
Tesla footage of braking before crash ahead [video] - simonsarris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_c5kB1qbjY
======
Rainymood
They are speaking Dutch so I thought i'd translate what they are saying:

Man: Wacht even wacht even eerst kijken wat er achter ons gebeurt (Wait, wait,
first take a look what is happening behind us, don't get out yet.)

Man: Blijf zitten blijf zitten. (Stay seated, stay seated.)

Woman: Niets doen niets doen niet eruit gaan alsjeblieft. (Don't do anything,
don't do anything, don't get out of the car yet please.)

Man: Nu kunnen we kijken wat er aan de hand is. (Now we can check out what
happened.)

Woman: Maar zet hem eerst even aan de kant. (But first put it [the car] on the
side of the road.)

We now see the man running to the car in a blue shirt on the left side of the
screen.

Woman to the kids: Jongens jullie moeten even in de auto blijven zitten.
(Guys, you have to stay in the car for a little while.)

Kids: Ja. We willen er ook niet uit. Moet jij ook blijven zitten? (Ok. We
don't wanna go out. Do you [mom] have to go out as well?)

Woman: Ja ik moet er uit, ik ben een arts. (Yes I have to go, I'm a doctor).

~~~
leetrout
Thanks, the first part is also in the closed captioning if you click the CC
button on the video.

Edit: just the first part of what the guy says- not the part about being a
doctor from the woman.

~~~
Rainymood
Oh sorry, I was not aware of that. I always disable subtitles because I find
them annoying.

~~~
Klathmon
If you have the ability, I believe youtube lets you contribute subtitles (both
for the transcript and the translation) directly to the video.

It might help if you are willing and have the time (and it's enabled).

I'm not sure how to go about it though...

------
sytelus
This is great video to study on many levels beyond self-driving car. Some
observations:

* The car behind didn't show turn signal so probably driver wasn't paying attention.

* A small car escaping with not too much damage while SUV rolls over many times

* From physics point of view, the car behind produced almost perfect torque that started horizontal spin on SUV

* Collisions with barrier at high speed can produce lots of rolls. Many time we see cars upside down in accident and wonder how did that happened. This is how.

* The middle barrier did its job wonderfully even against massive inertia of SUV. Cars on other side remained unscathed!

~~~
gingerlime
I'm feeling rather dumb, but can't really intuitively understand the physics
here. I see a small car hitting a pretty huge one and yet spins the huge one
several times. I always thought those bigger cars are safer / stronger / more
resistant to hits?

Is it purely because it hit it at the corner, so all the force went into the
"spinning axis"? (did I say I feel dumb?)

~~~
fragmede
> I always thought those bigger cars are safer / stronger / more resistant to
> hits?

Physics would have you start with a spherical, uniformly dense car, but cars
aren't that. Crumple zones engineered for passenger safety requirement mean
that intuition falls short unless you really dig into it and add stuff like
center of gravity to the model.

Also think about why you believe that - looks can be deceiving, and marketing,
especially for rare expensive purchases like cars, very much plays on
emotional appeal rather than actual science. ("Ultimate driving machine"? Pft,
really?). The original SUVs were designed off truck platforms and did quite
poorly in safety tests, and their higher center of gravity doesn't help at
all. (Though it looks like a minivan in the video.) Just like two objects
falling will fall at different speed in the real world due to air resistance,
bigger != better with cars. You can't see crumple zones just by looking at how
pretty the car is; vehicle safety is one area where government regulation has
made cars safer by requiring all new cars sold in the US to meet a very high
safety bar, and that's improved over the years, evident in this video of an
intentional crash between a 1962 Cadillac vs a 2002 model.
[https://youtu.be/O-WYKYrq5FI](https://youtu.be/O-WYKYrq5FI)

------
pipio21
One of the main causes of accidents are vehicles left on the road and other
vehicles impacting them or the people as they take for granted that traffic
will be fluid and are distracted or whatever.

You should never leave your children and family on a car on the left lane
while you leave, never.

I have a neighbor that is paraplegic because of that. His entire family went
to the hospital after a vehicle crashed from behind after a minor accident.

Your first priority is putting your car and family on a safe place. Proper
triage priority number one is avoid another accident, by removing obstacles
and signaling other cars.

~~~
bengale
In fairness the guy is saying that in the video. Stop, wait to see what the
cars do behind, etc. Presumably he gets out when traffic has stopped behind
him.

~~~
icoder
Exactly, he waits until the situation behind him is safe enough to get out. He
also mentions a truck, so I think by the time he gets out, there's a
reasonable 'impact' buffer between his family and any moving vehicles (far)
behind.

------
ChuckMcM
I thought this an interesting video when Elon retweeted it. Basically the car
is responding faster than the people do and keeping things from escalating.
That said, having been on 101 when the cars in front start dancing like that I
have to say my biggest worry isn't stopping in time its having someone behind
me not stop.

~~~
Rapzid
That's why I usually break fast initially and check the rearview; extend the
braking distance to allow extra room for the person behind if they are too
close.

~~~
FLGMwt
I wish more people did this. Pessimistic bumper buffers have saved me from a
couple wrecks.

