Asleep with autopilot on

[Russell]

repost Asleep with autopilot on

 

[Russell]

I wouldn't put it past a drunk driving owner to tie weights to the wheel so he can defeat the nags, this is clearly not someone that puts intelligence and safety above personal convenience.

Did you read the article? After putting the driver in the back of the cruiser, a police officer drove the Tesla off the freeway.
If there were weights on the wheel, I'm sure the police officer would have mentioned it.

 

[mswlogo]

Not that it was right, what would have possibly been the outcome if he didn't have driver assist on?

 

[Az_Rael]

Did you read the article? After putting the driver in the back of the cruiser, a police officer drove the Tesla off the freeway.
If there were weights on the wheel, I'm sure the police officer would have mentioned it.

If he was using the orange method or a water bottle, the officer might have just thought it was an odd place to store that, not realizing it was a defeat mechanism.

 

[Electroman]

Not that it was right, what would have possibly been the outcome if he didn't have driver assist on?

If it was still Tesla, you would have had a headline, "Drunk Tesla driver killed two and died in the crash".

If it was any other car... <crickets>

 

[ecarfan]

Instead he managed to sleep with his hand on the steering wheel just right.

I think that is the most likely explanation for why it took several minutes for the police to get the car to slow and come to a stop. The driver had one or both hands resting on the bottom of the steering wheel in such a way that they did not exert enough torque on the wheel to disengage AP but enough for the system to detect a force on the wheel. A rare situation.

It took seven miles to pull over a Tesla with a seemingly asleep driver

Auto Pilot almost certainly saved that drivers life. That should be the headline.

 

[Mod3forMe]

3 fatalities, but many more major accidents.

I have never run the numbers but it would be interesting to see if Tesla accident rates are lower or high per capita than the average. I suspect they are about average.

 

[BruceW]

So, the story is "Drunk driver stopped and arrested. Nothing bad happened."

 

[acoste]

I have never run the numbers but it would be interesting to see if Tesla accident rates are lower or high per capita than the average. I suspect they are about average.

Elon said that the numbers are already better than human drivers' statistics. However there is always a catch. He counted the total autopilot miles driven to miles driven by all cars. This is false since autopilot doesn't drive on every road, doesn't drive in bad conditions, mainly on highways and Tesla drivers are more responsible since they are wealthier than average, they are involved in less accidents than the average. So when you run the number to the same category: highway miles of Audi/Mercedes/BMW category, humans are still better.

 

[Mod3forMe]

Elon said that the numbers are already better than human drivers' statistics. However there is always a catch. He counted the total autopilot miles driven to miles driven by all cars. This is false since autopilot doesn't drive on every road, doesn't drive in bad conditions, mainly on highways and Tesla drivers are more responsible since they are wealthier than average, they are involved in less accidents than the average. So when you run the number to the same category: highway miles of Audi/Mercedes/BMW category, humans are still better.

The other thing to keep in mind is Autopilot likely does not have statistical meaningful sample size yet.

 

[SMAlset]

I'm purely guessing here that he was passed out more than sleeping. Doubtful those alerts even registered with him. He must have had dead weight of hands on the wheel. Scary in many ways but then not so in many others.

 

[HVM]

So, the story is "Drunk driver stopped and arrested. Nothing bad happened."

Any publicity is good publicity, with out Tesla, it would not been in the Finnish news:

"TESLA on autopilot, drunk driver sleeping behind the wheel -Police use clever tactics."

 

[Mark Z]

Who would fall asleep in the daytime with Autopilot in Las Vegas?

Tesla driver caught sleeping behind the wheel while driving on Autopilot | Daily Mail Online

 

[calleserra]

That is my issue with the "hold the wheel" nags as I can easily visualize someone dozing with their hand rested on the wheel right by the center post which provides sufficient torque against the car steering itself. That is a possible unguided missile.

Actually, it helps wake up a driver who had momentarily dozed off because of the movement of the steering wheel as the car on AP navigates freeway curves. The motion of the steering wheel is enough to nudge/wake up the driver, based on personal experience. AP also decelerates the car in case traffic ahead slows down, thus, assisting an otherwise inattentive driver and preventing an accident to happen.