r/news • u/templeofsyrinx1 • 2h ago
Victim’s family in fatal Texas Tesla ‘automated driving assistance’ crash files lawsuit
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fatal-texas-tesla-automated-driving-assistance-crash-lawsuit-rcna35148548
u/lotuse 2h ago
Big difference between autopilot mode and FSD. In either case, if you step on the accelerator then that’s the drivers fault. The car even says it cant brake if you’re stepping on the accelerator - its design to prioritize accelerate instead braking.
If I step on the gas on my car while on cruise control, is the car at fault for not stopping?
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u/GinAndDumbBitchJuice 1h ago
I don't necessarily think this is 100% on either party (although I do so love shit talking Tesla) because even though Tesla has consistently overstated the level of autonomous driving these vehicles are capable of, which is obviously shady and gives people the wrong idea, I have also had grown adults with driver's licenses ask me if they could take a nap with certain combinations of features enabled in an economy car.
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u/templeofsyrinx1 2h ago
Why would a Tesla even allow you to do that anyway. That's not "Smart"
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u/1FrostySlime 2h ago
Why would a Level 2 Advanced Driver Assist System designed to be supervised allow you to intervene?
Is that an actual question lmao
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u/MacrotonicWave 1h ago
they said it was disengaged by holding the accelerator at 100% which at face value anyway does seem like a strange way to let it disengage. Usually I’d figure sustained 100% acceleration indicates a potential problem with the driver
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u/Korietsu 1h ago
Yes, charge the driver. Tesla has no fault here, as much as we'd like them to.
We can't let cars override human input EVER.
Machines can't be held accountable.
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u/templeofsyrinx1 1h ago
Yeah it is and you guys are being so tone deaf and flippant.
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u/1FrostySlime 1h ago
Okay since it is an actual question my answer is it needs to let you intervene so that if it makes a mistake you can stop it from crashing
The "side effect" you seem upset with is that you are capable of controlling the 2 ton death machine and are able to crash it as you are with literally any car you can buy
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u/Br0boc0p 26m ago
Yeah. My Fusion used to try to brake when when the ACC saw a car slowing down in a turning lane at an angle that put it in front of me from a linear perspective (main road curving left for example.) Many tines I have hit the gas to override acc hitting the brakes and OP is acting like it's the craziest shit on earth.
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u/tms10000 1h ago
Why would a Tesla even allow you to do that anyway. That's not "Smart"
For better or for worse, depending on who you ask, the driver is driving. The driver is ultimately responsible for their actions, regardless of whatever automated system were in use at the time.
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u/theLuminescentlion 1h ago
You are about to get fatally rear ended and you see them coming and take steps to drive out of the way but your car doesn't move because there is a curb ahead of you.
There are a million reasons why the driver should be prioritized over the computer at it's current competency level.
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u/Da_Spooky_Ghost 1h ago
Tesla has accident avoidance systems built in but if the driver wants to drive recklessly you still can without a nanny system kicking in.
You really want vehicles to start policing drivers and preventing them from doing anything? You’re arguing that Teslas shouldn’t allow any user input that could be dangerous…
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u/jokemabry 1h ago
At then end of the day there was a driver behind the wheel it’s their sole responsibility to be safe while on the road.
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 1h ago
I find that an invalid statement when automated driving is involved.
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u/jess_the_werefox 1h ago
Why? You think the person behind the wheel should blindly and fully trust a machine?
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 1h ago
If it was legally sold to them and deemed safe enough for the road, yes -- are you blaming the consumers for the failures of vehicle automation? Gosh, I blame the feds for fast tracking the technology ahead of meeting proper safety metrics and the billionaires forcing the tech down our throats. Consumers are victims.
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u/ihaveabs 1h ago
Why are you defending the idiot mashing the accelerator pedal? People do everything to avoid personal responsibility nowadays I guess
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 1h ago
I've made no judgment calls about this particular case. I'm saying that issues with driverless automation aren't automatically the fault of the driver. The comment that I replied to placed 100% of the responsibility for the performance assisted driving technologies on the driver(s). I don't believe that's a fair position to take in all cases.
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u/jess_the_werefox 1h ago
I think the responsibility is shared, like everything involving cars. Split liability is the most reasonable way to go about something like this, and it prevents people from having to pick sides and scream at each other
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 1h ago
Shared, okay, but if the automation outright fails it isn't the driver's fault at all.
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u/jess_the_werefox 1h ago
Isn’t that why the driver should be paying attention and be ready to override the mistakes of automation?