~~~
ClassyJacket
I wish more people followed at a safe distance.

~~~
enraged_camel
I've actually found a really good solution to tailgaters: put very slight
pressure on your brake pedal, enough to get the brake lights on, but not
enough to actually cause any substantial deceleration. This will cause the
tailgater to also slow down, but more than you because they have no way of
telling how hard you are braking. The result is increased distance between you
and them.

Do that a few times and even the most persistent tailgater gets it and either
changes lanes or stops riding your ass.

~~~
heptathorp
That could just set someone off and make things more dangerous. If that's
happening in the passing lane, get over and let them pass.

------
beat
Yesterday, I was saying that autopiloted trucks would take over the long-haul
trucking industries.

 _This is why_.

Driver errors with semis on the highway kill thousands every year. This kind
of technology will save lives - not just of the Tesla drivers (or other
autopiloted drivers), but of the vehicles they don't hit.

~~~
akamaka
Saving any lives in great, but trucks are a very small part of the problem.

Out of 33883 US traffic deaths in 2009, 3380 involved trucks, and truck driver
error was listed as a cause 26% of the time.

Self driving long-haul trucks probably won't save "thousands" of lives, but
certainly hundreds.

[http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/News%20and%20Information/...](http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/News%20and%20Information/Reports%20Trends%20and%20Statistics/02%2012%2013%20--%20FINAL%202013%20Car-
Truck%20Fault%20Paper.pdf)

~~~
bdhess
The 26% statistic is misleading in this case-- just because the death didn't
involve truck driver "error" doesn't mean a different movement pattern for the
truck wouldn't have made a difference.

For example, in the original video, if the Tesla autopilot hadn't braked, and
the car had been involved in the crash, it's not clear to me that error on the
part of the Tesla driver would have been listed as a cause.

~~~
gohrt
It should be, though. Car #1 stopped shorted and car #2 hit it. Car #2 was at
fault for hitting Car #1.

Car #3 (Tesla), if it didn't stop, would be at fault for not maintaining
stopping distance, hitting Car #2.

~~~
bdhess
You're implying that minimum following distance <= stopping distance. A brief
Google search yields a stopping distance of 315 feet for travel speed of 70
mph.[0] We don't train drivers to leave a football field of space in between
cars traveling at highway speed. At least where I live, the legal standard for
minimum following distance is that a driver "shall not follow another vehicle
more closely than is reasonable and prudent".

If Driver #3 can't see Car #1 past Car #2, and Car #2 is traveling at highway
speed, I think it's a stretch to say that Driver #3 could be faulted.

[0] [http://www.driveandstayalive.com/stopping-
distances/](http://www.driveandstayalive.com/stopping-distances/)

------
_ph_
Here is a video by Bjørn Nyland demonstrating the ability of the Tesla radar
to detect the motion of the car in front of the car you are following:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG3Jp5GyPoc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG3Jp5GyPoc)

It shows, how the radar detects, that the lead car breaks first - watch how it
gets highlighted in the dashboard. This ability helped the Tesla to handle
this accident event.

~~~
tim333
Cool video. I guess while self driving cars may have inferior analysis to
humans for a while they may outperform through better sensors like the radar
here.

------
Infernal
I think this accident could've been entirely avoided had the small pink
hatchback been a Tesla.

My read on what happened here is that the pink car was making a passing
maneuver, and just as the pink car driver checked their right-side
mirror/blind-spot and hit the right turn signal to get out of the passing
lane, the car ahead abruptly stopped. That explains why the pink car drifted
so slowly to the right - it wasn't an avoidance maneuver, it was a simple lane
change while unaware of the stopped car ahead. Presumably an autopilot in the
pink car would've been able to see the stopped traffic ahead and hit the
brakes even while the driver was looking to the right to change lanes.

~~~
notheguyouthink
A safer following distance is crucial too, fwiw. It honestly feels like 90% of
the vehicles on the highway travel at insanely close distances to each other.

~~~
badwolf
My mom got in an accident due to driving too close to the car in front of her.
It caused me to really take heart to my Driver's Ed teachers word of wisdom to
always leave enough space in front of you to be able to safely brake to
prevent that. I wish everyone would do that. It also makes driving in traffic
less stop-and-go

~~~
thesimpsons1022
yeah i try to do that but then other cars just merge in between the space i
leave in front of me and force me to be on their tail. meanwhile the guy
behind me never leaves enough distance either. safe driving doesn't mean
anything when others drive recklessly

~~~
fixermark
Precisely the problem.

Safe follow distance isn't an evolutionarily-stable strategy. The number of
accidents avoided by people following it is more than offset (at least
psychologically in the minds of the drivers) by the perception that people are
constantly cutting you off if you adhere to it. Since punishments for failing
to adhere to it are few and far between, drivers get sloppy.

It's the sort of thing you could, however, program into a robot and expect the
robot to adhere to it.

~~~
notheguyouthink
> It's the sort of thing you could, however, program into a robot and expect
> the robot to adhere to it.

I've often wondered what people will initially do when being driven around by
a robot. How anxious will it make them feel, not to give up control, but to
see a robot driving "so slowly". Not going 10 over, letting other drivers in
when possible, always slowing to keep a safe distance, not passing
aggressively if someone is going a few miles under, etc.

