make our life safer. | FireBeyond wrote: | Automatic emergency braking is a required standard | feature in the US. | | Forward collision warning became standard in 2016 by at | least ten manufacturers: Audi, BMW, Ford, General Motors, | Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, and | Volvo. | | Without speaking to Blind Spot, my Audi does similar | intelligent things. If you change lanes next to a vehicle | or just in front of it, but you have a positive speed | differential, it won't activate. If there is a vehicle in | your blind spot approaching you but their speed | differential to you is low, it will activate later. If | there's a much higher speed differential (say they're in | a HOV lane, and you're in a much slower regular lane), it | will activate much earlier. | macintux wrote: | > Automatic emergency braking is a required standard | feature in the US. | | Not currently; I just bought a 2022 Jeep Wrangler that | doesn't have anything of the sort. | gambiting wrote: | >> My friend bought a BMW in 2019 for similar money, it | doesn't have half of that. | | That's an incredibly bad example, because in German | brands you have to pay extra for basic safety | features(famously in the new Polo you have to pay extra | to have more than the basic 3 airbags, I don't even know | how that's allowed). Look at a brand new | Peugeot/Citroen/Kia/Hyundai and you will pay less than | what a Model 3 costs and get just as many safety | features. Yes, all the stuff that is optional in a BMW - | but look outside of Audi/Merc/BMW/Volkswagen and you will | find that this stuff is also completely standard. | oblio wrote: | > My friend bought a BMW in 2019 for similar money, it | doesn't have half of that. Maybe you can have them but | you have to buy extra packages for extra money. | | #1 lesson of buying cars is: | | 1. Don't buy German cars if you don't have to (or if you | buy them, never complain about the price of their | optional equipment). | | The corollary is: | | 1". Buy Korean or Japanese cars. | mdoms wrote: | He never said he was surprised. | Natsu wrote: | The study says this: | | > An estimated 15% of injury crashes and 24% of property | damage-only crashes are never reported to police (M. Davis and | Company, Inc., 2015), while9% of injury crashes and 24% of | property damage-only crashes are reported but not logged | (Blincoe et al., 2015). Even with robust data, establishing the | statistical significance of automated vehicle safety can be | expensive. Kalra and Paddock (2016)demonstrated that | establishing that an AV has a fatal crash rate equivalent to | the national average with 95% confidence would require driving | a fleet of 100 vehicles continuously for 12.5 years. | | I presume there's an adjustment for this in the figures you | compare to, but I am having trouble finding it, though that may | be my own failure so I wanted to ask if you could help me find | how that's adjusted for? | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Why would injury crashes go unreported? | vanattab wrote: | I got hit a few weeks ago while walking my dog (dog was | fine). I thought I had just bruised my tailbone so I waved | the driver on after a short chat and never reported it. In | hindsight I wish I had as it seems like my tailbone was | fractured and not just bruised but it definitely happens. | tempnow987 wrote: | After college I lived with roommates for a while. One went | on a joyride of sorts and damaged a bunch of parking | meters, crashed and injured themselves. They had a friend | drive them home and repaired the vehicle with no reporting. | | In some cities currently even if you want to have police | respond to a traffic accident, you'd need to wait a VERY | long time - they will tell you that unless you need EMS to | try and get a safe spot and call for a tow. Some folks | aren't willing to wait hours for police to show up to do | what, take a report? | LorenPechtel wrote: | Police responding to the actual crash scene, useful. Police | report filed after the fact, only if there's some need for | said report. And not all injuries are immediately apparent. | 3 1/2 years ago I got a first-person view of what it would | be like to be on the receiving end of a PIT maneuver | courtesy of a woman who didn't look adequately. (Yes, when | you looked left the road was empty--I saw that also and | turned into that empty spot the block before you!) At the | time the only injury I was aware of was a very minor | scrape, not even worthy of a bandaid. Later I discovered a | pulled muscle--it only hurt when I did certain things. | | I also used to know a woman who thought it was nothing more | than a fender-bender, went to the doc a couple of days | later because her neck was bothering her. Doc sent her | straight to the hospital--incomplete cervical fracture, one | wrong move and she could have dropped dead. | sokoloff wrote: | If I had a single-car crash with minor injuries, why would | I report it? It seems like there's limited upside to me as | the (obviously at-fault) driver. Go get medical care and go | get my car fixed. (I drive cars cheap enough to replace and | so do not insure them against collisions that are my | fault.) | | Drivers driving without a valid license, without insurance, | under the influence, wanted by the law, etc would have all | kinds of reasons to not report a crash. | pjkundert wrote: | An even _more_ serious problem with Tesla 's claims regarding the | safety of its Autopilot is this: | | Autopilot failure statistics are _non-ergodic_. You don 't get to | "play again" after a catastrophic Autopilot failure. | | So, Autopilot must not be 5x or 10x better than your own driving | -- it has to be, like 100x or 1000x better, in order to warrant | you risking your life on it. | | Trusting an autopilot that is just 10x better than you are? | | Insane. It randomly drives under a semi-trailer that you would | have easily seen and avoided, and you're dead. | endisneigh wrote: | Are there stats that even show that any self driving system is | safer than the median driver? | | Basically accidents involve two people. Said accidents have | responsibility divided between both individuals. | | A hypothetically perfect driver could still be involved in fatal | accidents by virtue of the other driver. | | The worse drivers obviously will cause these accidents. | | The questions are three fold: | | 1. Are self driving vehicles safer than the median driver? | | 2. What's the ratio between at fault and not at fault for any | accidents the median driver gets in? | | 3. What's the same ratio for self driving cars? | | Normalizes for location, of course. | spywaregorilla wrote: | The median driver is a difficult thing to study. 