[hirundo]

Funny, the article says several times that the NTSB is unhappy with Tesla's release of information, but it never says why. It's not clear how it can interfere with the investigation. Maybe they just want to control the narrative? But that is no part of their function. Sorry if you're unhappy about Tesla's disclosures guys, but why, and why should we care?

[Animats]

Because, if Tesla signed up as a "party" to assisting with the investigation, that puts them under certain nondisclosure rules.[1] At the end of the investigation all the info comes out, but not in the early stages. Selectively releasing information that makes some party look good is not allowed if you are involved with the investigation.

This is widely understood in the aviation community. The mission of the NTSB is not to assist with either litigation or PR.

"Contacts with news media concerning the investigation will be made only by the NTSB, through the Board Member if on-scene, the NTSB’s representative of its Office of Public Affairs, or the IIC. The guiding policy is that the NTSB is a public agency engaged in the public’s business and supported by public funds. The agency’s work is open for public review, and the Act under which it operates makes this mandatory. The NTSB believes that periodic factual briefings to the news media are a normal part of its investigation and that, for the public to perceive the investigation as credible, the investigation should speak with one voice, that being the independent agency conducting the investigation. Therefore, the NTSB insists that it be the sole source of public information regarding the progress of an accident investigation. Parties are encouraged to refer media inquiries to the NTSB’s Office of Public Affairs. In any case, release to the media of investigative information at any time is grounds for removal as a party."

[1] https://www.ntsb.gov/legal/Documents/NTSB_Investigation_Part...

[gsnedders]

If they are a party to the investigation, ignoring the non-disclosure rules makes Tesla seem to me like a dodgy company willing to act against established norms designed to ensure transport safety, and I hope they get the book thrown at them for it.

If they are not a party to the investigation, I'd question why not. When was the last time an aircraft manufacturer declined to be a party to the investigation? They recognise that if they get a reputation for being unsafe that has repercussions for future sales; I'd hope the same was true of car manufacturers!

To me, there's literally no way this makes Tesla look good.

[ethbro]

Isn't that a lose/lose for Tesla?

Are not a party to the investigation -- motives questioned, discovering facts takes longer or impossible

Are a party to the investigation and information can only be released by NTSB -- share price gets hammered every time there's a crash and everyone else gets a chance to put out information

I'm inclined to lead towards "special circumstances" here. Does every Ford crash make national news?

[mannykannot]

> share price gets hammered every time there's a crash.

Instituting a more responsible testing program would both signal that they are dealing with the matter and also reduce the possibility of further deaths.

> Does every Ford crash make national news?

Those that indicate a major screw-up do, such as the Explorer rollovers (or Chevvy's ignition switch issue, for that matter).

I don't think the NTSB would be upset if the statements about these autonomous-vehicle accidents were purely factual, relevant and without self-serving commentary and innuendo.

[gsnedders]

Is the same not true for Boeing?

[ethbro]

I'd argue Boeing (and most other companies) have the benefit of amortizating "fear" over the total installed base of similar technologies.

A Chevy engine turns out to have a design flaw, investors say "Yes, but Ford produces and sells tons of engines, so here's how much we think fixing it will cost."

It seems like the recent Uber / Tesla self-driving impact is more of the form of "Gee, maybe this isn't even possible."

If the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor were the only aircraft Boeing made... then I'd say it would be a more similar analogy.

[TAForObvReasons]

"Move fast and break things", including non-disclosure agreements and established norms :/

[hirundo]

Because Tesla should be a subject of the NTSB investigation, they should _not_ be a party to it, any more than a suspected criminal should be a party to their criminal investigation. Tesla should have no discretion over what data they provide to the NTSB. Calling them a "party" sounds like an excuse to control the information flow, not narrowly tailored to a legitimate state interest.

Tesla has an ethical and fiduciary duty to carry out their own independent investigation, to the extent that it doesn't interfere with the NTSB's. These organizations do not have the same interests. They don't have to be adversaries, but it's inappropriate for them to be partners. The public is better served by multiple independent investigations.

[lolc]

While I don't know about how this is percieved within Tesla, the adversarial relationship you paint between NTSB and Tesla is exactly what should not happen. Root causes of crashes must be investigated and published so that Tesla and their competitors can improve safety of their cars.

[hirundo]

> the adversarial relationship you paint

There is space between being an adversary and being a partner in the investigation.

> Root causes of crashes must be investigated and published so that Tesla and their competitors can improve safety of their cars.

