Mirror (plus a few more Tesla crashing into cop cars) if, like me, your ad-blockers break video on CNN: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45XMhMzMDZY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45XMhMzMDZY</a>
Tesla's inability to account for emergency vehicles stopped on the side of the road is a big issue and is currently being investigated by the NHTSA (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-opens-formal-safety-probe-into-tesla-autopilot-crashes-2021-08-16/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-ope...</a>).
It's beginning to look like the problem is not what the autopilot can not do, but what it decides to do.<p>With all this swerving into nearby cars and obstacles, I wouldn't be surprised if people soon start speaking of Tesla's assisted driving as assisted crashing.
There are 2 fixes Tesla could make to Autopilot that I think would make it much safer and pleasant to use.<p>1.) Set the self-steering torque limit much lower. By far the most anxiety-inducing thing of watching FSD videos on YouTube is how erratically the wheel jerks around when the system is unsure, and is literally unsafe because a driver’s reaction time won’t be quick enough.<p>2.) This one might be controversial, but don’t disengage Autopilot on driver steering. Keep disengage on gas and brake. If they implement (1), then it’s easy for the driver to overtake the system’s steering and course-correct. This also eliminates the driver’s hesitancy of taking over for fear of having Autopilot disabled for the remainder of the drive.<p>These two are features of Comma.ai’s system, and people report that as being a much more pleasant experience. I really think Tesla needs to think more about the human-computer interaction side of this.
I personally think AI cars are an awful idea to add to the road. Trains, sure. But there's too much going on in the road and building infrastructure to enable autopilot is very pedestrian hostile.
Oh FFS, @Elon! Come ON! States have LAWS on the books that you either slow down to 45 or move over a lane. You and your robocars don't get a pass!
Are you telling me that this autopilot system cannot see at night - the most dangerous time of day to drive? Was there even driver monitoring systems that track the driver's attention in order to prevent this crash from happening?<p>It seems that all of the above was missing. Yet another crash from the 'safe' autopilot / FSD contraption. Quite really a crash dummy trials contest on the public roads for Tesla.