77% of people | have experienced an accident, but I think fewer than 50% of | people have been at fault for one. That's not to say they | wouldn't be at fault if they drove more, but the median has a | clean record. Hard to know who to exclude. | M2Ys4U wrote: | >Basically accidents involve two people. | | Not always, no. It's perfectly possible to crash a car with | nobody else around. | bagels wrote: | Or for one car to crash in to many cars. | ActorNightly wrote: | > Crash rates can be adjusted to account for differences in | environment and demographics in different data sets. A sample | dataset with acrash rateris exposed to some variableiat a | different proportion p than the comparison dataset. In the case | study, for example, vehicles running Autopilot were driven on | freeways (i) 93% of the time, resulting in pi= 0.93. In the SHRP | 2 NDS, only 28% ofvehicle mileage was recorded on freeways, i.e | pi= 0.28. In the SHRP 2 NDS data, vehicles on non-freeways | crashed 2.01 times more often per mile than vehicles on freeways. | The observed Autopilot crash rate can be adjusted to reflect | national driving ratesto reflect the crash rate that might be | observed if 28% of Autopilot mileage was on freeways and 72% were | on non-freeways, assuming that the 2.01 ratio holds for | Autopilot. | | So if humans are 2 times more likely to crash on non-highways | than highways, the argument presented here is that the added | danger of non-freeways affects autopilot in the same way, | degrading its performance. Seems like a far reaching assumption. | | If there is no data on autopilot performance on rural roads, then | you cannot make a claim either way. | yrral wrote: | How about the predominately male ownership of teslas causing | higher accident rates. I see the paper adjusts for age and road | type but missing gender is a pretty big slip-up? | | I didn't read the paper fully but grepped for "gender" and "sex" | and couldn't find anything. | hervature wrote: | Don't forget to adjust for the 50% greater distance driven by | men [1]. In reality, per mile drive, the difference in genders | is negligible and maybe even counter to what most people | believe. Of course though, men will pay more in insurance | because driving is inherently dangerous and driving that much | more frequently is problematic. | | [1] - https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm | akira2501 wrote: | Men are also more likely to drive drunk, under the influence | and are more likely to buy a car with more than 250hp. | There's a _lot_ of confounding variables when examining | crashes. | gnicholas wrote: | Good question! According to one study in LA, [1] men cause 60% | of accidents. I do wonder, however, the extent to which this | gap fades with age. Given that most Tesla owners are not super | young, it might not make as much of a difference as the 60% | number (assuming it is nationally representative) would | indicate. | | 1: https://xtown.la/2019/12/12/women-drivers-maybe-we-need- | more... | user123abc wrote: | Men also drive 63% more miles than women. | https://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/average-miles- | driven-p... | yrral wrote: | Note when looking at 40% vs 60% of accidents (assuming males | and females drive the same amount) the % difference seems | small, only 20%, but actually this means males cause 50% more | accidents than females do (60/40=1.5). | nlowell wrote: | I don't know if we can assume males and females drive the | same amount. | user123abc wrote: | smnrchrds wrote: | Keep in mind that men drive 16,500 miles per year on average, | while women drive 10,100 miles. There is a noticeable gender | gap in "accidents per year", but not in "accidents per mile". | The paper compares accidents per mile, so there should be | little gender effect in the results. | | https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm | [deleted] | freediver wrote: | As a Tesla driver, I do not trust the autopilot yet and think it | is years away (if ever achievable) from level 5... | | The reason this study has this outcome can be because of the | survivorship bias - people are letting autopilot drive only in | easiest road conditions where chance for something to go wrong is | smaller to begin with. | | I would have hard time imagining people are letting autopilot | drive regularly in a tight, windy road (at night) or in snow, | thus completely preventing those (frequent types of?) accidents | from happening under autopilot. | garbageT wrote: | Pre-print research based off of unpublished paper/dataset and | "personal correspondence" makes this questionable. Why are we | sharing this before knowledgeable and relevant reviewers get a | hold it? | | I'll wait for the peer-reviewed version. | kevingadd wrote: | So Tesla marketing gets the benefit of the doubt, but research | doesn't? | hunterb123 wrote: | That was never said. GP could doubt both. | | I don't think his request is out of the ordinary here: | | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que. | .. | nja wrote: | I was just watching this video of a Tesla trying and miserably | failing to drive itself through the streets of Boston: | https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1488555256162172928 | | A number of these near-crashes seem to be pretty odd errors (a | couple of times it just decided to drive on the wrong side of the | street?) -- albeit ones that one _could_ see drivers unfamiliar | with the area making. | | If a human driver started driving on the wrong side of a street, | etc -- at least in Boston -- they would be greeted by a chorus of | horns and rude gestures from those around, which would hopefully | indicate to them that they were in error. Brings up an | interesting question: does anyone know if Teslas are monitoring | for surrounding horns/etc? | | Another common problem in Boston is being blocked by geese | crossing the road. Are Teslas able to detect such low, slow- | moving obstacles? | | It seems like it's not super feasible to rely on self-driving | vehicles in a dense city like Boston, but maybe such features | could be geofenced to areas like highways? | JoshTko wrote: | To be fair Boston city roads are like horse carriage routes | that were converted to streets and will probably one of the | last places FSD optimizes for. | nja wrote: | Interestingly, the routes in that video are in one of the few | parts of Boston with a street grid (Southie: | https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1488555262655045637 ) | -- so I wonder how much _worse_ it is on the cowpath roads | elsewhere... | petee wrote: | Good point, Boston is a great real-world fuzzer. If they | spent their time making it work there they'd have less issues | elsewhere | mijamo wrote: | Those roads seem much easier to drive on than basically any | city I've been in Europe. Paris is 10x more complex than that | for instance. If FSD can't handle that there's really not of | a use case apart from highways in Europe. | | To give you an idea of the incredible features in some | cities, I have recently driven in Rennes where they found a | good idea to makes roads with one single central lane for | cars with wide bicycle path on each side. You are supposed to | drive in the center and if a car comes in the other direction | each car needs to go on the bicycle lane on their respective | side of the road while giving priority to bicycles. I wonder | how FSD would handle that... | masklinn wrote: | Iirc that concept actually comes from the netherlands. I've | seen videos on Dutch road design showing that, i had no | idea they'd been implemented in france. | mdoms wrote: | If FSD is expected to perform poorly on those roads then it | shouldn't be available on said roads and it certainly | shouldn't be legal to use it there. | croes wrote: | So the feature is useless in most european cities? | sakopov wrote: | This is interesting. I have seen similar videos of Tesla self- | driving successfully on similar type of streets in Seattle. I | wonder if the quality of FSD changes from city to city based on | how much data Tesla receives from other drives in that city. I | guess I'm suggesting that Seattle could have more Tesla drivers | than Boston. I have no idea if any of this is true. Just a | thought. | ceejayoz wrote: | I like the guy who jumps in on the comments with "you're doing | it wrong". | | https://twitter.com/ButchSurewood/status/1488602615407681541 | | Isn't the whole idea that you're _not_ doing anything? | borski wrote: | We need a startup that can test and correct dubious statistical | claims, or verify good ones. I would definitely pay for that. | Someone1234 wrote: | That would be cool, but companies are often not forthcoming | with the raw data needed to do such analysis independently | (particularly if it could make them look bad). | borski wrote: | Sure, but would they be if they could be "independently | verified" by a startup like this? It might be a PR win. