[seanhunter]

As a biker myself, I was always taught that when riding a bike you are responsible for your own safety. This means you should always be taking in as much information as you can in order to make escape plans in the event of something unexpected. Getting rear-ended like this is an absolute nightmare scenario. Even though the relative velocity between the vehicles is small, even the slightest bump to your back wheel will almost certainly cause you to hit the tarmac[1], and often on a freeway you have limited escape routes because you may not be able to change lanes safely and if a car comes up behind you fast you may not be able to accelerate away from them.

Autopilot (as I understand it) is a lane-following dynamic cruise control so should have detected the bike and slowed down on approach. Human beings have a weakness in their stereoscopic vision where because their eyes are not far apart they can’t accurately tell the speed of a narrow object (like a bike) if it’s travelling towards or away from them. It seems like this should not be a problem with a car (because you can put the cameras on either side of the vehicle for example), but I wonder whether Teslas detectors or software have weaknesses with narrow objects.

[1] And even though with good gear you can skid along the road relatively safely, other cars are bound to hit you.