Tesla Autopilot: What happens if you fall asleep?

The highway you are on sure has some rough bumps.

Nice vid and good execution on the car's part. Thanks for posting. Though I had read that it would pull to the shoulder. That would be safer, for sure. The fact that you can hit the go pedal and AP stays engaged while sounding an alarm is a bit, well, alarming.

looking at the test comparing this to the others I much prefer the Tesla method.
All of the other manufacturers "driver assistance" will just disengage and beep leaving you to run off the road and crash.

Interesting: Your Hazards appeared to turn on while the car was slowing down.

Well ... as our hands are to remain on the steering wheel at all times, falling asleep behind the steering wheel is a bad example. A sleepy drivers should find a rest area......
A better example would be becoming incapacitated behind the wheel.... then being stopped in the middle of the road with the flashers on just might save your life.....as other drivers typically would assume something has gone wrong and provide assistance... just my 2 cents....

Joel said:

Interesting: Your Hazards appeared to turn on while the car was slowing down.

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Twiglett said:

looking at the test comparing this to the others I much prefer the Tesla method.
All of the other manufacturers "driver assistance" will just disengage and beep leaving you to run off the road and crash.

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Me too - but if this specific set of circumstances occurs, perhaps it should sound the horn repeatedly too?

Whether you have fallen asleep or fallen ill, the situation is unsafe anyway and risk has increased. Its certainly a better outcome than the car just continuing on but I'd also prefer the car to pull off the road.

This is a good compromise for safety. Pulling over might not be a good option: what if the car isn't able to find an open spot in the adjacent lane, or can't tell how many lanes there are? Or worse, pull over and fall off the shoulder down a cliff? I think it's better to assume the lane a driver is currently in when they are incapacitated is an actual physical lane, thus a reasonable place to stop. The hazards flashing are critical for safety and nicely implemented.

I agree activating the horn might be a good idea to also wake the driver and alert others as well.

Tesla has previously stated that the car is programmed to pull to the shoulder. Not in the middle of a traffic lane.

apacheguy said:

Tesla has previously stated that the car is programmed to pull to the shoulder. Not in the middle of a traffic lane.

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I've never seen that in a statement from Tesla about Autopilot. I've read it from people that assumed the car would pull over once it slowed down.


The behavior is acceptable since you are responsible for the car whether it is in Autopilot or not. If you fell asleep or became unconscious in a normal car the consequences would be far worse.

The car does not know if there is a safe shoulder to pull off of - it could be a cliff! The current sensors can't detect that. I'd rather take my chances on the road just like a stalled car would.

Upon reading the question "What happens if you fall asleep when driving?" my first thought was, "then you're probably equivalent to the average driver out there."

Ricco831 said:

Yeah it's New England where the snow kills all the roads

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Aside: here, it's rapid temperature changes. Last year we were having a cold month, things were OK, but it was punctuated with 1 warm day (~50F with rain), and with that one day we had a bunch of pot holes and frost heaves.

Rockster said:

Upon reading the question "What happens if you fall asleep when driving?" my first thought was, "then you're probably equivalent to the average driver out there."

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HA!

Yuri_G said:

I've never seen that in a statement from Tesla about Autopilot. I've read it from people that assumed the car would pull over once it slowed down.


The behavior is acceptable since you are responsible for the car whether it is in Autopilot or not. If you fell asleep or became unconscious in a normal car the consequences would be far worse.

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I've seen a video where Elon states the car will pull over.

Feature Idea: The car turns on the cool air fans that are pointing at the drivers face to try to wake them up.

What I don't like is that the car accelerates again if you step in the accelerator after AP had slowed to car with Hazards on.
What if the driver had a heartattack, stroke,... V1 should stop the car if the driver ignored all the warnings
. V2 AP should drive you to the nearest ER.