Thoughts from a first time FSD Beta User: HW4

TLDR Summary: The FSD Beta Stack (11.4.4) on the highway is much smoother and more comfortable than the current production Navigate on Autopilot. (2023.26.11). Self driving on local roads is legitimately for beta testing and feedback, and not comfortable at intersections. NHTSA is doing a major disservice by forcing 'letter of law' behavior at stop signs.

I've been following FSD Beta since it went public a few years ago. I have seen many you tube videos from the usual suspects (Dirty Tesla, Chuck Cook, etc.). Still, until you experience it, you don't really know what it's like. As someone who has only owned a Tesla for a couple months and just recently had the Beta available (Model S with HW4), I thought I'd try and explain my experience on trying it out for the first time.

Background: I have used the production Navigate on Autopilot on a 2000 mile (round trip) road trip, so I have fair experience using that. Today, I enabled beta and took it for a test drive on a combination of suburban and rural roads and on an interstate.

Highway: Very impressed with the smoothness and comfort level with lane changes compared to the production Navigate on Autopilot stack. I can easily see in the not so distant future this becoming the production Navigate on Autopilot and getting Level 3 automation status to boot. In my 20 miles or so on the highway, it was a noticeable improvement. In fact, once my Free FSD trial is over...if I were to go on another highway road trip, I would subscribe to the beta for a month just to have it for highway driving.

Local Roads: As I anticiapted, I needed to intervene a few times where I was not at all comfortable with what I thought the car was doing. Moreover, there are some things that I thought it would be better at...that it is not. For example, going along a straightaway and needing to make an unprotected left turn....several times even though there were no vehicles in sight, the "smoothness" just was't there. It would slow down too late and too drastically, then "ease" too slowly through the turn, and abruptly speed up. Several times if the road I was on was curving one way (to the left), and there was a separate road intersecting to the right, the car would seemingly "be confused", slow drastically and continue forward.

Stop signs are a mess. I blame this squarely on NHTSA vs. Tesla. Most of you are probably aware that NHTSA had Tesla "recall" the beta to change behavior at stop signs. FSD must come to a full stop *at the stop sign* and then proceed to go through the intersection "safely." The problem is, especially in suburbs, stop signs are commonly well before the driver (or car) is able to actually see if it is clear. So the experience is like this:
1) Stop at the sign. (COMPLETE stop and pause).
2) Proceed slowly (Creep) because you can't see oncoming traffic
3) Then stop again once you can see and determine if it is safe.

You've seen this time and time again on FSD videos...but you don't appreciate how annoying this is until you experience it firsthand.

What NHTSA needs to understand, is that this is not "safe". Nor is it how everyone actually drives. What should happen (IMO), is that the driver / car (recognizing the stop sign) should slow down to a creep (not necessarily stop) "at" the stop sign, but continue to creep until you reach area where you can actually see the cross traffic. If NHTSA insists on a "full stop" (vs. "rolling stop")...that's fine...but THAT is where the stop should occur: where you can determine if cross traffic is clear...not necessarily at the location o the stop sign.

Not only is the current behavior annoying to myself as a driver...but will of course also be annoying to other drivers.

At the end of the day, I enjoy driving myself on suburban and rural roads, so I don't envision ever really using FSD Beta to drive locally. I am confident that if anyone can solve self-driving with a scalable solution, Tesla has the only shot based on their approach. I do hope that regulatory agencies can see the forest though the trees and understand that driving in the real world is not necessarily consistent with the letter of the law, and for good reason.

I'll continue to play with FSD beta over the coming month (until my trial subscription is up), and afterward will either subscribe temporarily for a month to test out any major new advancements...or when going on a highway road trip. Again, the FSD beta stack for highway driving is much improved (IMO) over the current production Navigate on Autopilot.

"Tesla Hardware 2 cameras, Sunnyvale" by mliu92 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed Thumbnail

 

[Joey D]

Slowing to a stop, creeping, proceeding slowly, etc. are all slow behaviours. Humans don't need to be slow, you get it done. I'll bet most people who accomplish your step #1 (stop at the stop sign), will actually gun it for a brief instant to get to the edge of visibility, and gun it through step 3 without stopping if they can, or stop reasonably hard if they can't go at step 3....
but there's no safety reason you can't stop fully at the stop sign line, and get going safely into traffic without taking tons of time.

I respectfully disagree.

