[justsomedood]

The speed limit where this occurred is 70mph. Most motorcyclists are at the speed limit. If the Tesla rear ended the motorcycle at 80mph (10mph difference) that is a life ending mistake.

As to how the driver didn't see the motorcycle, if the car is driving for you why even pay attention? Especially at night when there are so few other drivers. The whole reason to use autopilot is to interact less with the vehicle. I know telsa says you have to pay attention, but the point of the feature is not to.

[herewulf]

Sorry but almost no one driving personal vehicles is driving the speed limit on this stretch of I-15. Most motorcyclists I've seen here are driving well above it and weaving in and out of traffic. It's certainly odd in this case that the motorcyclist was hit from behind.

[buffington]

> why even pay attention?

Tesla's Autopilot feature compels you to pay attention. If it doesn't detect your hands on the wheels applying slight pressure, the car will nag at you, first by flashing blue on the screen, then by sounding alarms, until it does feel slight pressure on the wheel, and if you ignore that, it'll slow the car to a stop.

> The whole reason to use autopilot is to interact less with the vehicle.

According to who? Tesla? I've yet to see any documentation saying what the point of Autopilot says. The official user manual for the feature doesn't even try to explain why the feature exists.

I've used the feature in my Tesla, and frankly, it's lane aware cruise control. That's it. It in no way allows you to do other stuff. If anything, I have to interact more with my car when I'm using Autopilot.

I also think there's more to this story than just an inattentive Tesla driver ignoring their Autopilot's warnings. Especially when it happened at 1:10AM on a stretch of highway that's straight and smooth, and likely had very few other vehicles.