In the far future, i suspect people will be so used to being driven that they
won't care how fast they're going. They can browse, work, surf, do whatever
they like. But the first wave of drivers being driven.. it's going to be
interesting to see how people respond to it.

And that's not even accounting for the drivers who still driving, but seeing
robots on the road. I bet they'll always want to pass robots asap.

~~~
tajen
The latest OS upgrade of the Tesla prevents the autopilot from going faster
than the speed limit. I wonder what owners think about that.

~~~
greglindahl
I think that you were fooled by the news coverage. It's only on non-divided
highways that the new restriction applies, and there was already a restriction
to speed limit + 5mph on such roads. On divided highways, you can set any
speed up to 90mph.

Here's an accurate article, which (alas) still has an inaccurate headline:
[https://electrek.co/2016/12/22/tesla-autopilot-speed-
limits/](https://electrek.co/2016/12/22/tesla-autopilot-speed-limits/)

------
martin_bech
This is exactly how Elon described the system. Forward looking radar now
bounces radar under car in front, getting back location of 2nd car in front,
and responding to sudden braking etc.

~~~
OliverJones
Exactly so. The Tesla Model S dashboard display shows the car in front, and
the car in front of that. The little car cartoon goes blue when that car is
controlling the speed of the Tesla, and red when that car is causing an
emergency stop.

I've seen this happen, thankfully without the crash and rollover, in my car
(Model S). My car has stopped when the second car in front decelerated fast.

This kind of forward-looking speed control can also contribute to the melting
of compression wave traffic jams.

Radar's a tough signal processing deal: a soda can on the road can mimic a
large vehicle.

Possible next step in systemic forward-looking safety control, and much
cheaper than radar: a few bits of data embedded in stoplights could announce
the state of the stoplights of the next car forward (and even the one in front
of that). Stoplights are all LEDs now, and they're bright enough to be seen by
a really cheap camera even through mist on the glass.

~~~
notatoad
When you say stoplights, do you mean brake lights? Brake lights are on the
rear of a car, stoplights control an intersection.

~~~
OliverJones
Yes, brake lights on the vehicles. I regret the confusion.

------
samch
Just brilliant technology at play there. I had to rewatch a couple of times to
really grasp how early the Tesla recognized the emergency braking scenario.

One thing to note is that most dash cams, mine included, shoot at a fairly
wide angle. The Tesla was likely following a good bit closer than it appears
from the video alone.

This is also an interesting visual demonstration of why that Armco barrier
between the opposing directions of traffic is so terrific. It's quite possible
that having that in place saved several lives in this accident. It clearly
absorbed some of the impact energy and prevented the SUV from crossing into
oncoming traffic.

------
pmontra
Offtopic: 30 brake vs 12 break in this thread so far. Common typo on the way
to become an accepted alternative?

~~~
chillydawg
A lot of non native English speakers here.

~~~
NinjaViking
In my non-scientific experience native speakers are more likely to make
homophone errors.

~~~
GavinMcG
That may very well reflect reality, but you also point out that it might not.
Would it be better, therefore, not to post the claim in the first place?

(I'm not trying to accuse you of doing something wrong. This is just a
minimal, relatively harmless example of a larger and more concerning
phenomenon in this age of information spreading so quickly with so little
verification. I suspect we're going to need to take a sharp turn towards self-
censoring those little unsupported claims, among other strategies.)

~~~
mikeash
It may well be better not to post the claim, but you also seem to accept that
it may be. Would it be better, therefore, not to post your claim in the first
place?

(Personally, I see nothing wrong with posting anecdotal evidence as long as
it's clearly identified as such.)

~~~
GavinMcG
I was asking a question, not making a claim. Though I obviously made it clear
what I think the answer likely is, I'm genuinely interested in the thoughts
others can contribute. I'm not sure what the snarky response contributes,
though.

~~~
mikeash
I'm just illustrating that you're doing the same thing you're advocating
against, so it's rather self-defeating. If this sort of vague, personal
thinking is OK, then your post is pointless. If it's not, then your post is
bad. Either way, it doesn't make any sense.

~~~
GavinMcG
There's a deep difference between a conversation inviting disagreement and
those with solid evidence to step in, and a strident claim that will only be
addressed and corrected by people who are willing to be confrontational.

~~~
mikeash
I agree, but how is that relevant? I only see the first kind here.

~~~
GavinMcG
Go back and take a gander at the question mark in the comment you're
criticizing, and the lack of one in the comment I'm addressing.

~~~
mikeash
Are you thinking I said your comment is a strident claim that requires
confrontation to disagree with? I said the opposite: both your comment and the
one you originally replied to are conversational and easily amenable to
contrary views.

~~~
GavinMcG
No, the other way I could disagree. I thought the first one was the closed-off
claim.

~~~
mikeash
I gathered as much, but I don't see it. With the explicit disclaimer that it's
just personal observation, it's about as open as can be to me.

~~~
GavinMcG
Fair enough. We're making different judgments. And it occurs to me that there
might be another important distinction there: I was bringing up a question of
value judgment, whereas the commenter I was responding to wasaking a claim
about the actual frequency of a phenomenon.