1) What is the reason to come to a stop at a location where you cannot evaulate cross traffic? (Only one reason I can think of...if there are also crosswalks....so you give pedestrians a chance to cross without having to be outside a cross walk.) So crosswalks aside (like many rural / suburban intersections where there are no crosswalks)....

2) By "stopping...going...stopping" you increase the risk of rear-ends. You stop....your follower stops. You go...and especially if you go quickly as you suggest, your follower assumes you are going through the intersection...and the follower starts to look around to evaluate cross traffic....you stop "quickly"...you get rear-ended by the follower who assumed you left...(while he's looking for cross traffic.)

Granted, when you have 100% autonomous vehicles that have 360 degree vision, this is not an issue. But this kind of thing happens frequently at intersections with humans involved. I have personally been on both ends of fender benders (follower and leader) in this exact situation.

To be clear, I am not advocating that Tesla take the approach that all (or any) stop signs should be "rolling stops." Just that where you come to a stop should be (simplistically) where you can evaluate cross traffic.

 

[Dan D.]

I respectfully disagree.

1) What is the reason to come to a stop at a location where you cannot evaulate cross traffic? (Only one reason I can think of...if there are also crosswalks....so you give pedestrians a chance to cross without having to be outside a cross walk.) So crosswalks aside (like many rural / suburban intersections where there are no crosswalks)....

2) By "stopping...going...stopping" you increase the risk of rear-ends. You stop....your follower stops. You go...and especially if you go quickly as you suggest, your follower assumes you are going through the intersection...and the follower starts to look around to evaluate cross traffic....you stop "quickly"...you get rear-ended by the follower who assumed you left...(while he's looking for cross traffic.)

Granted, when you have 100% autonomous vehicles that have 360 degree vision, this is not an issue. But this kind of thing happens frequently at intersections with humans involved. I have personally been on both ends of fender benders (follower and leader) in this exact situation.

To be clear, I am not advocating that Tesla take the approach that all (or any) stop signs should be "rolling stops." Just that where you come to a stop should be (simplistically) where you can evaluate cross traffic.

You are free to make up your own rules and laws and drive accordingly at your and others' risk. They don't happen to match the official rules and laws however. An AV will have to meet the official rules and laws.

 

[dtdtdt]

Stop signs are a mess. … What should happen (IMO), is that the driver / car (recognizing the stop sign) should slow down to a creep (not necessarily stop) "at" the stop sign, but continue to creep until you reach area where you can actually see the cross traffic. If NHTSA insists on a "full stop" (vs. "rolling stop")...that's fine...but THAT is where the stop should occur: where you can determine if cross traffic is clear...not necessarily at the location o the stop sign.

As a frequent pedestrian/cyclist, I also disagree, but for different reasons. I prefer the way I learned in Driver’s Ed:

STOP at the white line or crosswalk. This is the law. If there are no markings, stop where they would be, which is often where the stop sign is.

STAY stopped while you can see conflicting cars, cyclists, pedestrians, etc. Your view might be blocked in some directions, but stay stopped if there are any conflicts from the directions you can see. This leaves the crosswalk open for pedestrians and the bike lanes open for bikes.

Only then, CREEP if needed to see around things that were blocking your view earlier.

GO when it’s clear.

Notes:

If you had to stop because there was a car in front of you, you still have to stop when you get to the white line. Just because the lead car went doesn’t mean it’s clear for you to go.

The creep needs to be gradual enough that the car behind doesn’t think you are GOing.

The same protocol applies when exiting a parking lot: stop before the crosswalk, stay while you can see conflicts, creep if needed, then go.

In places with continuous pedestrian traffic, you might have to creep early to gently force an opening.

I’ve driven this way for decades without being rear-ended or raged at.

 

[Joey D]

You are free to make up your own rules and laws and drive accordingly at your and others' risk. They don't happen to match the official rules and laws however. An AV will have to meet the official rules and laws.

The thing is, just because something is law, does not mean it is correct or less risky when compared to how the safest people drive. Laws are not written to cover every corner case, and stop signs are not always placed in locations that make the existing written laws. IMO, some laws will need to be updated to make self driving more effective...for example, more consistent lane markings, how traffic cones / detours are set up, etc. Until then, self-driving cars will need to learn and deal with it.

Really, I get it....your opinion (correct me if I'm wrong) is that self driving should not inherently and intentionally "skirt" the law at any time for the sake of a more efficient and comfortable driving experience. We can agree to disagree on that. In cases where the letter of the law can be breached and not the spirit of the law, I'm fine with it, since that's how we drive everyday for the sake of comfort and efficiency.