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | Is it eggregiously worse than normal human pilots? If not, then | that's an accomplishment in itself. | spywaregorilla wrote: | It's marginally better | JoeAltmaier wrote: | Right! A few years ago, claiming that a robot car would drive | as safely as a human driver would have been an incredible | claim. Just saying. | thomaskcr wrote: | It would have been, Musk didn't think so and felt the need | to embellish/exaggerate - his habit of exaggerating/lying I | think is more on trial than the actual Tesla vehicles here. | lordnacho wrote: | Wow, adjusted for driver age the difference vanishes. | | That's quite an interesting observation, and it shows the | importance of proper statistics. It also raises questions about | companies producing their own stats, it's often only when someone | takes the time to dig into it that we discover this kind of | thing. | | I am not holding my breath waiting for the common consumer to | understand statistical critical thinking though. I sometimes | catch myself forgetting the due diligence even after many years | of forcing myself to think about stats. | | Perhaps some sort of ombudsman could do this, pointing out when | stats are lying to people. | ProAm wrote: | If you have taken a course in statistics you'll know its always | possible to make the numbers looks favorable to your cause. It | would take several unrelated blind third parties to do this | correctly and no public company will ever let that happen, | especially Tesla. | kadoban wrote: | They should be forced to let that happen. It's crucial for | public safety. | IanDrake wrote: | ProAm wrote: | Public knowledge of safety affects stock price and brand | recognition. Will never happen. | gretch wrote: | This is an arrogant amount of speculation based on | nothing more than personal intuition. | | In fact, there are plenty of examples where public | knowledge of safety is published by mandate of the | government. Here is an example of FAA flight data and you | can see details about incidents across airlines: | https://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/ | | I'm not going to spend time digging it up, but I'm pretty | sure there are just as many sources of data on other | important things such as pharmaceuticals e.g. the covid | vaccine. | | So no, just because 'stock price go down' doesn't mean a | thing will never happen | tantalor wrote: | You could easily have a Simpsons paradox, e.g., it's safer | overall, but for any single age group its neutral or even | _less_ safe. | djanogo wrote: | They should adjust for car-age and price. | kfor wrote: | I highly recommend How to Lie with Statistics (1954) to learn | more about these sorts of misleading stats: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics | contravariant wrote: | Driver age isn't the factor that explains the difference, | accident rate adjusted for age shifts up a similar amount for | both Autopilot and regular drivers. | | What _truly_ makes a difference is the kind of road they 're | driving on. The accompanying paper provides a figure showing | Autopilot is essentially only used on freeways which are | inherently safer. Adjusting for that seems to explain most of | the difference. | | Though personally I'd prefer to have just compared the accident | rate on freeways for both types rather than this weird | weighting method they try to use. | rurp wrote: | > It also raises questions about companies producing their own | stats | | Companies saying "trust us, we have the data to prove it" while | keeping that data secret should be ignored. _Especially_ if | their CEO has a long history of blatant dishonesty! I 'm most | annoyed that people gave any weight to Tesla's safety | statistics claims in the first place. | pengaru wrote: | > I'm most annoyed that people gave any weight to Tesla's | safety statistics claims in the first place. | | TSLA stock consistently made gains for a lot of people who | otherwise wouldn't be paying attention let alone putting | their weight in anything Tesla related. | dahfizz wrote: | > Companies saying "trust us, we have the data to prove it" | while keeping that data secret should be ignored. | | While true, I do not think this is a great heuristic. How | would the average person know whether the "data" is | available? Most people don't even know what "data" really is. | They have never heard of CSVs or SQL. We need a better signal | for consumers to know what they can and can't trust. | rurp wrote: | A good journalist will include that context in a story. I | know I read at least one article that included these safety | claims while also noting that the data was private and | unverifiable. | | I think it's a good default to assume any self-beneficial | corporate message is false, absent evidence to the | contrary. | captain_price7 wrote: | An average person doesn't need to directly access the data. | As long as journalists or researchers can, an avg person | could rely on their analysis/opinion instead. | dahfizz wrote: | I would certainly not rely on journalists' to actually | have a look at the data, let alone to have the technical | skills to analyze and report on it. As it is, reporters | don't bother mentioning / linking to the data, or | mentioning the lack of publicly available data. | ceejayoz wrote: | It's OK to expect better from _both_ journalists and | companies. | jobu wrote: | Data-journalism is actually a thing, and bigger | organizations like the New York Times have done some | pretty impressive work building tools and training | programs for their reporters. | | https://open.nytimes.com/how-we-helped-our-reporters- | learn-t... | Out_of_Characte wrote: | Companies dont validate their claims, only provide data and | statistics to back up marketing angles. There's no point to | it either since it would still be a conflict of interest when | you've researched your own product and found no errors in it. | ajross wrote: | This isn't "proper statistics", this is P-hacking. Tesla's data | is incomplete and bad. But going out and finding confounding | variables to confirm your priors isn't the treatment. | hartator wrote: | Also feel they compare Tesla with autopilot vs. other cars. | Instead of Tesla with autopilot vs. Tesla without autopilot. As | Teslas have way better crash tests but doesn't mean autopilot is | safer. | maxerickson wrote: | Being safer in a crash doesn't make it okay to crash. | brk wrote: | Nobody working in machine vision is surprised by this. We are a | LONG way from having self-driving vehicles as a general thing, | particularly when Tesla wants to rely on MV as their source of | environment analysis. | paxys