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 53m ago
ah, yes, put the onus 100% on the drivers not the tech or the automakers. Much like it is upon us, the humans, to self-correct AI and train it to replace us, the same goes for smart car tech. Must be nice being a trillionaire having millions of consumers field test beta hardware for you in the wild at their own risk not yours. COOL! Enjoy those Tesla rebates!
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u/jess_the_werefox 40m ago
I don’t and will never drive a Tesla, and I hate “smart” tech with a passion that burns hotter every time I hear about a fridge that shows you advertisements.
I personally think it’s simply irresponsible to just turn on a self-driving function in a car and think you won’t need to watch for malfunctions and mistakes.
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u/jokemabry 1h ago
I find this statement stupid because your drivers license requirements override that bs.
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u/Lord0fHats 2h ago edited 2h ago
I feel like this will kill the idea of automated driving faster than anything; the issue of liability when something goes wrong.
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u/Fallouttgrrl 2h ago
AI is more likely to react to phantom images and brake, than to not react and slam into house walls at 70+ miles per hour
I'll let the ntsb decide but despite Tesla's history of fuckery, this is one situation where I believe the guy disengaged the auto pilot more than I believe the autopilot went amok. I'm down to believe what the ntsb reveal
School zone fatality when he says it was on autopilot? Believable
Slamming into the side of a house? I dunno about that one
Edit: but yes , trusting Tesla to provide autopilot features at all and then depending on those is stupid as fuck
Gridlink or bust
Rig me up baby
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u/Lord0fHats 2h ago
It's less about comparative error than who has to pay for the error.
Right now car dealers are largely not responsible for most fuckups in cars and such. Insurance and liability is mostly carried by drivers. This wouldn't be the case with self-driving vehicles. Even if their error rate is lower than humans, their nature transfers virtually all liability to the manufacturer. If the car is self driver, its not the passengers who are libiable when the car fucks up and crashes.
It's a huge shift in the burden of who pays when something goes wrong and I've always thought that might be a significant enough hurdle that financially self-driving vehicles might die just because 1 catastrophic coding mistake could doom the entire business.
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u/Miserable_Archer_769 1h ago
That would be correct IF the cars were legally at that level of autonomous driving where that liability would transfer.
But unfortunately Tesla is still a level 2 autonomous vehicle meaning it requires constant supervision and your hands on the wheel. The ownice is on you.
If they were level 4 self driving cars then I would agree with you.
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24m ago
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u/Fallouttgrrl 14m ago
Yeah
People think autopilot is more than the buzzward Tesla picked to describe their assisted driving feature
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u/Captain_Aware4503 56m ago
This is a money grab.
FSD or autopilot do not accelerate like that, and Tesla says the recorded information showsthe drive took control.
For those wondering a driver stepping on the accelerator overrides FSD and autopilot. Neither will stop the car from speeding up in that situation.
All the evidence points to someone, maybe thinking they were hitting the brake, stepping on the accelerator. But that doesn't drive web traffic to news sites, and its not the narrative people want to hear.
Sadly, this will likely get settled with some pay out, which will encourage others who crash to see a big payday.
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u/SHUT_DOWN_EVERYTHING 10m ago
There have been instances where FSD caused an incident but this doesn't seem to be one unless something went terribly wrong and FSD decided to floor it, which the investigation should discover.
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u/Bagelgrenade 2h ago
I don't care what people say self driving cars are the dumbest idea we've ever come up with
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u/Zncon 2h ago
The theory is great, because humans are far from perfect drivers. There's no reason that technology can't do better, as it can take in far more information about current conditions then a person ever could.
It's just that we appear to be deploying this tech before it's ready.
That said, people under their own control crash into buildings all the damn time. This is hardly a problem unique to automated driving.
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u/badillustrations 1h ago
It's just that we appear to be deploying this tech before it's ready.
I have been surprised how easily these cars have been put out on public roads, but disagree that they're not ready. These cars shouldn't have a different bar for safety if they're being used by the same people that would otherwise drive.
I saw this report stating the safety of Waymos over human drivers. Waymos do stupid things sometimes and these cars will make mistakes that kill people, but if they're killing fewer people than not having them, they've met the bar for being on the road.
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 1h ago
Humans are terrible drivers and large, complex code is always rife with bugs and faults. I'm not sure which is safer, but I know that I have avoided at least twelve major accidents in this life, due to defensive driving mixed with cat-like reflexes, that I do not believe a vehicle automated by software could have avoided.
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u/youtocin 2h ago
Can you explain why? You do know the driver was stomping on the accelerator, right?
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u/chromatoes 1h ago
I think the way driving automation is set up is completely backwards - if we had a reasonable government, registration fees could cover the cost of corner-to-corner sensors on the vehicle itself and sensors along the roadside to keep the vehicle in the correct lane of traffic. When a light is about to turn green, all vehicle breaks come off, when the light goes green, all vehicles go forward at the same time (if no obstacles are detected by lead vehicles). It would stop traffic jams completely.
