[creato]

> It seems the local government or highway agency also neglected their duty to maintain the highway safety barrier, a shockingly regular occurrence where I live as well. I’ve wondered how often someone is injured because they failed to repair a barrier for several months.

While the crash attenuators should exist and the various responsible authorities should maintain them appropriately, I find it frustrating that this is brought up in this conversation as if it's a significant factor. It might have saved this man's life, but this crash was sure to be incredibly violent with or without the barrier.

The existence of a crash attenuator could not and should not affect anyone's decision making that led to the car impacting the barrier. Not the driver, not Tesla, not autopilot.

I hope the NTSB comments on this and it leads to Caltrans doing a better job of replacing these quickly (if they haven't already committed to this in the aftermath of this incident), but I also hope that it has zero bearing on the rest of the report.

[alphabettsy]

I understand what you’re saying completely. The point of highway safety equipment is usually as a last resort to minimize injury as much as possible, this is after markings, signage, drivers and vehicles have failed to prevent a crash.

Obviously the crash should’ve been avoided, but poorly maintained or designed infrastructure should not be left out of the conversation.

[jackvalentine]

I think it's best to split these in to two 'investigations' to talk about. Yep the barrier probably contributed to the death but are we really interested in talking about? We're here to talk about the self-driving bit! We wouldn't be talking about it if it was a 2002 Toyota Camry that hit it..

[alphabettsy]

There’s no need for there to be two investigations, the NTSB generally produces very thorough reports that will acknowledge all causes leading to injury or death.

[jackvalentine]

I'm not saying there should be two investigations, I'm saying there should be two 'investigations' for the purposes of us talking about it.

Nobody here is actually interested in the case because of the implications for roadside maintenance - they're interested because it's a (semi) autonomous vehicle.

[hbarka]

The gore point gets hit multiple times a year and you would think that CalTrans could at least put safety striping. CalTrans has the statistics to show that it needs better visual cues.

Why don’t they do this, like in other well-planned places:

https://imgur.com/a/2KqP7

https://i.imgur.com/PKavNwR.png

https://i.imgur.com/dfZehmd.gif