I would argue that partial self driving is an irresponsible product not because it's impossible to drive safely with it, but because so many people will use it as an excuse to pay little to no attention to the road. If you personally are a responsible driver and even a better driver with it, that's great - but most people probably aren't going to use it the same way, especially those without much of an understanding of the technology - and especially given the way that Tesla markets it.
"Risk compensation is a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to perceived levels of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected."
I was first introduced to "wide streets in neighborhoods are more dangerous than narrow" on HN years ago. (I don't think it was the linked article, but that was the first one that came up just now after a search :P )
Since having read that, I've actually noticed how true this is, at least to me anecdotally. When I'm driving in a neighborhood with crowded streets, I can't bring myself to go over 15MPH, much less over the speed limit (typically 25 in neighborhoods in the US).
Wide streets give a sense of security. So I feel like people are less likely to pay attention going around bends, parked cars, etc, than if they didn't have that sense of security.
I trust someone posting here to driver safely and safer with it.
Forget the average, how about the bottom 10-20% of all drivers? I don't trust the bottom 10% driving with "Autopilot" at all, zero. They are going to use it to go on autopilot while driving, exactly as the marketing implies. I mean there has to even be people who think the car itself is conscious. Car has advanced AI, must be conscious.
To think otherwise is just highly underestimating how clueless some people are.
Yes there have been stories about irresponsible people. Do you have any evidence that this is the common case? The aggregate evidence seems to suggest reduced accidents and reduced fatalities.
Absolutely not true as a blanket statement. Maybe if the driver monitoring is so lax that you could conceivably trick the car into poorly driving itself, but the system I use, Comma [1], has incredibly strict driver monitoring.
There is absolutely no doubt I'm a safer driver with Comma than without it. I'm still in control, but Comma not only allows me to expend less effort driving (which allows me to stay alert over longer periods of time), but also be much less emotional when driving. I'm pretty convinced that a large percentage of accidents are caused by frustrated or bored drivers doing crazy things that you just don't feel the urge to do with the assistance of self-driving.
I use the same system as you do, and I've noticed that if you mention that system's name, you tend to get downvotes. I haven't yet figured out why, not sure if there is a bot or just a lot of Tesla fans who downvote the mention of our system.
This doesn't even make sense. Simply mentioning the name of a product I use is not advertising. Otherwise, is every person here who mentions Tesla advertising too?
> Simply mentioning the name of a product I use is not advertising.
Sorry, I actually meant to refer to Birken's comment above. Advertising might not have been the best word - astroturfing? If you read their comment but replace "comma" with "tesla" it still reads as spammy.
Yours was fine (though discussing downvotes will always get you downvotes, my comment included).
> Otherwise, is every person here who mentions Tesla advertising too?
Only the ones who needlessly sing the praises of the Tesla autopilot in barely-related threads.
Well said, that last bit especially. The regulations on medical devices are on how the manufacturer markets it. Should be the same for driving technology.
> so many people will use it as an excuse to pay little to no attention to the road
I guess that we have to look at the results here to judge whether too many people are not paying attention. Hopefully the investigation will reveal whether the autopilot incidents of collision with emergency vehicles is significantly more frequent or less frequent than from vehicles being driven in the traditional way.
One would think that with "autopilot" there would be a limit to speed and an increased "caution distance" the vehicle maintains with everything.
I also think there should be dedicated lanes for self driving cars..
A very good friend of mine was a sensor engineer at google working on virtual sensors that interacted with hand gestures in the air... and is now a pre-eminent sensor engineer for a large japanese company everyone has heard of...
We drove from the bay to nprthern california in his tesla and it was terrifying how much trust he put into that car. I got car sick and ended up throwing up out the window...
Knowing what I know of machines working in tech since 1995 -- I would trust SHIT for self-driving just yet.