------
merraksh
What puzzles me here is that the SUV flips over after being hit in the right-
rear corner by a relatively small car and bumping into the side barrier.
Flipping over in a case like this looks more likely to happen to an SUV than a
lower-centered car, and makes me question the safety of SUVs.

~~~
Etheryte
This is a commonly known problem of SUVs, their center of gravity is a lot
higher so they're a lot easier to flip over. That's why I'm puzzled by people
who buy urban SUVs, that is, jeep-like cars that they never intend to use off-
road.

~~~
aidenn0
1: Station wagons that seat more than 5 people basically don't exist anymore
(last I checked only the Mercedes Benz could do so in the US).

2: Minivans have an image problem (still associated with the "soccer mom"
stereotype for Gen X; millenials appear to be less averse to them). In
addition, most minivans are elevated so that they can have a flat floor, so
they similarly have an elevated center of gravity.

~~~
mikeash
Bringing it back full circle, the Tesla Model S can also seat 7, as long as
two are children (and you buy the option for third row seats).

~~~
aidenn0
Yeah, if I was willing to drop $90k on a car that would have been an option.
The E-class station wagon is cheaper, but still more than we were looking at.
The Mazda 5 was an amazing car, but is now discontinued in the US, meaning
there are now no compact cars that can seat 6+.

~~~
mikeash
I didn't realize the Mazda 5 was discontinued. Too bad, it looked like a
pretty practical design.

------
tici88
My understanding is that a lot of recent year car models at least in Europe
come with a safety feature exactly like this. Here is the video promoting
Skoda's "Front Assistant" feature:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ounFkvTuobY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ounFkvTuobY)

If Skoda has it I am sure that all other models in the VW Group's line (VW,
Audi, Seat etc) should have it.

~~~
simonh
That's not the same. The Skoda video only shows detection of the car in front
of you and responding to that. In this case the Tesla also bounces the radar
under that vehicle and responds to the motion of the car in front of the car
in front of you.

If you watch the video again carefully, the Tesla alerts before the car in
front brakes, because the car in front of that is braking.

~~~
tici88
You are right, this video only hints at this at the end but if you read
closely the specs Skoda seems to promise exactly that - automatic breaking to
avoid collision. Here is a blurb on their Front Assistant feature
([http://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/euro-ncap-
advance...](http://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/euro-ncap-advanced-
rewards/2013-skoda-front-assistant/))

"Skoda Front Assistant is a system designed to help avoid or to mitigate
accidents into the rear of preceding traffic. A long-range radar, positioned
at the front of the car, can detect vehicles up to 80m ahead which the car is
likely to hit unless action is taken."

Keep in mind, Skoda is not an upscale brand, they are on the budget end of
things. The VW and Audi models might/should have better systems.

The new Peugeot 308 also offers a 'Emergency Collision Autonomous Braking
System'
([http://www.peugeot.co.uk/showroom/308/5-door/p=safety/](http://www.peugeot.co.uk/showroom/308/5-door/p=safety/))
but on closer look this is actually 'an automatic brake application to reduce
speed by a maximum of 12mph to reduce the severity of impact'. Much less
useful, but at least moving in the right direction.

~~~
WalterBright
Even a 12 mph reduction can greatly reduce the severity of a crash. Every foot
per second makes a difference.

One problem with suddenly braking hard to avoid a collision in front is then
you get rear ended (happened to me). Sometimes the best approach is to swerve
onto the shoulder instead (also happened to me, and I watched the guy behind
me plow into the guy in front).

------
7a1c9427
I'm sorry but is everyone here sucked into the "reality-distortion field" that
Tesla Auto Pilot seems to be generating? Nothing happens in this video that a
competent driver wouldn't have done.

Detailed Explanation: In the UK part of the driving theory test is a "Hazard
Perception"[1] exercise that test candidates awareness of hazards around them
by playing short video clips and getting the candidates to click when they
first spot a hazard they would need to respond to.

When watching the linked video I 'click' at 0:04 when I see the multiple brake
lights though the car directly in-front. This coincidentally is when the Tesla
responds with its audible warning.

The factors that lead to the Tesla not being involved in an accident in this
video were not related to Auto Pilot but due to a competent driver: 1)
Maintaining appropriate breaking distance from the car ahead to i. be able to
stop in-time but without being tail-ended due to fast breaking ii. have
'thinking distance' to allow for slowed reaction timing 2) Watching the road
ahead and noticing solid breaking of ahead vehicles though the directly in-
front vehicle. There is __NO AUTO PILOT MAGIC IN THIS VIDEO __

I do not dispute that in other circumstances and perhaps other videos Tesla
Auto Pilot __HAS __prevented and accident that a human would not have. This
video is __NOT __such an example.

