
Motorists ‘are being misled by autonomous driving aids’ – report - sschueller
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/12/motorists-misled-autonomous-driving-aids-tesla-nissan-report
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cup-of-tea
Cadillac now has a system called "Super Cruise" that allows you to keep your
hands off the wheel indefinitely. It only works on freeways that have been
specially mapped by Cadillac using LIDAR. I find this quite alarming. Are
there systems in place to automatically invalidate sections of freeway when
the government modifies them? Does the government even know that Cadillac is
trying to maintain its own map of the freeways? This is a nightmare waiting to
happen.

~~~
rootusrootus
The Cadillac system requires your eyes on the road. It's harder to game than
the systems which attempt to detect your hands on the steering wheel.

~~~
falcolas
Eyes being on the road doesn't mean your mind is on the road. Looking for
problems is an active process, and if your brain isn't engaged it won't matter
where you're looking.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
That is a problem even without this kind of technology.

~~~
SparkyMcUnicorn
This is a good point, although I do think there is an argument for a greater
tendency to "mentally wander" if you aren't physically engaged somehow.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
If you are long distance driving on straight empty highways, it is easy to get
into the wandering state. I find these features only useful in those cases
where engagement is difficult to maintain anyways.

~~~
SparkyMcUnicorn
Very true, and that situation is the only time the feature appears to work.
Minimal repetitious physical engagement wouldn't change much I'm guessing.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ya, I never use them for city driving. It is just that once a year cross
country western trip where it comes in really handy.

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lord_ring_11
Can someone who uses these auto drive features comment? I would imagine it
would be really hard to suddenly “take over” if u were not in full control
from before in a few seconds. It would take that long to even fully understand
what is really happening. When i drive normal car much of my driving is
anticipating and avoiding bad situations rather than recovering from them.

~~~
stetrain
I have a Honda with the latest Honda Sensing suite.

The lane keep is something that you can turn on over 45mph and it doesn't
require you to deactivate it or move the wheel strongly to override it. In
practice it feels more like a gentle force keeping you centered in your lane,
like driving on rails. I like this feature on highways and it reduces fatigue
on long drives. On worse quality roads it can have a bit of a ping-pong motion
but these are probably places you shouldn't be using such a system anyway.

I also really like the adaptive cruise which works all the way down to a stop,
but I don't rely on it to stop in situations where traffic is coming to a stop
quickly. I know that the car would almost definitely stop correctly and with
enough space, but the problem is that it doesn't telegraph these intentions
early enough for the driver to process and make the call to let the car handle
it.

By the time I would realize that my car was approaching the one in front too
quickly to stop itself I wouldn't have time to react either, so in these cases
I usually override early.

I have never had any indication that the car wouldn't slow down or stop in
time and have let it do so on plenty of occaisions, but it isn't a comforting
feeling since it doesn't always leave time for the human to process and handle
the situation if things were to go wrong. Really this is the same problem as
being in a car driven by a human that you don't trust or that likes to brake
late.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I have the Acura version. Adaptive cruise control is great if there is no
traffic. If there is traffic, the 4 car buffer it wants to maintain will just
lead to cars always weaving in, causing lots of crazy speed changes.

~~~
grogenaut
I have noticed that fast drivers are starting to realize that if there is a
nice new car you can just cut it off. They're very likely to have adaptive on
and it will just back off instead of riding your bumper. I see people taking
advantage of this. Ive also at least seen someone fuck with another driver by
getting over in front of them, then going back and then getting back in front
a few times. Real close too. So just a new form of trolling.

I also see lots of cars on the way into seattle every day who are leaving what
would have been absurd distances in manual driving constantly. These all seem
to be auto-driven. This latter definitely makes my life easier getting through
traffic as there are so many 200ft+ gaps now at 20 mph on the freeway.

~~~
lotsofpulp
They're probably erring on the side of safety so staying far enough so that
the car can come to a complete stop if the car in front slams their brakes.
The way most people drive, if the car in front slams their brakes, they don't
have enough distance to stop, but driving closer to the person in front of you
reduces traffic so it's a decision we make to increase risk a little to save
time.

The companies making the software of course want to avoid lawsuits so they're
going to ignore time savings.

~~~
grogenaut
yeah I get why they're doing it, it just feels mis-calibrated. Everyone talks
about self driving cars packing in as tight as train cars but what I'm seeing
currently is them using 4x the space at least. And yes I know it's not L5
driving, but at this rate, 90% of cars in 10-15 years will be this spaced out
by default. Rip commute times.

Also get off my lawn.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The packing can only occur if all cars are self driving. It is unlikely to
occur in the USA for awhile but we will probably see it happen in China where
traffic is really bad.

------
mjlee
Tim Harford collected some good insights on this in the Automation chapter of
his book "Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World".

The essence of his complaint revolves around Air France Flight 447 and
attributes the incident partially to the lack of experience the pilot had
flying manually.

Essentially, the idea is that an autonomous vehicle allows the operator to
relax, right up until the point at which it fails - leaving the operator with
a difficult situation and a lack of skill to deal with it. Of course it also
removes a whole range of more routine errors that could have been fatal.

There are a couple of ideas on how to solve the problem, but I'll let you read
the excerpt yourself rather than parroting it here:

[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QPMeCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT121&lp...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QPMeCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT121&lpg=PT121#v=onepage&q&f=false)

------
Theodores
Yesterday the BBC had this story with some video from Thatcham, they had the
Tesla work properly, coming to a halt behind a car that braked suddenly. Then
they had the car in front swerve at the last minute out of the way, rather
than stop (for a 'fake' stationary vehicle). Guess what, the Tesla didn't copy
the late lane change move, instead it ploughed into the back of the 'fake'
car.