wrote: | I have felt since day 1 that "autopilot is better than the | average driver!" is the most misleading fact/statistic in the | industry. | | The "average driver" involved in an accident includes drunk | drivers, road ragers, habitual speeders, teenagers, people | driving in bad conditions (rain, snow), people driving without | sleep and several other risky groups that most people buying | Teslas aren't part of. To be worth it, the car has to reduce _my | personal_ accident risk under the conditions I usually drive, | otherwise I prefer to keep my own hands behind the wheel over | handing over control to an algorithm. | [deleted] | stjohnswarts wrote: | So basically everyone in a car? :) | mrtksn wrote: | If I remember correctly, they also cover the easy part of the | road and make the human take over at tricky situations. | | So at the end of the day, you have spotless records for the | autopilot that was driving many many miles on the straight line | and humans having accidents at short intersections or | construction sites. This translates into very favorable numbers | for autopilot when presented as accidents per miles driven. | spywaregorilla wrote: | If it were the case that autopilot was benefiting from | dumping all of the difficult parts on the humans, you would | expect to see much higher than average rates of accidents per | mile on the human driven parts, because they're only getting | the hard parts. This tends not to be true, so I'm doubting | it's a real effect. | FireBeyond wrote: | Your conclusion relies on the - quite faulty - assumption | that "situations that inherently difficult for FSD to | handle" are automatically "also more dangerous for human | drivers". In snowy conditions, humans do just fine, | generally, at following "lanes", be they the actual lane, | or the safest route that everyone else is following. Humans | are also capable of deducting lane direction, orientation, | even when there are contradictory/old lane markings on the | road, a situation FSD regularly causes danger in. | | Or that that negative effect is lost in the orders of | magnitude of "all human drivers across all miles" versus | FSD. | tshaddox wrote: | You don't think that human driver accident rates in snowy | conditions are much higher than in fair weather | conditions? | mrtksn wrote: | Humans don't disengage and let the machines handle the | situation but machines do it all the time. Do the machines | disengage at tricky situations or straight lines? | spywaregorilla wrote: | The statistics are there to read however, and suggest | your reasoning is not correct. | | Case A: Non Tesla Human drives 999 easy miles and 1 hard | mile | | Case B: Autopilot drives 999 easy miles, and human drives | 1 hard mile | | If the effect size of the hard mile is so large that its | skewing the statistics, you would expect the Telsa human | driver to have a horrendous per mile accident rate | relative to the non tesla human driver. What's most | likely is that the accidents following a human handoff | get correctly allocated to the Autopilot and the effect | size being described is not actually that significant. | buran77 wrote: | Student drivers (with an instructor in the car, and | secondary controls) have very few accidents, if any, not | because of _their_ safety record but because every | mistake is saved by the instructor. A car can be | considered as driving "safer than a human" when it can | match the average human in _any_ conditions the average | human drives. Everything else is just squinting at the | data and _choosing_ an interpretation that fits your | personal opinion. | | A Tesla can relatively safely cover traffic like divided | or controlled access highways. That's a very narrow slice | of all possible driving situations and not one | responsible for most accidents. | spywaregorilla wrote: | So as a thought experiment, if Autopilot + Human | intervention reduced the rate of accidents by 50% vs. | just humans after normalization; can we consider | autopilot to be adding value? | buran77 wrote: | Of course the Autopilot adds value, all such driver | assists are there to add value and help the driver on any | car. I just don't think Autopilot can _drive_ , let alone | _drive safer than a human_. There 's a difference between | "helping a human drive safer" and "driving safer than a | human". This is a confusion many people make when reading | these stats, to Tesla's benefit. | | Also the oldest Tesla with AP is less than 10 years old | (with an average of 3-4 years given the sales trends). | The average age of cars on the street in the US is over | 12 years old. An accident statistic that looks at | reasonably new, premium cars against everything else | won't paint the correct picture. | Dylan16807 wrote: | If that means the supervision actually works, then it | doesn't sound like there's a problem? | runarberg wrote: | > Student drivers (with an instructor in the car, and | secondary controls) have very few accidents [...] because | every mistake is saved by the instructor | | Is that the only reason? I suspect that many (most) | student drivers are also in general more alert, drive | slower, and follow each rule/guideline to an extreme. If | they don't the instructor will probably end the lesson | and remove a dangerous driver of the road. | mrtksn wrote: | stats for easy miles and hard miles? link please? | | Humans don't crash at every tricky situation but Tesla | claims that humans are horrible drivers and their cars | gives the control to the humans when when something | happens. | spywaregorilla wrote: | Literally any distribution of hard miles and easy miles | will produce the same outcome in this thought experiment, | to varying effects, if your premise of Tesla hiding the | AI's incompetence with passing off to humans when driving | is challenging is accurate. | | If your premise is to be believed as a significant | effect, you must also accept that this outcome should be | visible in the data | jonathankoren wrote: | It's not just that. There's a context switch when the | autodrive disengages, so the human is actually less ready | for the hard mile than if they were driving the whole | time. Sure m, the human is supposed to be able to take | control at anytime, but I don't think that really | happens. The whole purpose of autodrive is do you don't | have to pay attention and drive. | mkipper wrote: | Is this data available anywhere? How do I know that non- | autopilot Tesla mile per accident rates aren't horrible? | | Tesla publishes their own data for the safety of | autopilot, which I presume is based on their own analysis | of accident records. Is this same detailed information | available to other groups (insurers, NIST, etc)? Or do | they just calculate an aggregate "Tesla mile per | accident" rate that is a blend of the great autopilot | rate and horrible human rate? | | I'm not trying to be facetious here. I have no idea if | this data is available to any groups other than Tesla | themselves. And if so, do they publish those numbers? | spywaregorilla wrote: | Tesla releases the miles per crash rates quarterly, for | autopilot and non autopilot cases. Autopilot crashes | include anything within 5 seconds of disengagement. The | human rate tends to be more than 2x worse than the | autopilot rate. This is not normalized for factors like | road context. | | The human rate for tesla driven miles tends to be ~4x | better than the other brands' average. To