[1] [https://www.gov.uk/theory-test/hazard-perception-
test](https://www.gov.uk/theory-test/hazard-perception-test)

Edit: Please see child comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13272626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13272626)
clarifying my intentions with this post.

~~~
jasonpeacock
You comment describes exactly why this _is_ so amazing - the autopilot
executes the same as a competent driver! It's magic because it's the first
time in human history that we've had such skills available in a car autopilot.

It's like saying cruise-control is worthless because any competent driver can
maintain their speed - you're missing the point.

We're achieving parity between autopilots and human drivers, except the
autopilot will never be distracted or tired, and always operates with the
skill of a competent driver (and many drivers are not competent).

~~~
forgetsusername
> _You comment describes exactly why this is so amazing - the autopilot
> executes the same as a competent driver!_

I can agree with this. Too bad it isn't the default sentiment instead of over-
the-top optimism or cynicism.

I don't think anyone here is surprised that people get into stupid, easily
avoidable car accidents _all the time_. The argument seems to be about where
the technology currently sits. In this video the Tesla braked and avoided
rear-ending the colliding cars; so did the vehicles with no autopilot in the
right lane. This is "impressive" to some people, but it's also the bare-
minimum level of acceptability for self-driving vehicles.

------
bjterry
I was very confused about this video until I watched it with the sound on. The
Tesla beeps at the driver clearly before the accident has occurred, but
doesn't appear to decelerate until afterwards.

~~~
gkoberger
I imagine it'd get pretty annoying (and dangerous) if it slammed on the breaks
every time two cars got close. It knew what was happening and was ready to
break when the accident actually occurred.

~~~
mnwg
That's not what the article says is happening. The Tesla is alerting because
the radar sees the (black) car in front of the (red) car in front (of the
Tesla) is decelerating, even if the red car isn't, it's alerting because of
that. It doesn't "know" they'll be an accident, it just predicts that it will
have to slow.

------
relics443
One part of my brain is saying: Sweet piece of technology!!!

Another is saying: This seems like a very convenient piece of good PR for
Tesla (and self driving car technology)...

Yet another is saying: I hope the folks in the car are alright

~~~
disposablezero
Relying on error-prone, distracted, slow humans to guide massive killing
machines is playing Russian roulette. AI driving will no doubt be eventually
better than the best human driver within a decade, in nearly all instances.

~~~
unclebucknasty
The glorification of tech/denigration of humans juxtaposition is getting old
fast. This attitude may seem benign, but it's insidious, carries a hint of
elitism, and spills over into labor, class, and other aspects of human life.

Why can't we appreciate tech advances without devaluing people?

~~~
avar
Because certain types of technical advancement requires an element of
devaluing people.

"Calculator" used to be a job performed exclusively by humans. Moving to
mechanical & digital calculators didn't only require gains in efficiency, but
also a recognition that this was a job humans were simply worse at than
machines, so it was irresponsible to task a human with it.

Similarly self-driving cars can't simply be a nice thing to have, eventually
we have to have the discussion that it's irresponsible to have human driven
vehicles on the road.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Promoting the tech and respecting people are not mutually exclusive.

I'm not arguing that we should endanger people and my comment is not about
this one instance. It's about a general attitude of devaluing people. Where do
you think that road leads?

When Uber vehicles were found to have run red lights a couple of weeks ago,
Uber's response was that these were human operated and served as an example of
why they must rid the roads of error-prone human drivers as quickly as
possible. This, as if humans were a scourge that must be eliminated. There is
a strange rising anger with people for being human.

And, once we've ridded the roads, labor force, economy, etc. of all the pesky
humans, then what? Who owns the tech? Who has the power? Will they be as
benevolent as the machines we've learned to worship? What is the value of a
human life by then?

Quote whatever stats you like, but normalizing this attitude of fallible,
dispensible humans is dangerous in many ways.

~~~
avar
What do you even mean by "devaluing"? Of course a more error prone, dangerous
and expensive driver has less value.

Is pointing this out somehow wrong? I think _not_ pointing it out devalues
human life.

The road of getting rid of fallible humans from boring automatable jobs leads
to Utopia, and I reject your notion that this is somehow inherently different
from e.g automation in agriculture or computing

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _What do you even mean by "devaluing"?_

I've been clear about my meaning. Can't simplify it any further.

> _Because certain types of technical advancement requires an element of
> devaluing people_

That's your quote. What did you mean?

> _Of course a more error prone, dangerous and expensive driver has less
> value._

There's a difference between preferring tech to do the driving and saying the
human has "less value". You don't see that?

In any case, a hostile regard for human fallibility that approaches promotion
of the dispensability of humans isn't a good thing.

~~~
swasheck
A nice sci-fi trope is that the unpredictability of humanity, and when/how it
will "fail" when something better would "succeed", results in the preservation
of humanity itself. It's nice to consider in the wake of the elitism.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Well, I think there's something to the notion that there is value in humanity,
in spite of--or perhaps even because of--its flaws and non-binary approach to
the Universe. And, of course, there's the whole "I Robot" deal, wherein the
robot elects to save the life of the adult vs. the child based purely on a
sterile odds-of-survival calculation.

That's not really what I had in mind with my comments here, but it is an
interesting point.

And maybe it is another reason to consider prudence as we rush headlong into a
world increasingly reliant upon technology.

~~~
marcosdumay
> Well, I think there's something to the notion that there is value in
> humanity, in spite of--or perhaps even because of--its flaws and non-binary
> approach to the Universe.

