
Tesla driver again dies in crash with trailer, Autopilot not yet ruled out - jbuzbee
https://electrek.co/2019/03/01/tesla-driver-crash-truck-trailer-autopilot/
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kalleboo
When will the US require trucks to have side underride guards like the EU?
These accidents happen even with human drivers.

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drewrv
I was researching vehicle safety for a new car purchase a few years ago and
came across this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3G-kcKN70](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3G-kcKN70)

It freaked me out and I stay as far away as possible from semis on the road
now.

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43920
After that video came out, a bunch of trailer manufactuers improved their
underride guard designs, and the newer ones are apparently much better at
stopping cars: [https://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/all-major-
trailer...](https://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/all-major-trailer-
makers-earn-iihs-award-for-good-underride-protection)

It's going to be a long time before most trailers have the improved guards,
but hopefully it will get better eventually.

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lostlogin
Why is this problem not legislated out of existence?

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speedplane
Because of lobbyists.

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JKCalhoun
> In this new accident, the vehicle again kept going for over 500 yards (half
> a km) before coming to a stop.

Disturbing.

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londons_explore
Presumably if the roof was taken off, lots of components of the autopilot
system would have been seen as unavailable.

In that case, I would design the system to apply the brakes quite hard (unless
autopilot was disengaged by the user). Going to full emergency stop mode would
clearly cause accidents in other more mundane cases like a malfunctioning
sensor.

A deceleration of 1 m/s from highway speeds ends up with the car travelling
400 yards, which is broadly in line with what happened here.

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julianlam
That's reckless. If the car is effectively blinded, continuing to travel at
highway speeds for nearly half a kilometer sounds like a terrible idea.

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rudolph9
Statically are you more or less likely to die using Tesla auto pilot?

I wonder if the number of hours drivers went without autopilot, the number
with, and the number of fatal accident occurred with and without autopilot are
public?

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URSpider94
Tesla has published numbers stating that the accident rate with autopilot
engaged is roughly half the rate with it disengaged - across their fleet, so
same driver pool. [https://www.tesla.com/blog/q3-2018-vehicle-safety-
report](https://www.tesla.com/blog/q3-2018-vehicle-safety-report)

Note, this data is almost certainly biased since AP can only be engaged in
certain circumstances and is mostly used on the highway, where accidents are
much less likely overall.

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joshstrange
> Note, this data is almost certainly biased since AP can only be engaged in
> certain circumstances and is mostly used on the highway, where accidents are
> much less likely overall.

I don't disagree but highway accidents have to be the most dangerous as well
due to the speed as well as other factors. I'm not as worried about fender
benders as I am a 3, 4, 5, 6.... car pileup on the highway.

