[berdario]

> if this in fact is the first recorded death that is directly linked to the car driving itself

There have been 51 such deaths

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tesla_Autopilot_crashe...

> There seems to be some kind of weird double standard where we let people get drivers licenses and run around causing X% accidents per year

I'm all for safe self driving, but the double standard here it's what's allowing Tesla to continue unpunished.

The autopilot/FSD algorithm/AI/implementation is relied upon as if it was a driver... But when a driver kills someone the driver is (or should be) prosecuted, and shouldn't go back immediately on the road before proving that they can drive a vehicle safely.

For humans you can blame "errors of judgement"... A person might not always reliably behave exactly in the same way when in the same situation (in both good and bad ways, e.g. distraction)

But FSD instead means that a Tesla car using the same FSD version, in the same road and sky conditions, will always behave in the same way...

If a human would cause an accident on that Arizona road in the same way, you could take their driving license away, and know that other road users don't risk being maimed by them anymore.

The double standard here instead allows for thousands of other Teslas, with the same FSD version, to drive on the same road... Knowing full well that it's only a matter of time before the same conditions happen again, and a different Tesla would replicate the crash, endangering other road users.

[gruez]

>The autopilot/FSD algorithm/AI/implementation is relied upon as if it was a driver...

Doesn't FSD still come with the disclaimer that the human driver should still be monitoring it?

>For humans you can blame "errors of judgement"... A person might not always reliably behave exactly in the same way when in the same situation (in both good and bad ways, e.g. distraction)

>But FSD instead means that a Tesla car using the same FSD version, in the same road and sky conditions, will always behave in the same way...

Depending on how much you believe in free will, you could argue that humans will also "behave in the same way" given similar circumstances. For instance, being sleep deprived because of DST switchover, for instance. Moreover, I don't see any reason why humans getting distracted by a phone or whatever should be meaningfully different than a Tesla on FSD getting confused by a particular way the road/sky conditions lined up, especially if the latter occurs randomly.

[kmacleod]

I'd prefer a blame-free NTSB investigation. It was a fault. Find the root cause, fix it, carry on.

You're correct, they can still ground a fleet, but there doesn't also need to be a prosecution.

[goosejuice]

The thing is that FSD and autopilot are human controlled just as cruise control is. Under current laws and disclaimers FSD very clearly puts the responsibility in the hands of the driver, just as one would expect with cruise control. See: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/2020_2024_modely/en_us/GU.... Until it's truly autonomous the FSD driver is just as liable in that AZ scenario.

There's several safety issues in my opinion.

1. Tesla's are foreign to drive. Driving mine off the lot was terrifying. You've got a super sensitive rocket with unusual controls. The UX is actual pretty nice for most things but it takes getting used to.. and getting used to that with no instruction is dangerous. They just give you the keys and that's it. They hold free classes but beyond that you're on your own.

2. Related to 1, engaging and disengaging FSD/autopilot is not obvious. On my '23 with stalks you press down past drive to enable FSD or autopilot (which can only be changed when parked). It's not super obvious which one you have on, which can be dangerous. To disengage you either grab the wheel hard, press the brake, or tap up on the stalk. Grabbing the wheel makes you swerve in some situations / older versions. I never do that now but I had to learn the hard way. Pressing the brake at high speeds causes significant slow down due to regen braking so it's not ideal on highways. So that leaves the stalk going up which can easily put you in reverse at low speed. Something I've done accidentally in traffic on the highway as a new owner.

3. FSD and autopilot are so good that it's much easier to trust it than traditional level 2 systems like my Subaru's. That leads to complacency and that's pretty dangerous.

That said, while all these deaths are horrible, we don't see the positives in data. I believe that these systems have absolutely saved more lives than the associated fatalities. Humans are reckless on the road. Every person driving while looking at their phone is worse than FSD which prevents you from looking away. So it's not enough just to look at crashes, you have to consider preventive measures too. Remember the lady who killed a kid on a bike in Colorado while looking at her phone? FSD would have been a godsend there and we would have never known the wiser. https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaFSD/comments/1l02x27/fsd_saves...