We are approaching a very scary time when this conjecture will be subject to
cold empirical evaluation.

I think we'll pass the test. But wishing that humans were good on things we
aren't do not help anybody.

------
catoc
Does a Tesla continuously record all conversations within the vehicle? The
sound recording is clearly from before the warning beep of the impending
crash.

~~~
trevyn
The video is from a third party dash cam.

~~~
catoc
Thanks for pointing that out.

Don't understand the downvote. It was a simple question from someone who is
concerned about (online) privacy.

------
kbart
It's nice to know that Tesla can do that, but sorry, I just don't see anything
"magical" in this video -- speed wasn't that high (~110 km/h), the gap was
quite wide and the two cars on the right lane also managed to pull over and
stop in time too. I have personally avoided much closer encounters driving
both car and a motorcycle. In such situations, you should pray that there's no
truck behind you.

~~~
eberfreitas
"speed wasn't that high (~110 km/h)" \-- That is as fast as you can go on
major roadways here in Brazil> I would say it is pretty fast...

" In such situations, you should pray that there's no truck behind you." \--
So true. Wouldn't the autopilot account for that before braking that fast? It
would cause a much bigger problem if not...

~~~
disiplus
for highway is really not that high,

in my country the police does not even bother with you till 160 kmh. (130 is
legal limit)

~~~
aqzman
Where is that? Where I live there is a 100km/h limit, and the local police
sometimes post on social media when they ticket someone going 160km/h+.

That said, 100km/h made sense in 1970, but now with the safety of modern cars,
there's no reason that 130km/h shouldn't be the standard everywhere modern
cars are prevalent.

~~~
disiplus
[http://autotraveler.ru/en/spravka/max-speed-limits-in-
europe...](http://autotraveler.ru/en/spravka/max-speed-limits-in-europe.html)

as you can see 130kmh is used by most countryes in europe

------
bborud
Also, I think the driver deserves some credit. Note how he keeps calm and
rational and tells the other adult occupant in the car to not rush out into
the road and cause another accident. His first thought is to make sure he
understands what is going on behind him. Cool head, good job.

This is the bit driving schools rarely (if ever?) teach and which many drivers
never get a chance to think about until they find themselves in a stressful
situation where they can end up making dangerous decisions. (And then, of
course, most people do not think).

------
Animats
Road and Track says no.[1] "Except, if you watch the video, you can clearly
see cars stopping ahead of the driver who isn't paying attention starting at
the two second mark." What you're seeing here is that radars are much better
at range rate than vision. Range rate data from a radar is as good at long
range as it is at short range.

Fortunately, they were right behind the accident. If the wreckage was stopped
and partially blocking the left lane, Tesla's autopilot probably would have
plowed into it. Like this fatal crash in China[2] and this non-fatal crash in
Germany.[3]

[1] [http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/videos/a32073/no-
tes...](http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/videos/a32073/no-tesla-
autopilot-didnt/) [2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc0yYJ8-Dyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc0yYJ8-Dyo)
[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqfgDrynm78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqfgDrynm78)

------
dirkg
I don't understand why people continue to believe that SUVs are safer just
because they are huge. Seems like a very common myth.

Also Tesla's radar which can detect vehicles 2 cars in front of you by
bouncing signals off the car in front is pretty neat tech. Who else is doing
this? I'd assume most of the luxury car makers with auto pilots have this too?

------
logicallee
I think the most exciting thing (and we're way behind schedule on this, a lot
of this could have easily been done literally 30 years ago, no problem at
all), is caravan functionality, where a group of cars moves together. If you
imagine 20 cars at a standstill for some reason, if they begin to move forward
slowly but at the same time (less than 50 millisecond apart) because they're
coordinated then they can get up to speed almost as fast as if it were only
just one car (let's say they have to speed up a bit more slowly for a safety
allowance). But if you factor in human response time, it can be a phantom
traffic jam. There is no reason for a traffic jam because there is clear road
all the way ahead of the group - yet a traffic jam slowly makes its way back
anyway. Like this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVjVVaLe10&t=1m55s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVjVVaLe10&t=1m55s)

coordinating this stuff doesn't require computer vision or truly self-driving
cars or anything like it and could have been done 30 years ago (1986) over an
AM radio standard and some kind of coordination between cars - just nobody sat
down and designed that standard.

today wireless coordination technology offers dozens of choices (in the
gigahertz domain) and caravans could be assembled all but "trivially", cars
can know where they are via gps with no problems at all. That would be an
exciting move forward. Of course, it only works when everyone is doing it, but
if just a few traffic jams instantly disappear (the ones where are the cars
happen to have caravan functionality and coordinate) it would improve things
for everyone: the traffic jam will disappear whenever it bunches up in a way
that happens to consist of coordinated cars. (e.g. a 3-car phantom jam slowly
moving backward will disappear whenever it crosses 3 caravan-enabled cars -
not every car has to have this functionality). But I haven't read anything
about Tesla coordinating even with other Teslas, let alone some standard of
intercar coordination. A shame - this stuff is way easier than the self-
driving stuff Tesla and others are doing. It's very low-hanging fruit.

~~~
tobz
I think you're trivializing even the required effort to coordinate two cars,
let alone multiple cars.

How do you direct the signal to only cars in your lane? In your direction of
travel? How much efficiency is lost if all of the drivers don't give
themselves enough space between the car in front of them and their own
vehicle? Now they have to wait to move forward. How do you get all drivers to
roll forward together at the same rate of acceleration?

You could have the last few questions handled by a computer, but you'd still
have to overcome a lot of other hurdles (namely location awareness, peer-to-
peer communication, infrastructure changes to road signals if you don't have
self-driving cars which can detect light states, etc) before you could even
accomplish something this simple at scale.

