Hi Stuart,
Totally agree with Point 1 and I think the writer saying using the statistics
at such an early stage to say you’re safer is ludicrous. Even if the 130
million miles refers to “real-life” miles, you still need a lot more million
miles to start talking statistics. However, I do believe in time you will be
safer.
Point 2. It’s not sufficiently tested to be called Autopilot even if that’s
what it’s commonly referred to; it’s official term is “Driver Assist” and Tesla
state that you need to have your hands on the steering wheel and be paying
attention so if the driver was watching a video as it seems he was, he was most
definitely at fault – although I hardly blame him. What I think is very
problematic is that when drivers in completely non-autonomous cars find it hard
to pay strict attention to the road it’s only to be expected that drivers in
cars which self-drive extremely well most of the time are going to find it
virtually impossible to maintain the required attention – I’m pretty sure I
couldn’t. The driver had obviously driven long distances, multiple times with
Driver Assist and had developed an over confidence in it. The circumstances of
the accident were very unusual. One would hope that, had the driver been paying
attention and noticed failure of the autopilot, it would have been reported to
Tesla who would have modified the software to ensure the same thing didn’t
happen again. I imagine that a lot of problems of this nature have been solved
in this way and probably until they stop getting reports of failures from
drivers (who knows how long that will take?) there will be no question of
making Autopilot official.
Regards,
Petra
Petra Liverani
Technical Writer / UX Designer
TMC Systems Development
Operational Systems
Infrastructure and Services
Transport for NSW
T 02 8396 1617 | F 02 8396 7950 | M 0401 023 961
25 Garden St, Eveleigh NSW 2015
Use public transport... plan your trip at
transportnsw.info<http://www.transportnsw.info/>
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Stuart Burnfield
Sent: Friday, 8 July 2016 3:11 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: OT I hate it when I am this right
Thanks for the link, Petra, While having every confidence that autonomous
vehicles will be a boon in the long run, I see two major flaws in this article:
1. The writer swallows Tesla's exquisitely worded damned-lies-and-statistics
press release.
"According to Tesla, however, the accident on May 7 was the first fatality in
130 million miles of driving on Autopilot. So your odds of remaining safe on
the road are actually better in an autonomous vehicle than with a human behind
the wheel."
This implies that Autopilot's 130 million miles of testing were done under
equivalent conditions to the 'one US fatality per 130 million miles' reported
by the NHTSA. Yet this is what Tesla actually said:
"This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where
Autopilot was activated."
Was that first mile of testing and every subsequent mile done:
* On public roads including passengers, pedestrians and other vehicles and
their occupants?
* In all weather and lighting conditions?
* At normal driving speeds?
Not likely. As with any piece of complex, high-risk technology, most of the
testing was done under lab conditions or on the training track in tightly
controlled conditions before they let it anywhere near normal driving
situations. To put it bluntly, the fatality rate sounds comparatively good only
because most of the time "where Autopilot was activated" and it crashed there
were few humans in the vicinity to kill.
2. Blame the victim: Brown wasn't paying attention, and anyway he clicked the
equivalent of the software EULA, so he accepted full responsibility for
anything bad that might happen, right?
Well, other drivers and passengers on that stretch of highway have rights too.
Surely Tesla can't be arguing that Joshua Brown and all of the other beta
testers of their experimental car-weapon have the power to waive those other
people's rights not to be avoidably killed or maimed?
Don't be surprised to see Tesla shift some of their road testing to supportive
authoritarian countries with a more congenial legal system.
--- Stuart
----- Original Message -----
From:
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To:
"austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>"
<austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Sent:
Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:12:49 +1000
Subject:
atw: Re: OT I hate it when I am this right
How the media screwed up the fatal Tesla accident – this article doesn’t shed
any more light on the subject but simply casts a different view
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/how-the-media-screwed-up-the-fatal-tesla-accident
Regards,
Petra
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