Yes, and two independent such investigations are better than one. With less opportunity for the subject to steer the result.

[icegreentea2]

If the NTSB was truly focused on providing investigations that minimize future risk (this is separate from blame, responsibility or punishment), then it's pretty clear that it should ideally be able to work in as neutral of an environment as possible.

Tesla is also clearly trying to control the narrative, and I think NTSB's usual MO is that there simply be as little narrative as possible until something as close to ground truth be determined and released. NTSB understands that releasing reports into a pre-charged environment leads to increased risk of backlask against NTSB, thus reducing its capacity to minimize future risk.

[wpietri]

Yeah, I have huge respect for the NTSB. I think they're a big reason air travel is so safe. You'd never see an airline energetically trying to assign blame like this, and I'm disappointed that Tesla's PR operation is spinning vigorously before the investigation is over.

[Animats]

Right. Aviation and the NTSB understand each other. Commercial aviation accidents seldom have a single cause, because decades of hard work have eliminated all the single causes of failure. It usually takes a whole chain of failures to bring down an airliner, and it takes long, complicated investigations to figure out exactly what happened.

Crash investigations tend to have conclusions like "A happened, and that would have been survivable except that B also happened, and the pilots were distracted dealing with A while B was the more serious problem." There's a whole field of "cockpit resource management" which deals with such issues.

The NTSB's job is not to assign blame. It's to understand exactly what happened and figure out how to keep it from happening again.

This crash is somewhat similar to the four other Tesla crashes where a stationary obstacle was partially obstructing the left edge of a lane. We know that Teslas will plow into such obstructions. Here's the area of 101 leading up to the crash.[1] Note the width of the space between the lines marking the gore area, the pointy section as the exit lane tapers off. It becomes a full lane wide, and widens very slowly. It's possible that the lane following system locked into the gore area as a lane, and followed it right into the barrier.

CALTRANS standards call for a sign in the gore area.[2] But drivers keep hitting them. Replacing them is dangerous work, because there's live traffic and not enough room for a block vehicle. Especially here, because this is a left exit designed for high speed. So one of the options is to put the sign overhead, well ahead of the split. That's what CALTRANS did here. Tesla's system, of course, does not understand such a sign.

Federal standards recommend striping in the gore area.[3] But CALTRANS does not usually do that. Probably because standard truck-mounted lane striping sprayers can't do it without shutting down the freeway.

I look forward to seeing NTSB's take on all this.

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4107387,-122.0752862,3a,75y,... [2] http://www.dot.ca.gov/trafficops/tcd/exit-gore.html [3] http://www.fdot.gov/roadway/ds/06/idx/17345.pdf

[wpietri]

Thanks, that's very helpful. When I first looked at your link #1, I thought the gore area was a lane, so I can see how a machine would get that wrong.

But if it is prioritizing "I'm in a lane, so I'm cool" over "I'm hurtling toward a wall with a very visible marker" then clearly more work needs to be done. (Worse still if it can't recognize such a visible obstruction in the lane.) And, I'd say, should have been done before they were turning people loose with it.

[Animats]

That's Tesla. Here's the famous fatal crash in China.[1] No braking at all, right into a work vehicle operating in the left edge of a freeway. Tesla's system just doesn't detect big solid stationary obstacles. There are three other crashes with dashcams in similar situations.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc0yYJ8-Dyo

[jedberg]

My guess is that they are unhappy because Tesla has decided they hold no responsibility. They blame 1) the driver and 2) Caltrans (for not maintaining the median).

The NTSB doesn't like to speculate. They like to have solid facts, and they want the manufacturer to take blame if need be, so they can fix things.

[gsnedders]

Also they're interested in minimising risk in the future and providing recommendations to achieve that. It may well be the case that in a strict legal sense Tesla has no responsibility here, but from the NTSB's point of view that's irrelevant—the question is whether there's anything Tesla could do to minimise the risk of future incidents like this.

[sitkack]

If Tesla relies so heavily on lane markers, someone may very well perform "a hit" on one or more Tesla owners by painting some adversarial lane lines. They could even tuned to the spectral response of the Tesla sensor pack.

[vilhelm_s]

I imagine maybe the NTSB feels that their neutral position is being undermined? NTSB gave Tesla the data recorder in order for them to help the investigation, but then Tesla took some of the data on it and used to make a press release to put some spin on the event---probably the NTSB feels they were played...