
Tesla Driver Banned from Highway After Being Caught in the Passenger Seat - ourmandave
https://jalopnik.com/tesla-driver-banned-from-highway-after-being-caught-in-1825622869
======
oldcynic
Please change link to the BBC story[0] this Jalopnik article links to, as this
is riddled with errors.

 _" Note that this took place in England, so the left-hand side is the driver
side"_

No, in UK we _drive_ on the left, the driver side is the _right_ of the car.

He was not banned from the M1, but banned from _driving_ for 18 months. ie he
got his driving licence suspended.

Neither does one pay the Crown _Prosecution_ (a clue to their role) Services
(also CPS is Crown Prosecution Service singular) one's fine.

That's enough proof reading :)

[0] [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-
herts-43934504](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-43934504)

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maltalex
That's just one of the reasons why some intermediate levels of autonomous
driving are scary.

Drivers get a false sense of safety and stop paying attention. This case is
just one extreme example, but I'm sure that many of the drivers that stay in
their seat are just as absent as this guy.

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aphextron
Seems like a huge oversight that Tesla didn’t make autopilot conditional on
sensing a person in the driver’s seat.

~~~
anonoholic
I really don't understand why the only response to a driver being hands-off is
a "reminder". It should immediately start decelerating and moving to the side
of the road, coming to a complete stop if safe to do so, "limping" if not.

~~~
DanBC
The M1 is a motorway. That means there's normally 3 lanes (but I think 4 here)
and a hard shoulder, traffic travelling at 70 mph (if they're obeying the
speed limit), and no stopping allowed.

I agree the reminder needs to be stronger, but it's not possible to safely
slow or stop on English motorways.

Here's the road on Google maps:
[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.793955,-0.4119246,3a,75y,1...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.793955,-0.4119246,3a,75y,153.53h,82.3t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sgPB5G_IYr01h3DA-
CFrMAg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DgPB5G_IYr01h3DA-
CFrMAg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D102.82819%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656)

I don't know which direction he was travelling.

~~~
anonoholic
> but it's not possible to safely slow or stop on English motorways.

Bullshit. Never broken down? It's perfectly possibly in the worst possible
circumstances to safely pull over to the hard-shoulder.

Smart motorway? The left lane becomes hard shoulder with several miles of
lane-closed warnings for other motorists.

Random dual-carriageway with no hard shoulder? Limp-home speed under control
is far safe than inattentive driver at motorway speeds. Worst case, stopped in
the left (or any!) lane is better than having the driver in the passenger
seat.

Jeez!

Feel free to check back in when you pass the driving test.

~~~
DanBC
He hasn't broken down though. That law exists because it's dangerous to stop
on the hard shoulder.

Rule 264: You MUST NOT drive on the hard shoulder except in an emergency or if
directed to do so by the police, traffic officers in uniform or by signs.

Rule 270: You MUST NOT stop on the carriageway, hard shoulder, slip road,
central reservation or verge except in an emergency, or when told to do so by
the police, traffic officers in uniform, an emergency sign or by flashing red
light signals. Do not stop on the hard shoulder to either make or receive
mobile phone calls.

~~~
detaro
does "Driver assumed not to be in control of vehicle" count as an emergency?

(I'd agree with the general point though that a system that can't handle
driving alone is also going to have difficulties to stop safely, which in many
cases is probably the harder problem)

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moonka
Looks like the legend of the Cruise Control RV[1] has become real.

[1][https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cruise-
uncontrol/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cruise-uncontrol/)

------
userbinator
_A Tesla engineer who testified in the court case reiterated that autopilot is
intended to assist a “fully attentive driver”_

...which has a hard time being "fully attentive" when the car (mostly) drives
itself. On the other hand, given the recent head-on-into-a-divider incident,
I'd say using it has become worse than manually driving since you now have to
correct it when it surprises you by suddenly steering into obstacles.

~~~
nnf
The Tesla in the recent accident you reference did not “suddenly steer into”
the divider. As other owners have since shown, the car centered itself between
what it interpreted as lane markers marking a lane but which were actually two
outside markers diverging as the highway split.

Edit: while the end result of both “steered into” and “failed to avoid” an
obstacle are the same, the method is very different. If a car suddenly steers
into an obstacle, an attentive driver might not be able to react quickly
enough to avoid it, whereas driving straight into something the car fails to
see is very unlikely with an attentive driver.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
You're splitting hairs on the definition of "suddenly". It only took a couple
seconds for the Tesla to go off the main road's path and drive straight into
the divider.

~~~
userbinator
There's a video of someone reproducing this (and not crashing) on YouTube ---
he managed to stop the car in time, but still came awfully close to the
divider, and this is someone who was likely paying a lot more attention at the
time than the typical autopilot user.

To have to fight the autopilot and correct the wrong decisions it sometimes
makes is what makes it scarier than manual driving, since in the latter case
you don't have to fight where the car goes --- unless the steering/suspension
is defective or the road is very uneven, it will go in a straight line with no
driver input.

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dogma1138
What the hell is banned form the highway? They should simply take away his
license.

~~~
moonka
Yea, seems like a pretty severe under-reaction to only ban him from that
specific highway. And for only 18 months at that. An 18 month license
suspension seems more reasonable.

~~~
lordelph
He was indeed banned for 18 months - the article must have misinterpreted the
story. Here's a BBC News article covering it [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
england-beds-bucks-herts-439345...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-
bucks-herts-43934504)

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NinoScript
Why is it called "auto-pilot"? It should be "auto- __CO __pilot "

~~~
dbasedweeb
Or even better, active lane control/assist, but of course Tesla is all about
marketing to the hilt. If the “Gigafactory” were being honest it would be,
“Panasonic with a Tesla sicker.”

~~~
greglindahl
Yeah, all those lies from Tesla about rewriting the code for the robots at the
Gigafactory, and Grohmann shipping a big automated thing to the Gigafactory,
they've confused everyone into thinking that all of the IP isn't Panasonic.

And the teardown guy who was raving about how awesome Tesla's part of the
battery pack was, he must be in on it.

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petecox
In perhaps a decade, lawmakers will mandate real time telemetry and remote
emergency autopilot.