~~~
logicallee
it's absolutely trivial compared to self-driving cars which have to perceive
their environment, and I don't need to give details. I'm not an automotive
engineer.

it's trivial. To show you this is trivial without pretending to be an
automotive engineer I'll use the example of a screaming auctioneer who sits on
top of your steering wheel. A conversation with him might go: "HEY I NOTICE
WE'RE STUCK IN A JAM IS IT OKAY OF I SIT ON YOUR STEERING WHEEL AND OBSTRUCT
YOUR VIEW AND THEN I'LL START PRESSING DOWN ON THE GAS TOGETHER WITH ALL THE
OTHER CARS IN THIS TRAFFIC JAM SO WE ALL START MOVING AT ONCE OKAY OKAY OKAY
JUST TELL ME IF YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH READY OH LOOK WE HAVE CONTACT BETWEEN THE
BUMPER TRANSMISSION LED AND RECEIVER LED AND THE CAR AHEAD OF US'S REAR BUMPER
TRANSMISSION LED AND RECEIVER LED OH THIS IS AWESOME THE CAR IN FRONT OF US
ISNT'T THE ONLY ONE WITH THIS EQUIPMENT THE CAR IN FRONT OF IT ALSO HAS THIS
AND LOOK THE CAR IN FRONT OF OF THAT ONE ALSO HAS IT SO WE'RE ALL HOOKED UP
AND AND WHEN THE FRONT CAR STARTS MOVING WE'LL START GOING AHEAD TOO ALL RIGHT
JUST PRESS THE BRAKE IF YOU WANT OUT OF THIS BECAUSE WHEN THE FRONT CAR STARTS
MOVING I'LL PRESS THE GAS AND MOVE TOO! HEY IT'S MOVING!!! I'M PRESSING THE
GAS!!! PRESS THE BRAKE IF YOU WANT THIS TO STOP!!!!! WE'RE MOVING!!! WE'RE
MOVING!!!!"

it's an absurd example but shows that it's trivial. The only thing necessary
to get a stalled phantom traffic jam moving is for all cars to slowly start
moving together. they can maintain distance between each other.

it's trivial if it requires special equipment such as bumpers that communicate
with the car in front or behind them, proximity sensors/detectors, a way to
transmit this information intercar and a way for the system to collectively
brake or apply gas (like cruise control).

if you're an engineer I'm sorry if you can't see how absolutely trivial it is
COMPARED WITH SELF-DRIVING CARS. It could easily have been done in the 80's
with zero environmental perception, zero awareness of road conditions,
nothing, and not hooked up to the steering wheel in any way. You don't need
the system to handle any steering, period, in order to be able to break up
phantom traffic jams.

if you've never invented anything in your life then you'll have to take my
word for it that this is trivial, sorry. We're 30 years behind schedule on it
and have suffered 30 years of phantom traffic jams that could have disappeared
whenever they made their way to high-end cars that could have been equipped
with a limited caravan system to start moving together with the drivers'
permission. A phantom traffic jam can disappear at every point. Even if just
5% of cars were equipped with the standard.

you don't get what a huge deal it is for a few cars to be able to start moving
together, coordinated, instead of one after the other. You don't get how 500
ms - 2500 ms of human driver latency means that traffic jams form which
otherwise wouldn't and that once it is formed it is impossible to brake up and
snakes its way back - but could be broken at ANY point by any group of cars
that briefly acted as a caravan. you'll have to just trust me that the
technology for this is easily in the realm of what could be done in the 80s.
self-driving cars are lightyears ahead of that.

------
clebio
We don't need to speculate as to the speed or proximity of the two vehicles
ahead. The data the autopilot system used has it. Does Tesla own that data, or
the vehicle-owner? It's collected on the vehicle, which is _owned_. I'm sure
Tesla gets a copy -- do they retain the rights as well?

I would not be surprised if Tesla were subpoenaed (or otherwise requested of)
for the data, in a case like this (similar to the recent Amazon Echo news, or
cellular providers with geolocation in abduction cases).

~~~
HappyTypist
If you're in the EU, you can get this data.

------
nojvek
Very impressive demo. I guess this is possible due to great sensors
(radar/lidar), computing power (tesla has the most computing power in a car)
and good trained deep nets and algorithms (again tesla,cruise & waymo have the
biggest investment here)

Does anyone know how I can get my hands on a nvidia drive PX2 board and a
quanergy lidar? It seems the lidars and such nvidia boards are only sold in
huge quantities to auto makers and not as single units available for people to
make their own robots.