 

[Joey D]

As a frequent pedestrian/cyclist, I also disagree, but for different reasons. I prefer the way I learned in Driver’s Ed:

STOP at the white line or crosswalk. This is the law. If there are no markings, stop where they would be, which is often where the stop sign is.

STAY stopped while you can see conflicting cars, cyclists, pedestrians, etc. Your view might be blocked in some directions, but stay stopped if there are any conflicts from the directions you can see. This leaves the crosswalk open for pedestrians and the bike lanes open for bikes.

As I said, I agree in the case of cross walks. Where I have an issue is in rural road where there are no cross walks. That being said, I hope all pedestrians are following the law when it comes to crossing the street.

...

The creep needs to be gradual enough that the car behind doesn’t think you are GOing.

Is that a law?

If only cyclysts (not saying you specifically) would obey traffic laws when on roads. The number of times I deal with cyclists not stopping at intersections, going "around" cars, etc....

 

[Ed243]

The NTHSA mandated stop sign behavior sucks about as much all the mandated safety features on gas jugs. Thanks for helping government.

 

[heymull]

Yesterday afternoon in full daylight, the beta FSD slowed almost to a stop (a slow creep) as it approached a clearly visible red traffic light, determined that it was safe to turn right (as had been programmed earlier by the Navigate-to method) and then it turned right and accelerated away from the intersection. Sounds OK, right? But it turned right without coming to the pre-requisite full stop when it was looking and thinking. This type of right turn might be considered safe, but would be flagged by a red light camera and I would have been legally ticketed, had there been a traffic monitoring system like that in place.

I wanted to report the incident as a beta FSD error, but at the moment (because I was quite surprised by this behavior, as was my front seat passenger, who said "Hey, the car did not stop!"), it remained unreported till now. I could have jerked the wheel or touched the brake and taken it out of beta FSD and made the report, but this only occurred to me later.

Has anyone else experienced this right-on-red without stopping behavior?

 

[Dewg]

Yesterday afternoon in full daylight, the beta FSD slowed almost to a stop (a slow creep) as it approached a clearly visible red traffic light, determined that it was safe to turn right (as had been programmed earlier by the Navigate-to method) and then it turned right and accelerated away from the intersection. Sounds OK, right? But it turned right without coming to the pre-requisite full stop when it was looking and thinking. This type of right turn might be considered safe, but would be flagged by a red light camera and I would have been legally ticketed, had there been a traffic monitoring system like that in place.

I wanted to report the incident as a beta FSD error, but at the moment (because I was quite surprised by this behavior, as was my front seat passenger, who said "Hey, the car did not stop!"), it remained unreported till now. I could have jerked the wheel or touched the brake and taken it out of beta FSD and made the report, but this only occurred to me later.

Has anyone else experienced this right-on-red without stopping behavior?

OMG - pick a side people. Either you want it to come to a complete stop or you want it to roll stop because that's what humans do.

 

[JB47394]

OMG - pick a side people. Either you want it to come to a complete stop or you want it to roll stop because that's what humans do.

Not a side, but a speed. What's the minimum speed that a car should reach when coming to a stop sign while having right of way?

I'm one of those people who comes to a full stop because I'm never in a hurry, but I think that an autonomous car should be able to roll an intersection at whatever speed it can handle while being safe. Give me a bunch of responsible and alert human drivers and I'd say the same thing. When all cars are at L5 autonomy, we can get rid of stop signs.

 

[Larry Hutchinson]

FSD will enter short turn lanes that split from a main lane at a high rate of speed ever since 11.4 was released...it's dangerous and can happen at a split second.

Fred Lambert, who used to post here in the early days, had 11.4.7 try to change left into a freeway emergency vehicle crossing area.

Tesla FSD Beta tried to kill me last night

I was testing Tesla’s latest Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta update last night (v11.4.7), and a new aggressive bug has nearly...

electrek.co

 

[SucreTease]

What NHTSA needs to understand, is that this is not "safe". Nor is it how everyone actually drives....

Bureaucrats gonna bureaucrat. That's what they do. They are basically your grade-school "hall monitor" types. They don't care about the downstream effects; they only want to make sure that they cannot be held accountable or liable for any potential mistake.

 

[hybridbear]

How does it handle situations where a stop sign is present but hidden behind foliage or other obstacles (such as a big-ass truck or van parked there)? Does it have a "map" that knows the sign exists or does it just blow straight on through?

