The question of whether the driver should have had their hands on the wheel (clearly they should have) is distinct from the question of whether the Autopilot should have avoided this crash.
I agree, the issue in this case—and indeed with most Autopilot-related incidents—wasn't anything to do with the driver taking his hands off the wheel, it was the driver taking his eyes off the road.
The warning message says "Be prepared to take over at any time." That is clearly the exact opposite of "You may now focus your attention to that laptop on the passenger seat."
Yes it is a concern that Autopilot is failing in some circumstances. But whatever Tesla says or does, the road rules say that the human driver is always responsible in cases like this.
In fact, the driver should have had his eyes on the road, in order to have the degree of attentiveness that Tesla always claims was missing whenever this sort of crash occurs. Tesla cars are unable to detect whether the driver is doing that, and if they did, it would make clear that this technology is nowhere near as complete as Tesla claims.
Would you buy a car that had a camera pointed at you constantly, recording for use in an accident investigation, uploading periodic short videos to Tesla for use in their training data?
Absolutely yes, because I don't drive like a stupid idiot—and if I ever did I'm not going to deny responsibility.
However I don't see why having a camera pointed at my face necessarily means that Tesla have to willingly provide information to insurance companies. As long as it is only available to law enforcement after being granted a court order, I'm fine with that.
(Note: I do not live in the USA. I trust the law enforcement in my country. My answer would be very different if I were in the US resident. I've heard enough about law enforcement in the US to know that I'd never live there, and if I did, I wouldn't ever trust the police.)
Firstly, no-one has a right to drive distracted, any more that they have the right to drive drunk. Secondly, monitoring the attentiveness of a driver, as a backstop for weaknesses in the automation, does not require recording. Thirdly, this might be a good point to remind ourselves that this is, according to Tesla, a beta-testing program. The goal should be to get to the point where constant driver attentiveness is not necessary, but until that is achieved, additional safety measures are justified.
The warning message says "Be prepared to take over at any time." That is clearly the exact opposite of "You may now focus your attention to that laptop on the passenger seat."
Yes it is a concern that Autopilot is failing in some circumstances. But whatever Tesla says or does, the road rules say that the human driver is always responsible in cases like this.