precisely | answer this question you would want to see both a | comparable brand's humans' performance; and probably the | split of humans who used autopilot and humans who don't | ever use autopilot. We don't have that, but in my | personal opinion there's enough evidence to suggest it's | probably not a grand conspiracy. I'm of the opinion that | autopilot being ballpark on par with other drivers is | more than enough to reduce accidents substantially, at | scale. | | https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport | jcranberry wrote: | Could you provide a source? That sounds fairly interesting. | spywaregorilla wrote: | Just some reasoning really. Statistics and proper | normalization are hard. | | Tesla tends to say that autopilot crashes occur 1/2 as | often as non autopilot crashes. That's likely not | normalized to road conditions. But if you assume that | Tesla is secretly just putting all the hard miles on the | humans, then that would imply humans are driving many | more hard miles and should have higher accident rates. | The autopilots meanwhile must be performing worse on the | easy miles and racking up additional accidents that | wouldn't have otherwise happened. | | If you combine those two, the overall rate of accidents | should be higher than average, but it's actually lower by | a fair margin. Again, normalization is hard. | | Ideally you would be able to compare human drivers of | another comparable car brand to the human drivers of | Tesla to confirm the Tesla drivers don't seem to be being | judged on unreasonably difficult conditions. | mrtksn wrote: | There was a sourse but I could not find it ATM. It's | fairly simple, people don't disengage and their driving | safety is judged over all the miles they drive + all the | situations where Autopilot disengages. | | Tesla Autopilot is judged only by the miles driven | without disengagement, which is quite limited actually. | You can watch Youtube videos to see at what kind of | situations Tesla autopilot gives up. | | There's no situation where the Autopilot takes over from | the human saying "That's a tricky road, let me handle | it". | spywaregorilla wrote: | You seem to be missing the point though. If this were | significant, then human tesla drivers should be shown as | performing much worse than other car drivers, because | you're claiming they have a disproportionately large | riding time in "tricky roads". | | A non tesla driver should be doing way better because | they get to pad their score with the easy roads the | autopilot supposedly gets. | FireBeyond wrote: | As mentioned elsewhere, just because a situation is | difficult for FSD to parse and process doesn't inherently | make it a dangerous situation for a human driver. | mrtksn wrote: | Maybe that's the case, Tesla data isn't public. They | don't publish data but conclusions and their conclusions | are questionable. | spywaregorilla wrote: | Actually its more an issue that other car companies don't | publish their data for comparison. | | On a dumb average tesla is way better, but it'd be more | compelling if we could compare to new luxury brands with | similar target markets | mrtksn wrote: | How it's other car companies fault that Tesla isn't | publishing data so we can check if Autopilot miles are | mostly on straight lines and human miles are at tricky | situations? | spywaregorilla wrote: | So how much better than the median randomly assigned uber | driver does it need to be? | [deleted] | FireBeyond wrote: | Huh. Citation needed that drivers who buy, say, a Model S, | particularly one with Ludicrous mode are less likely to be | "habitual speeders" than the average driver. | | This has come up before. When the new FSD beta started, people | started claiming that safe driving was a function of vehicle | price, and therefore Tesla drivers, especially those who had | paid for FSD, were more likely to be safer. When I noted that | my current vehicle costs more than a Model S, based on the | logic, Tesla should be recruiting me to beta test FSD, well it | was hard to find a refutation. | tshaddox wrote: | But that's not really contradictory, is it? If you believe that | you're a better driver than autopilot, just don't use it, or | buy another car. It's not at all dishonest or deceptive | marketing (if the claim is factually accurate, of course). | ajross wrote: | > several other risky groups that most people buying Teslas | aren't part of. | | This is a fallacy. Ask any demographic you like if they're road | ragers, drunk drivers, etc... and they'll deny it. Everyone is | sure that rare and terrible outcomes will never happen to them | because of their own behavior, _including_ the people to whom | it happens! | | It's _probably_ true that middle aged premium car owners are | safer on average, but you don 't get to rule that stuff out by | fiat. In fact there have been a few "Autopilot Saves Passed Out | Driver" stories over the past few months, where Tesla drivers | were clearly impaired. | | As for this particular paper: this is just P-hacking folks. You | can't take a vague dataset[1] and then "correct" it like this | without absolutely huge error bars. Why correct based only | these variables? Why did they all push the results in one | direction? Why not gender? Why not income? Why not compare vs. | like cars? | | This isn't good statistics, it's just more statistics. If we | want the real answers we should get a better data set (which, | I'll agree, would likely involve some regulatory pressure on | manufacturers). | | [1] And, to be fair: Tesla's safety report is hardly | comprehensive and provides no data other than the aggregate | numbers. | stjohnswarts wrote: | I just think a lot of Tesla drivers see themselves as elite | drivers or something when we all know that's not true if you | step back away from the situation. | Majromax wrote: | > You can't take a vague dataset and then "correct" it like | this without absolutely huge error bars. | | That ship has already sailed; Tesla makes active safety | claims based on that dataset. To hold research to your | standard here would be to say that Tesla can make its claims, | but nobody can challenge those claims. | | > Why did they all push the results in one direction? | | If you have two correction steps, then a priori you'd expect | a 25% chance that they both act in the same direction. I | don't think this is very remarkable. | | > Why not gender? | | This probably would be a reasonable addition. I doubt it | would change the results much, but we have the well-known | fact that insurance rates differ for men and women, so it may | be relevant. | | > Why not income? | | First, is this data even generally available? If the data | doesn't exist, then we can't control for it. | | Second, should we expect crash rates per mile driven to | differ greatly by owner/driver income? A priori, I wouldn't | think this demographic quality to have a strong impact. | | > Why not compare vs. like cars? | | I think "personal vehicle" is a reasonable comparative | category. Would we expect collision rates to differ greatly | between more specific categorizations? For the sake of the | overall conclusion, would we expect Tesla-equivalents to be | particularly crash prone in the broad dataset? | | Any statistical analysis will have its limitations, but when | we're talking about life-safety claims from a manufacturer I | think we should have wide latitude to look at critical | evaluations of the original data. | [deleted] | beambot wrote: | Confounding factors matter. | | E.g. I would not be at all surprised if drivers of high-end | BMWs have lower deaths per mile due to older population, more | affluent, etc. | jjulius wrote: | I don't disagree with your broader statement about autopilot's | safety relative to other drivers, but... | | >The "average driver" involved in an accident includes drunk | drivers, road ragers, habitual speeders, teenagers, people | driving in bad conditions (rain, snow), people driving without | sleep and several other risky groups that most people buying | Teslas aren't part of. | | ... _what_? Tesla owners absolutely can be habitual speeders, | people who drive without sleep, road ragers, and drunk drivers. | Can you please explain your thought process behind this claim? | I really don 't understand why anyone would assume that Tesla | owners are less likely to have those traits than non-Tesla | owners. | w-j-w wrote: | sudosysgen wrote: | Because they are buying an expensive, new car, meaning higher | income, meaning that those things are less likely : | https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/46/6/721/129644 | capableweb wrote: | In my person experience, the "drunk drivers", "road | ragers", "habitual speeders" groups seems to be over- | represented in expensive cars rather than cheaper cars. | Poor people cannot afford to crash their car while rich | people can. | paxys wrote: | Data released by the DOL and insurance companies does not | match with your personal experience. There's a reason 18 | year olds driving shitty cars pay through their nose for | liability coverage. | huubuub wrote: | I do not think a car crash is normally the result of a | decision people make based on whether they can afford it | or not. | aeternum wrote: | Keep in mind that this study could just mean that people in | expensive cars with higher incomes are less likely to be | arrested/stopped by police. | lelandfe wrote: | Hmm.. The underlying studies (Baum, 2000; Eensoo et al., | 2005) that found links between socioeconomic status and | DUI/DWI did so by comparing those arrested against a | control group - which I believe should deal with that | concern? | paxys wrote: | For your specific question, actuarial tables for car | accidents/deaths are available publicly, and the profile for | the typical Tesla owner (middle aged, high income, driving | expensive sedan/SUV) is considered much safer than average. | | Moreover it is true in general that most people driving | aren't drunk or high, aren't reckless etc., and so most Tesla | drivers aren't either. The number of accidents isn't | uniformly distributed among the public. | | More broadly though, I never said that zero Tesla owners (or | any other specific car drivers) do any of these things, but | that using autopilot with an above average safety record can | still mean that the personal safety of an individual or group | of individuals goes down. For the system to be a net benefit | it has to be pushed to the below average drivers. | vletal wrote: | Yeah, seems like a typo a GPT-3 would do. | | The claim seems to be that Teslas do not drink before | driving, not Tesla owners, right? | jahewson wrote: | I read it that way at first too but I think the reasoning is | actually correct. The population of Tesla drivers will of | course resemble the overall population of drivers but most | drivers are not sleepy/raging/drunks and by extension "most | people buying Teslas aren't part of" that group either. | | To use an analogy: the average person has 1.9 legs but a | product which results in its user having 1.95 legs is not an | improvement for most people. | ketzo wrote: | Wow. Excellent analogy. | jasonhansel wrote: | For an individual person to be willing to adopt autopilot on | safety grounds, autopilot has to be safer than _that | individual person 's_ driving, not just safer than the | _average person 's_ driving. | | If your driving skill is above the mean (because you're never | a road rager, speeder, etc.), then you're worse off using | Autopilot, even if Autopilot is as safe as the average | driver. | | Since most people probably consider themselves above average | drivers (and in fact most people may _be_ above the mean if | the bad drivers are outliers), this limits the number of | people who will believe that Autopilot makes them safer. | Xylakant wrote: | I think it's fair to compare to the average driver. You may be | not average by virtue of not being a teenager and not driving | drunk, but you're not magically immune to being run over or | crashed into by one of those. So even if a hypothetical FSD | capable car would not drive one yota better than you do, it | cwould still make you safer by virtue of making the surrounding | environment safer. | paxys wrote: | Sure the worst drivers out there utilizing assist tech like | autopilot would benefit everyone, but data shows that they | aren't the ones spending money on fancy cars. My comment was | about me making a decision for myself. | | Plus in your hypothetical the autopilot can drive at least as | well as me, which is also a big assumption and not something | I believe with what I have seen so far. | djanogo wrote: | It can't be just any "average driver", they should be | compared against "average driver" who just bought $40-50K NEW | car. | sandworm101 wrote: | >> "average driver" who just bought $40-50K NEW car. | | Driver and buyer/owner are different things. Few teenagers | ever buy a Tesla, but they certainly drive them. A car | cannot only be safe in the hands of the rich initial buyer | who lives in a nice climate. It must be safe in all the | other people who that owner may let drive. It must also be | safe for subsequent second and third owners, people who | might not be wealthy enough to stay home when it rains or | when the autopilot thinks conditions are too rough. (It was | -35c on my drive to work this morning. Dark. Ice fog then | blowing snow.) | IshKebab wrote: | Uhm, I don't know what insanely rich middle eastern | country you're from but in most of the world teenagers do | not generally drive Teslas!! | sandworm101 wrote: | Have you been to LA, SF, Vancouver or Denver? These are | Teslas, not Ferraris. Lots of teenagers are driving their | parent's tesla. Go look at any university parking lot and | you will find plenty of 50,000$ cars. | jeffbee wrote: | Exactly right. The population has to be compared to people | driving new Volvo S90 or M-B C300, cars that have IIHS | fatality rates of zero. | obmelvin wrote: | If you are speaking about the safety features in a new car, | then I won't disagree. However, if you are implying that | those with a nice new car are somehow better drivers, more | attentive drivers, or care more about their car then I | would highly disagree. As someone who purchased a new car | last year, and does greatly care about it, I'm routinely | shocked by people and their clear disregard for their own | vehicle. Reckless driving, texting while not even | attempting to look, and the way people park their cars so | close to you that they can't even get out* have all shocked | me now that I'm paying more attention. | | * I have even stared at this guy struggling to get out of | his fancy Jeep who opened his door into my car. I know this | anecdotal, but all it takes is a few counter examples to | show that car price etc does not have a super high | correlation to how