~~~
dharma1
I don't think Tesla use lidars, and I don't think the small Quanergy lidars
are shipping yet. PX2 isn't widely available but you can pick up a TX1 which
is pretty powerful, if you need something small/low power but still fast
enough for your own robot. Runs Ubuntu and CUDA so you can run the same deep
learning frameworks (and possibly models, if you optimise them) as on your
desktop

------
draw_down
If I see a tree branch snap off the tree, I can reliably predict that branch
will hit the ground below a short time thereafter. Just saying.

~~~
codetwelve
"IF"

------
ragebol
> software update enabled Teslas to “see” through vehicles traveling
> immediately in front of them. In this case, however, the Autopilot seems
> less like X-ray vision and more like straight-up clairvoyance

I don't believe the car is clairvoyant, but my guess is radar bouncing off the
asphalt under the cars. And maybe a glimpse of the brakelights?

~~~
_ph_
Yes, Tesla is using signal processing to detect radar reflections of the car
in front of the car in front of you. They showed this when they introduced the
firmware with this feature.

------
slouch
This video is unavailable

~~~
teknoxjon
Mirror:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7icfs1Eedc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7icfs1Eedc)

------
Osiris30
Dupe link. More comments at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13268768](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13268768)

------
doe88
I'm wondering when the Tesla beeps if it reacts to the behavior of the red car
or instead to the cars braking in front of the red car?

~~~
_ph_
It reacts to the car breaking in front of the red car - the trick is to use
radar reflections of both the red car and the one in front of it, which
propagate below the red car. This feature was advertised with a recent
firmware update.

~~~
vayarajesh
I have seen plenty of 3 car accidents and the last car involved in the
accident is purely because it could not brake on time and the first 2 cars
involved in the accident are due to human stupidity.

I live in Dubai and it is a mix of many cultures and people drive like crazy
here, I have seen a single accident involving 6 cars because most of the rash
drivers will drive tail-gating

At least Dubai really needs lot of Tesla cars to avoid such accidents which
are very common here

------
WmyEE0UsWAwC2i
What about the dynamics of a mixture of self-driving and humand driven cars?

------
maxnevermind
I watched a similar video recently, but a car ahead avoided an accident and
the car where video was taken from was rammed in the back because of a sudden
stop. Which make me think maybe Tesla's response wasn't the best possible.

~~~
vain
Link?

The Tesla would be aware of the cars behind it as well, so this sounds
unlikely

~~~
zwily
At least with the original sensor suite, Teslas are not aware of cars behind
them, except for within a couple feet with the ultrasonic sensors. There is no
rear radar and the rear camera data is not processed.

~~~
smnscu
> There is no rear radar and the rear camera data is not processed.

Erm (not a radar but cameras + CV/ML)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUw_DMaQ264](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUw_DMaQ264)

~~~
zwily
That's the new sensor suite.

------
cpcat
the Tesla obviously expected a crash due to the small red car changing lanes
crossing another small car on the right. Had nothing to do with the SUV i
think.

------
williamle8300
The underlying software for this mainly plugs into the Instagram servers. When
it detects unusually high activity in proximity to the car, like commenting,
liking, and especially video posts, it makes a cautionary beeping sound.

/s

------
esseti
As long as there are people driving we do need such systems.

------
kitcar
What other car brands offer similar a safety feature ?

------
ge96
do the cars have some serious computer hardware or is it really good
code/cloud assisted computation? Maybe ANN's active while driving?

~~~
chillydawg
It must all be local. You couldn't possibly rely on any kind of network link
for a hard realtime task like driving.

~~~
ge96
Yeah would-be neat to have them "globally connected" to Tesla, not sure why
you would want that.

------
merb
wow how many people stopped to help and ran to the cars after realizing what
happened.

------
carnivalclown
morbid question but did they survive?

~~~
KiDD
everyone was ok it said in the article

------
DamnInteresting
The original video appears to be down, here is a mirror:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_c5kB1qbjY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_c5kB1qbjY)

~~~
dang
Thanks -- changed to that from
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APnN2mClkmk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APnN2mClkmk).

------
KKKKkkkk1
I bet the family of that man in Florida wishes he had AutoPilot Version 8.0!

------
kyriakos
Lots of mainstream cars (Nissan, Ford erc) can already do this.

~~~
martin_bech
Did you watch the video with sound on? The car alerts before the car in front
brakes.

~~~
metaphor
What I heard was an alert go off after the first (red) car slightly veered off
to the right, allowing sensors to detect the second (black) SUV's abrupt stop.

~~~
nmstoker
Are you sure you're viewing it with the sound in sync? There's no veering when
I watch until well after the audible alarm. But if you look through the red
car's tinted windows you do see the break lights of the cars in front -
presumably it's that breaking action which the radar unit is picking up. My
take on this is the red car wished to switch lanes beforehand and was
distracted by that, thus not reacting quickly enough to the breaking. The
right indicator goes on and it slowly starts to move across just before impact
(but not at a speed / timing which would indicate an effort to avoid impact)

------
bobsgame
I am super excited for the self driving Autopilot to be enabled! I'd love to
be able to buy a Tesla for my parents.

