[poopsmithe]

Yeap, saw that coming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQxm6n7SdvE

Apparently there is a manual release lever, which this driver did not know about. But really, I think it's a bad design to have to think about a second way to open the door. When people panic, they fall back to training, and that training is just opening the door using the handle they always use.

[xeromal]

I was in a total crash of my model 3 in a hit a run. I was pitted from a crazy driver that was driving the wrong way and I ran into a retaining wall. I panicked trying to open the doors as there was smoke everywhere and I think the car was burning but the fog of an accident is pretty intense so I ended up breaking the window out with one of those little tipped seatbelt cutters and crawled out. That stupid override is completely useless when you're in fight or flight.

The Model S did it better where the override is just pulling the door handle all the way out.

[proee]

How did you have the wherewithal to remember you had this tool? Where did you keep the tool? Did the tool come with the car or did you buy it just in case?

[mbreese]

Not the OP, but I have kept one of these in all of my cars for years. I keep mine in the armrest storage space. I’ve never needed it, but it always gets transferred from old car to new. And every time I get something out of the armrest, it reinforces the location in my mind.

[xeromal]

I've always carried one in my cupholder my whole life. It's like a small knife and has a tipped end. Very easy to use.

They're 20$ on amazon. I will admit I tried kicking the window first but then remembered I had the knife.

[x187463]

Worth considering that an accident which would cause you to need such a device is likely to involve enough disturbance to cause a tool sitting in the cupholder to find itself thrown around the vehicle.

[xeromal]

Yeah, it's definitely a risk but I intentionally left it in the cup holder to make sure it annoyed me enough daily when I needed to use a cup so that I remembered it existed. There's a fine line and I have a terrible memory especially in a crisis so I figured it's best bouncing around then hidden in some center console or glove box where I can't remember

[tlavoie]

Mine is on my keychain, which is likely still embedded in the dash after a crash. I guess that's less helpful for those newer vehicles that don't use keys as such.

[ncr100]

This is a great reminder to carry one of those.

Thank you for the reminder. I'm glad you're safe.

[xeromal]

Thank you! I was coming home from work and it was my birthday so I had a cake in the back of my car and lost it in the crash. The greatest tragedy. lol

[ncr100]

OMG - comedy & tragedy, amirite? Sounds like the "paint bucket in the back of the car during crash" risk. <3

[adrr]

There's no manual release on my model 3 for the rear passenger doors. Only front doors have it.

[bangaladore]

Yeah, I think the front manual release is fine, but the fact that the rear doesn't have one at all on the model 3 (and the Model Y has it hidden behind a trim piece?) seems like it shouldn't be legal.

[tlavoie]

Some Model Ys have them, under a trim piece, in a door pocket. Others have none, so it's a total gamble to get into one.

Kind of related, Teslas (some?) don't have a manual hood release either, so firefighters' first hope is to find the guy who knows what menu on the fucking touch-screen is going to pop the hood. E.g., when making sure that the high voltage stuff can be disabled, the car won't try to leave with fire crews in the way, and so on. There are more... destructive ways to get in, and it will happen, but they could have just installed a pull cable like everyone else.

[josephcsible]

Why should that be illegal, given that child safety locks on car doors are allowed? Aren't those equivalent?

[fabian2k]

Those are an intentional decision, and using them usually means there is an adult that can open the door from the outside if necessary. Which is a problem if the door can't be opened without power from the outside either. So they're not equivalent.

[toast0]

Setting child lock on doors is an intentional decision, once, and then it stays that way until another intentional decision to unset it. If you purchase a car and the child lock was set, you might not notice it was set.

Depending on the configuration of the car, if you end up in the back seat with the door closed and the child lock is set on all rear doors, it can be pretty difficult to get out.

[ainka-ainka]

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-A7A60DC...

[adrr]

Not on my 2019 model 3.

[randycupertino]

There also was Mitch Mcconnell's sister in law, shipping billionaire Angela Chao, who drunkenly drove into a pond on her property and couldn't get out of her Tesla. Interestingly, her own sister was the Head of the Department of Transportation when the model she died in was approved.

https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/angela-chao-death-texas-tesl...

> “The night was chilly and very dark, with no moon, so rather than walk, Chao got in her Tesla Model X SUV for the four-minute trip back to the house.

> The account of what happened to Angela Chao that weekend is based on interviews with people close to Chao and her family, county officials who were briefed on what happened or were there, as well as reviews of law-enforcement documents.

> Within minutes of saying her goodbyes, she called one of her friends in a panic. While making a three-point turn, she had put the car in reverse instead of drive, she said. It is a mistake she had made before with the Tesla gearshift. The car had zipped backward, tipping over an embankment and into a pond. It was sinking fast. Could they help her?

> Over the next several hours, her friends, then the ranch manager and his wife, and then paramedics, and firefighters and sheriff’s deputies rushed around and tried to break the windows, find an escape hatch or any way to get Chao out of the car. Somehow an executive who made her living on the sea was drowning in a stock pond within sight of her home.”

[Ajedi32]

> paramedics, and firefighters and sheriff’s deputies rushed around and tried to break the windows, find an escape hatch or any way to get Chao out of the car

A team of firefighters, paramedics, and police officers couldn't find a way to break the windows on an SUV?

[tokai]

No, looking at the timeline, in her wiki article, it seems that they got her out shortly after they arrived. They started resuscitation attempts as soon as they got her out, so I would guess it ran full of water in the time it took ER to arrive.

[IshKebab]

Woah that's crazy. Killed by two of Musk's dumb decisions.

[adolph]

Pretty sure the "drunkenly drove" part will overcome many a great decision. Maybe these the engineering and design decisions were dumb. However, judging decision quality from a small sample or most salient result does not improve decisions.

https://nautil.us/the-resulting-fallacy-is-ruining-your-deci...

[ncr100]

Seems like Musk is just racking up the "related to" immediate kill count, with his involvement in organizations .. that is:

He was involved in the US government and he shut down, his department shut down, the USAID. And that one shut-down is, according to reports I've read ... which I don't have on hand, hundreds of thousands of dead people.

I understand his argument is, in the future .. things will be better. We will be on Mars, safe from asteroids. We will have cars, safe from reckless drivers. We will have immortal brains, safe from natural degradation. We will have an electric economy, avoiding the toxic dependence on oil and gas.

Pulling back -- I wonder if there is a correlation between empowered individuals and deaths, and their whether there is a need (for humanity's sake) for group thinking and decision-making when it comes to situations that could create mass death? (To avoid mass death.)

We have a US president who (and apparently for decades past have had a vulnerable political system, regardless of Trump) is essentially destroying law and order through the unilateral illegal or provably corrupt directions that he's giving, and through his followers (Supreme Court, Congress, Senate, Executive, appointed Agency heads) who align their organizations with his retribution campaign. This is on my mind today.

So in this US presidency I see situation there is a group of people who are making these decisions. This counter-proves my hypothesis.

However, this group are following the leader and, I suppose like in Nazi Germany, where there were tons of people who were following the leadership and the ideology that made the holocaust happen and 6 million people plus dead, they aren't really thinking for themselves, it doesn't seem to me. They aren't thinking as a group. They are following.