careful & considerate you are. | heavyset_go wrote: | Look at the accident and fatality rates for drivers of | luxury cars. They are much, much lower than the same | rates for less expensive cars. In fact, if you break it | down by vehicle model, there are several models with 0 | fatalities at all. | rightbyte wrote: | No. | | I'm not going to boast about how good of a driver I am (I | am!!), but lets say I am a median driver. I would want a FSD | to be _better_ than a median driver. Not the average crash | /mile stats that include all kinds of long tail idiots doing | the most damage. * ... alcohol-impaired | driving crashes, accounting for 28% of all traffic-related | deaths in the United States. * Drugs other | than alcohol (legal and illegal) are involved in about 16% of | motor vehicle crashes. | | https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/im. | .. | | So 44% intoxicated to some degree (unless the stats overlap). | That number is not even including reckless drivers not | driving under influence, teenagers that just got the license, | bad health elderly etc. | cma wrote: | Tesla's claim relied on inclusion of motorcycles one time, | which seems super misleading and unfair. | FireBeyond wrote: | Misleading, from a company that once (several days ago) | claimed that they sold more cars in Australia than Camry's | last year. | | Until someone pointed out that vehicle registration... | disagreed. By nearly 30%. | | Then "Oops. We made a mistake and counted 3,000+ deliveries | which haven't actually been, well, delivered." | | I hope they get spanked hard for that. Australia has very | onerous "truth in advertising" laws. | yumraj wrote: | Given what I've been hearing/reading about _autopilot_ I'm | more worried about being hit by one of them than a human | driver. | larksimian wrote: | My problem is that the median driver is much much better than | the mean driver and tesla os comparing against means. | | The damage done in a car distribution is heavily skewed | towards people that get in fatal crashes or total a car. I'd | randomly guess like 20-30% of drivers are below mean. Most | people won't total a car, vast majority will never kill | anyone. | | If you get median people into an autopilot car that's got a | mean safety record we end up pulling the average down, the | road becomes less safe. And luxury sedan buyers tend to be | one of the safest demos on the road, which makes the problem | even worse. | xapata wrote: | Median vs mean of what measure? | NaturalPhallacy wrote: | But is it safer than human drivers? | | This is the real question, because a "perfect" autopilot may be | impossible because of cases where it must choose between | sacrificing something outside the car vs its occupants and there | will be disagreement. | | Setting the bar at "perfect" is pretty unrealistic given that | humans are already pretty bad. | amelius wrote: | Can we have Self-driving Formula 1 before we get these cars on | the street please? | pengaru wrote: | Cruise-control (including Autopilot) is only applicable to a | subset of ideal driving conditions anyways. | | You'd make the comparison of cruise-control crash rates vs. | general driving in all conditions if you were trying to abuse | statistics for marketing your gimmick cruise-control feature. | | It's unclear to me how you'd even attempt to normalize the data | when you don't have national crash rates for cruise-control only | miles in non-Tesla vehicles. | | I saw mention that one of the TLA's investigating Teslas crashing | into emergency vehicles subpoenaed _all_ manufacturers of | vehicles sold w /L2 cruise-control features for their safety | data. Maybe that will produce some normalized-enough data for | making a meaningful comparison. | YaBomm wrote: | [deleted] | spywaregorilla wrote: | I find this headline to be pretty misleading. | | * It doesn't find anything to suggest Autopilot is less safe than | claimed. It finds reasons to believe Autopilot's improvement on | safety relative to humans is less than claimed | | * Under both the road adjusted model; and the road+age adjusted | model, Autopilot outperforms the average driver on average. Not | by much, but its there. | | * Everyone here seems to be assuming that the takeaway is that | Autopilot is less safe than humans, but there's no evidence for | that. If the numbers here are to be believed, I would take it as | a good sign for tesla, and by definition an advantage to people | who are otherwise poor drivers? | | * Question: Why do crashes per million miles have such large | swings in the baseline? It's weird that it varies so heavily by | quarter without any obvious seasonal patterns to me. | | edit: mildly annoyed at getting downvoted for seeming to be the | only person here noting that the blue line is on average below | the red line on every chart shown. | dboreham wrote: | Perhaps the downvotes are because most people would be | apprehensive about putting their life in the hands of an | "average" safe driver that's built from software? I probably | wouldn't allow any other average safe human to drive me, if the | alternative of me driving myself is available. | spywaregorilla wrote: | You never take ubers on the grounds of safety? Because that | is, on average, an average human. | | Either way, I'm not too impressed. I wouldn't purchase | Autopilot personally for similar safety reasons. But let's | not twist the stats to suggest they're actually much worse | than they are. | leobg wrote: | You've been commenting on a tweet by Edward Niedermeyer. The | guy who created a site called "Tesla Death Watch" back in 2008. | | These downvotes have got nothing to do with you or with what | you pointed out. Just some people here with sour grapes. | maxdo wrote: | >Although the ages of drivers in Tesla's crash rate data are | unknown, their ages could be estimated from a 2018 demographic | survey of 424 Tesla owners (Hardman et al., 2019). | | Seriously? you trying to claim your method is more fair using 424 | people in 2019, when Tesla has demographics of millions cars | across the globe? | | My conclusion: | | Author is saying it's not fair to compare with some old car. | Tesla was one of the first brands to mass adopt this safety | features in every Telsa. This is the only brand that include | camera, collision warnings in every, even cheapest modification. | And they were the first to introduce many of these features. The | rest are catching up. Why Tesla can't be proud of that? They give | safety to every customer, no matter if it's the cheapest option | or $150k+ car. Only volvo invest on par with tesla in testing | facilities, in house extended crash tests ets. | | Autopilot and similar system is safer compares to any car on the | highway with old cruise control because they have features that | force you to be focused. They can stop you on a traffic light, | they can react faster on animal running across the road etc. And | Yes all measures like collision warnings, notifications, makes | your driving safe. Yes, you can use it without autopilot, but I | as a consumer don't care. If I'm buying a car, fact that this car | is much safer compares to 10 years old ford makes me more | confident in purchase. | | You can debate a lot on how easy is to avoid some of this safety | measures. But if you an idiot you can fall asleep in cruise | controlled car as well. Tesla will at least try to wake you up. | And will stop on a traffic light. | | FSD is a