This is just one of the real-world situations that the software will have to overcome before it's ready for prime time.

It will run the stop sign. Our car has done it.

 

[nemodio]

Not a side, but a speed. What's the minimum speed that a car should reach when coming to a stop sign while having right of way?

Isn’t it as per law, the speed must be ZERO? Stop means a complete stop. People get tickets for “rolling stops” all the time. A stop sign also means that you don’t have ANY right of way - everyone else’s right of way is greater.

 

[JB47394]

Isn’t it as per law, the speed must be ZERO? Stop means a complete stop. People get tickets for “rolling stops” all the time. A stop sign also means that you don’t have ANY right of way - everyone else’s right of way is greater.

I was speculating as to what would be ideal, not what the current laws are. And when I say "have right of way" I mean in the purest sense of the word. Even with current laws, when it's your turn to go at, say, a four-way stop sign, you have right of way. So when it is established that you have right of way, you go. Now combine the two and consider an all-way stop coming up and there are no cars and no pedestrians. You can see as much. So you have right of way. You should be able to roll through that stop sign. At speed.

But what about that guy who is standing behind a bush? If there's a bush there and you can't see what's behind it then you haven't established that there are no cars or pedestrians about. You don't know if you have right of way. So you have to slow and/or stop to establish that the area behind the bush is clear and that you have right of way through the intersection.

 

[SucreTease]

A stop sign also means that you don’t have ANY right of way - everyone else’s right of way is greater.

No one has a legal right of way; no law stipulates who has right of way. Laws stipulate who must yield the right of way, which is very different. You get a ticket for failing to yield the right of way, not for not having it.

 

[powertoold]

Humans don't need to stop to 0mph to check for VRUs crossing. That's why basically no one stops to 0mph at the Stop line.

 

[Joey D]

Here's a bit more on "bending the letter of the law":

How Elon Musk set Tesla on a new course for self-driving

Tesla's latest version of FSD had taught itself how to drive by processing billions of frames of video of how humans do it, Isaacson writes.

www.cnbc.com

There is one problem still to overcome: human drivers, even the best, usually fudge traffic rules, and the new FSD, by design, imitates what humans do. For example, more than 95% of humans creep slowly through stop signs, rather than coming to a complete stop. The chief of the National Highway Safety Board says that the agency is currently studying whether that should be permissible for self-driving cars as well.

 

[EVisfun]

Reading through this thread and others on similar topics, it seems there is a pretty obvious consensus that even with the latest release of AP it's still not even close to being better (or even as good as) a human driver. I got my update a couple days ago and made a few test runs and have certainly found this to be the case. Several times I had to correct it, and a few times I had to disengage it simply from being embarrassed by what the guy behind me must have been thinking: "why does that idiot with such a nice car drive like a moron?" The early stops, the creeping, the hesitation in the middle of the intersection stuff discussed here has me red faced. Another scenario not mentioned that I experienced was at an off ramp where the lane opened up to facilitate plenty of space to turn either right or left without any center lanes. My route had a left turn at this intersection. But the car was clearly turning right, presumably to center in the widening lane. But my turn signal was properly indicating left while the car was turning right.

Anyway, back to the discussion about by the book driving vs as the way most people drive you can see why I would be on the side of making the car be safer by driving how people drive, only better. We all have to check off on many disclosures to use these features, so couldn't there be another option with a disclosure that to select "human behavior" driving mode requires you are responsible for any tickets for rolling stops, or other "violations". Everybody knows that rarely is a ticket written for a 1/2 MPH roll through a 4 way stop sign where there is no traffic. And a full stop is annoying as hell for the driver behind you (even worse if grandpa in front of you is doing it). Until the car can drive like or better than a reasonable human can do it will never really catch on.

 

[Joey D]

...Anyway, back to the discussion about by the book driving vs as the way most people drive you can see why I would be on the side of making the car be safer by driving how people drive, only better. We all have to check off on many disclosures to use these features, so couldn't there be another option with a disclosure that to select "human behavior" driving mode requires you are responsible for any tickets for rolling stops, or other "violations"....

That actually used to be how FSD was implemented. There was even a "California (rolling stop) option." However, NHTSA demanded that Tesla stop that behavior and option and forced a "recall" (update) to FSD for the express purpose of removing it. I'm sure Tesla is lobbying hard to make FSD behavior "like human driving, but better", but ultimately all OEMs will be at the mercy of regulators.

 

[m2s2]

How is the nag from the in cabin camera? are you able to look at the center screen without a warning?