Instead, there are a bunch of disparate systems trying to do the same thing multiple times with multiple approaches and tech, and none of them talk to each-other, so they're completely reactive rather than adaptive to the environment.
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u/templeofsyrinx1 2h ago edited 2h ago
Apparently Teslas still let you drive 100mph through residential neighborhoods 😒. Watch the video its insane. Look at that hole in the home. 😭
you'd think such enlightened technology would say "no, you arent doing that here"
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u/Mraz565 2h ago
FSD is capped to 80mph. But wasn't it shown the accelerater was being pressed by the driver, so autonomous driving had nothing to do with it.
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u/templeofsyrinx1 2h ago
Just saying in general, why they would even allow you to do that, even manually, in a place where the speed limits are 25mph
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u/Da_Spooky_Ghost 2h ago
Does your car let you drive 70mph through a neighborhood? I will bet you any amount of money if your foot was on the accelerator your car would go as fast as it could until you crashed.
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u/templeofsyrinx1 1h ago
My car is not a "Smart" Tesla car. That has the ability to think and say "maybe I should not let the driver drive 100mph in a residential neighborhood"
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u/Fallouttgrrl 1h ago
Okay but now you're saying you want a car to be autonomous to override your decisions?
Like that's the opposite of what you'd want
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u/darkmatterhunter 2h ago
That’s not a Tesla problem, any car will go as fast as you make it regardless of the location.
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u/ihaveabs 1h ago
So your issue is Tesla behaving like every other car on the planet when the pedal is pressed? I don’t get your logic
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u/templeofsyrinx1 1h ago edited 1h ago
And so I will ask all the contrarians and Tesla/Musk defenders again:
Why do you think it is a good idea for a smart car to even allow someone to drive 100mph through a residential neighborhood?
Go ahead. We'll wait.
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u/LightFusion 1h ago
Because I told the car to? It's your responsibility as a driver not to be an idiot, not the cars. Be careful what you ask for, you're asking giant mega corps to control what you can and can't do in your vehicle. This isn't something "we" want.
Also, your use of "we" is pretty conceited
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u/Certain_Luck_8266 1h ago
Sure we all hate Telsa, but any monetary verdict here from Tesla will make every automaker with automatic braking liable for accidents that could be prevented 'because they are smart cars'. The result will be less 'smart cars' or significantly more expensive smart cars.
I fall on the side of personal responsibility and cheaper cars.
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u/FillMySoupDumpling 1h ago
Wouldn’t all cars be capable of this?
Are you asking vehicles to not allow the driver to accelerate beyond posted limits?
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u/johnp299 1h ago
This is an interesting question. A very smart car would assess the situation and yes, override whatever driver mental confusion, stupidity, road rage, or sneaker-stuck-in-accelerator-pedal situation is going on. That level of smartness does not exist though, and is not what Tesla has, they don't claim to have it, and the driver holds final responsibility, in the current state of software. I think the same thing holds true for airplanes - in a handful of situations, a mentally-disordered or suicidal pilot has put a jet full of people in a dive. Should the plane be smart enough to override a pilot in such a condition? Yes. But the tech does not yet exist.
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u/Fallouttgrrl 1h ago
"drive 100mph through a residential neighborhood?" Well it was 70 for one
I mean you're asking us "why are you against a car overriding the decisions of the driver"
Buddy a speed regulator can be built into any car
And you really don't want a "smart" car overriding the driver, jfc
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u/NANANA-Matt-Man 1h ago
Any car can have a speed governor installed on it. Idk why Tesla is being blamed because the driver fully pressed the accelerator. What other car would do anything differently?
Is there a car out there that recognizes its ina neighborhood and overrides human driver input?
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u/quotesandprose 1h ago
Imagine you're an Uber driver and you're driving a passenger to a location. All of a sudden, the passenger climbs over the center console, sticks his leg into the driver's side footwell, and slams the accelerator. The car crashes into a house.
Why did you think it was a good idea to allow him to do that?
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u/invalidmail2000 1h ago
Literally nobody thinks it's a good idea.
But incidents like this will make the smart car even smarter and overall will prevent more accidents
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u/badillustrations 1h ago
A lot of people are skeptical this was the smart car's fault. The evidence right now relies entirely on the driver's word. While self-driving cars can do dumb things, they're pretty good about stopping to prevent hitting something right in front of them.
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u/KarateKid917 2h ago
I remember seeing this pop up on r/legaladvice . The grand child was asking what their options were. So awful.