good example of an extension of this rational vs | emotional thinking. FSD Beta has a very strict focus control. You | look not on a road few times you're blocked. You don't hold a | wheel few times you blocked. Etc. | | So even FSD beta in it's current state is a complete garbage that | quite often literally drives you into accident the way they | enforce your attention fixes everything. | | FSD beta with this limitations has 60k cars on a road. And 0 | major incidents that lead to a major injury or death. Not | counting few scratched rims and one time driver got off the road | because he over reacted on some maneuver. | | It's bizarre how much money legacy auto is poring into efforts to | make tesla look bad. Before it was infamous data of burning EV's. | But if you look at data a single car brand BMW has so 100 times | more risk of fire compares to tesla. You don't see paid articles | on Times square how dangerous is BMW. | | Right now all major brands invest in EV and suddenly all this | fire incidents disappear. And they switched to Autopilot and FSD. | | Is there a room for improvement yes. Is the car that can stop on | a traffic light, after some fixes for a cop's car, notify about | potential collision, avoid automatically some collisions safer. | Definitely yes. The rest is just hype, speculations and quite | often corruption and paid articles. | laomai wrote: | Regarding some of the conversations about programming something | to obey the law or obey human convention: | | - it's tricky because the people on the roads expect human | convention and drive for that | | - as long as there is a mix of humans that drive by convention, | it's probably best to err on the side of following human | convention to some degree | | Case in point: center lane | | When I first started using autopilot on two lane roads the car | would stay dead center in the lane. If a car was coming towards | my in the opposite lane, it began to notice humans would veer | away from center to provide more buffer between themselves and | the oncoming car. | | Because I didn't want to piss other drivers off, I would often | disengage and drift to the right of my lane while the oncoming | car approached me. If I didn't do that, there was always a last | minute extra drift away from me by the other car.. the | conventionally expected buffer distance wasn't enough to make | them feel comfortable due to unexpected (lack of) behavior. | | It's not a law / no law issue above. But I have similar | experiences navigation into roundabouts with crosswalks in front | of them (autopilot stops at empty crosswalk where normal driver | would cruise through until the stop line to check for cars in the | roundabout -- and if none were there might pass through with a | rolling stop/check. | omgwtfbyobbq wrote: | Tesla should release demographic info if they have it. IIRC, | luxury vehicles tend to have lower accident/fatality rates | because their buyers tend to be more experienced, mature, and | wealthier. | | I'm also wondering about the assumptions the pre-print makes. | | https://engrxiv.org/preprint/view/1973/3986 | | For example, it's assumed that Tesla's data has the same | characteristics as the SHRP 2 NDS data, and that the demographic | survey data from Hardman et al is accurate WRT the SHRP 2 NDS | data. | | > The analysis in this paper relies on the assumption that the | freeway-to-non-freeway and age group crash ratios found in the | SHRP 2 NDS are consistent with the manufacturer's data, as there | are no roadway specific nor age-related factors in the | manufacturer safety report. | | > Although the ages of drivers in Tesla's crash rate data are | unknown, their ages could be estimated from a 2018 demographic | survey of 424 Tesla owners (Hardman et al., 2019). | | But... It seems like Hardman et al are using California specific | data. | | https://escholarship.org/content/qt58t7674n/qt58t7674n_noSpl... | | > In this study, we used a cohort survey of Plug-in Electric | Vehicles (PEV) owners in California administered by the authors | in November 2019. Respondents had been previously surveyed by the | UC Davis Plug-in and Hybrid & Electric Vehicle (PH&EV) Research | Center between 2015 and 2018 as part of four surveys in the eVMT | project when they originally bought their PEV. Respondents for | the four phases of the eVMT survey were sampled from the pool of | PEV buyers who had applied for the state rebate from the | California Vehicle Rebate Program (CVRP). More than 25,000 PEV | owners were surveyed between 2015 and 2018. A total of 15,000 of | these respondents gave consent to be re-contacted and were | invited for the repeat survey in 2019. In all, 4,925 PEV owners | responded to the repeat survey. | | And... The newer data indicates that age could be positively with | more Autopilot use and long-distance travel (also correlated with | more Autopilot use), which seems like a confound WRT to the pre- | print's conclusions and so on. | | > Age is negatively correlated, indicating that the lower the | driver's age the higher the odds of reporting more long-distance | travel. This suggests Autopilot induces travel among younger | Tesla owners. As with the model with all Level 2 automation, | users' income is negatively correlated. | savant_penguin wrote: | So tesla owners belong to some specific age group and that makes | it safer? | croes wrote: | I doubt that full self driving is possible in the near future | without changes to the cars and the infrastructure to help the | autonomous systems. | petilon wrote: | It is available today in a limited area: | https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/03/cruise-launches-driverless... | irthomasthomas wrote: | How is this still front page? Somebody sleeping? | | In case you missed them, there have been 5 tesla stories nuked | from the front page today: 'Self driving' Tesla | fails miserably on the streets of South Boston | | 30 points 22 comments | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30173566 | Tesla Australia admits its sales figures were wrong | | 39 points 14 comments | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30176635 | Tesla drivers report a surge in 'phantom braking' | | 42 points 79 comments | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30179681 | Self-driving Tesla does 'the craziest things you can imagine' | | 96 points 172 comments | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30178168 | [deleted] | LeoPanthera wrote: | There are valid criticisms of Tesla, this normalized data story | is probably one of them, but the fans and anti-fans of Tesla | are so equally rabid that it is nearly impossible to have a | rational conversation about it. | | Expressing a view in either direction results in an instant | pile-on of trolls and flames. | toomuchtodo wrote: | There are valid criticisms, and there is being...overly | enthusiastic. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=camjohnson26 | irthomasthomas wrote: | So Tesla news can be discussed anywhere except HN? | | The reason HN is exceptional is that it has a lot of readers | working on or near AI, who will quickly call out the B.S. in | Tesla PR. They know this, so all Tesla stories get nuked. | contravariant wrote: | Lack of the word 'Tesla' in the title probably does it. As well | as not tripping the flame war detector probably. We'll see how | this thread fares. | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-02 23:00 UTC)