This illustrated the problem. However this was also a rigged demo. The 'fake
car' it crashed into was made of bits of plastic, not a real car. Clearly they
didn't want to write off an expensive Tesla and some disposable stationary
car. Yet I was wondering if the Tesla with its clever radar things that can
see in front of the car in front would have fared better in a real world
situation.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44439523](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44439523)

This technology may also require different driving skills. Much like how old
people cannot work mobile phones but young people take to them like ducks to
water, autonomy may be one of those things. We may need a younger generation
who can't be trusted with hot hatches of yesteryear to be the early adopters
of autonomous-style vehicles.

~~~
Spooky23
Perhaps we need a different license system for the niche automaker whose cars
are too difficult to operate.

Or... perhaps the niche automaker needs to focus on user interaction design
and safe operation.

------
11thEarlOfMar
Whether or not auto companies are liable for these accidents will be
determined by the courts. So far, it appears that none of the accidents
involving Tesla's auto pilot have landed on the docket[1].

Plaintiff's Attorney: "If the deceased had not been using autonomous driving,
he'd be alive today."

Tesla: "The deceased was informed and acknowledged his understanding that
while using autonomous features, he must keep his eyes on the road and pay
attention. He did not do that. Moreover, autonomous features are statistically
proven to reduce accidents by 40%. These drivers report that they'd have died
without autopilot as a feature: [2]. [3], [4], [5],..." [1]

As of May, there were no lawsuits against Tesla for auto pilot accidents, so
it would appear that this defense has held up so far.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot-
lawsuit/t...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot-
lawsuit/tesla-agrees-to-settle-class-action-over-autopilot-billed-as-safer-
idUSKCN1IQ1SH)

[2] [https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/05/man-says-tesla-autopilot-
sav...](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/05/man-says-tesla-autopilot-saved-his-
life-by-driving-him-to-the-hospital.html)

[3] [https://electrek.co/2018/06/01/tesla-autopilot-probably-
save...](https://electrek.co/2018/06/01/tesla-autopilot-probably-saved-my-
life-says-zedd/)

[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5rraWJq6E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5rraWJq6E)

[5] [https://cdllife.com/2018/video-tesla-driver-says-
autopilot-s...](https://cdllife.com/2018/video-tesla-driver-says-autopilot-
saved-him-from-semi-truck-sideswipe/)

etc....

~~~
Spooky23
It’s amazing how bullshit stats delivered by Tesla are gospel, but when
Monsanto or an oil company cook up self serving nonsense, we’re collectively
outraged.

There’s no litigated suit yet, but there are plenty of settlements, including
the class action referenced. I’m sure Tesla has a noxious arbitration clause
that makes litigation difficult.

Personally, money is a truth maker in these scenarios, and the folks stuck
holding the financial bag for Tesla are insurance companies, who are raising
Tesla rates for a variety of reasons that are creating losses for them. As
this feature is in broader use and Tesla continues to succeed in making their
computer’s failures a driver responsibility, those rates will go up more.

~~~
icebraining
_I’m sure Tesla has a noxious arbitration clause that makes litigation
difficult._

It does[1]. You can opt-out, but only in the first 30 days after making the
order, so if you haven't, you're locked into it when the problem arises.

[1] [https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/agreement-to-
arbitra...](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/agreement-to-
arbitrate.113003/)

------
buvanshak
Capitalism will try to exploit every human weakness.

If we have a population of people who are not aware of the intricacies
involved in self driving, and the current technical state of the art, it is
pretty clear there would be entities who would capitalize on it, by claiming
to have implemented self driving.

Now, the way they does is saying stuff that actually does not make that claim,
but in effect projects it. So right now, we have Tesla people saying "We will
start shipping full self driving features by august". And without no clear
understanding of what comprises of "full self driving features", the stocks
rise. Seriously, it is used everywhere. When a toilet cleaner that claims to
kill 99.99% of bacteria, they are doing the same. They project a claim that is
very hard to nullify. But that does not prevent it from boosting the sales.

Car companies are particularly at fault because what they are doing can be
dangerous to the users.

~~~
sillyquiet
Substitute 'The Devil' for 'Capitalism' in these kinds of posts and you have a
sermon for sunday school.

~~~
egjerlow
The Devil will try to exploit every human weakness.

If we have a population of people who are not aware of the intricacies
involved in self driving, and the current technical state of the art, it is
pretty clear there would be entities who would devilize on it, by claiming to
have implemented self driving.

Now, the way they does is saying stuff that actually does not make that claim,
but in effect projects it. So right now, we have Tesla people saying "We will
start shipping full self driving features by august". And without no clear
understanding of what comprises of "full self driving features", the stocks
rise. Seriously, it is used everywhere. When a toilet cleaner that claims to
kill 99.99% of bacteria, they are doing the same. They project a claim that is
very hard to nullify. But that does not prevent it from boosting the sales.

Car companies are particularly at fault because what they are doing can be
dangerous to the users.

.. Doesn't sound much like any sermon I've ever heard..

~~~
sillyquiet
Less the actual content and more the metaphysical dread and reductionary
anthropomorphized conceptualization of fundamental economical principles

------
sideshowb
There are probably 2 types of motorists here

1\. stupid ones who genuinely fell for the marketing bs and thought these cars
would drive themselves 2\. clever ones who had an accident and realized they
could blame the marketing bs to evade liability

Oh and

3\. people like me who never spent more than 2k on a car ;)

