Texas Tesla Tragedy

[BMT1071]

KPRC Click2Houston: ‘No one was driving the car’: 2 men dead after fiery Tesla crash in Spring, officials say.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/...er-fiery-tesla-crash-in-spring-officials-say/

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[DBC]

This is sad. I understand the manual makes clear that the driver must have their hands on the wheel and be paying attention at all times, but the entire way this has been marketed and structured undermines that premise.

These folks killed themselves, which is as regrettable as it was avoidable, but it could have killed innocent bystanders. Why does everyone have to share the road with this type of unsafe vehicle? And why doesn't NHTSA wake up, smell the coffee, and have Tesla either fix it or pull it?

 

[timbop]

This is not good. Bad press for any BEVs is bad for all. And yes, those asshats could have killed innocent people

 

[Tony.T]

Shocking on many levels. Sad for the relatives they left behind.

 

[EVS]

This is sad. I understand the manual makes clear that the driver must have their hands on the wheel and be paying attention at all times, but the entire way this has been marketed and structured undermines that premise.

These folks killed themselves, which is as regrettable as it was avoidable, but it could have killed innocent bystanders. Why does everyone have to share the road with this type of unsafe vehicle? And why doesn't NHTSA wake up, smell the coffee, and have Tesla either fix it or pull it?

Made it clear? You mean in fine prints? Because the CEO keeps telling millions of people on twitter & national TV that Tesla Autopilot is already safer than humans. Then one who believes he is telling the truth has to be a fool to be driving himself.

As I hear, the sales people also often inflate its capabilities to sell the vaporware $10k FSD. Just look how many reviewers claim that a Tesla can drive itself on backroads while Ford can't and GM's super cruise can't. All those people need to be in prison.

if there is any good in it, it is that no one who didn't volunteer for these idiotic experiments on public roads was hurt. (I'm assuming the passenger agreed and was of age.)
Wasn't there another recent incident where two teenage girls were found similarly riding a Tesla on on the wrong side of the road till the sheriff stopped them?

The design is also completely bogus. Where is driver monitoring? Or am I to believe that the "super smart" Teslas can't even tell if the driver is in the driver's seat?

The saddest part is that even after years of lying and many accidents, the lying CEO is not penalized by any authorities yet.

 

[exact33]

Very sad news regardless of how people feel about tesla

 

[littlD]

Two lives lost and their families forever affected. Very sad.

While we don't know all the details yet, I can tell you that Autopilot can't be enabled in a subdivision. It's disabled in that case. And these quotes from the story referenced in this thread seem to indicate that's where they were:

"Harris County Constable Precinct 4 deputies said the vehicle was traveling at a high speed when it failed to negotiate a cul-de-sac turn, ran off the road and hit the tree. "

" The owner, he said, backed out of the driveway, and then may have hopped in the back seat only to crash a few hundred yards down the road. "

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Autopilot can't be enabled in a subdivision. It's disabled in that case.

That does make me wonder. I work EMS. I’ve been to some crazy accident scenes. The article states the owner was found upright in the back seat. It’s possible he was in the driver’s seat. Then got thrown back there and then during the fire he became upright. Grizzly to say but cooking muscles contract. Possibly returning him to what looked like a seated position. I’ll go bleach my memory now.

 

[jhalkias]

Of course we don’t know all the details yet, but this is a good take.

 

[mburtsvt]

Such a tragic situation. It also looks like that tree will be scared for life as well. Tragic all around.

 

[littlD]

Of course we don’t know all the details yet, but this is a good take.

Certainly Tesla "Stans", but not me.

If Autopilot was somehow enabled in a subdivision and the car accelerated past 5 miles above the road's speed limit on its own (Autopilot only allows +5 over speed limit on highways), there should be an immediate software release to keep people from abusing it.

 

[Mirak]

Anybody else ever had the bad dream where you’re in the back of your car while it’s driving and you’re thinking “I shouldn’t be back here” but you can’t seem to get to the front? Appears this fool did this deliberately.

 

[deadduck]

Made it clear? You mean in fine prints? Because the CEO keeps telling millions of people on twitter & national TV that Tesla Autopilot is already safer than humans. Then one who believes he is telling the truth has to be a fool to be driving himself.

As I hear, the sales people also often inflate its capabilities to sell the vaporware $10k FSD. Just look how many reviewers claim that a Tesla can drive itself on backroads while Ford can't and GM's super cruise can't. All those people need to be in prison.

if there is any good in it, it is that no one who didn't volunteer for these idiotic experiments on public roads was hurt. (I'm assuming the passenger agreed and was of age.)
Wasn't there another recent incident where two teenage girls were found similarly riding a Tesla on on the wrong side of the road till the sheriff stopped them?

The design is also completely bogus. Where is driver monitoring? Or am I to believe that the "super smart" Teslas can't even tell if the driver is in the driver's seat?

The saddest part is that even after years of lying and many accidents, the lying CEO is not penalized by any authorities yet.

I'm of mixed minds on this, and you hit on one side of it.

The other side is that two people drove themselves into the ocean a few nights back and killed themselves. They weren't self-driving although perhaps self-medicating. Things like this happen all the time (I spent a brief stint in the data side of EMS). Honestly, I'm not even sure it's newsworthy. Also, maybe a Tesla doesn't drive them into the ocean because it slams on the brakes but a Tesla in the ocean would be national news.

Self driving, and what Tesla is offering is vaporware, will still have accidents, people will get hurt, but what if it's at 10% of the rate of today's accidents? We save 27,000 lives / year because the roads become massively safer. Do we, after every accident, still run to the newspapers like we do a plane crash or hold the manufacturer's liable for every accident when in the background they're saving thousands of lives?

I rely on adaptive cruise a ton. Twice it's locked up faster than I did, one-time it flashed the screen, causing me to slam the brakes, which was good. One other time it locked up on the freeway. This was a very unique case because someone was stopped in the freeway and the ACC didn't disengage no the stop, so it started up, then locked up. Honestly, It was really weird but I'm lucky I wasn't rear-ended.

Everyone thinks they are an above average driver but averages say that isn't so. In fact, most of us here are, in fact, the definition of averageness.

I'm not forgiving Tesla, or rationalizing the clown, he's lied about what his cars do since the beginning. He's also the reason, if we're honest, that we're even getting a Mach E. 20 years ago I was arguing with people telling me that we'd never get electric cars or that hybrids were useless. Tesla changed that.

Issues like these are complex, need a lot of nuance, and are almost always a give and take between benefits and a price. They aren't clear cut like seatbelts, which save lives, although people fought them for years because people gotta people.

Just some thoughts on the issue.

 

[macchiaz-o]

Anybody else ever had the bad dream where you’re in the back of your car while it’s driving and you’re thinking “I shouldn’t be back here” but you can’t seem to get to the front? Appears this fool did this deliberately.

Mine is that I'm driving but can barely reach the brake pedal. I can push it slightly, with my toes, but not far enough to get the amount of braking needed.

 

[ChasingCoral]

What part of Full Self Driving did they not understand?

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