So, now regarding that previous crash: did that driver (or should I say occupant) get lulled into a false sense of security because he'd been through there many times in the past and it worked until that update happened and then it suddenly didn't?

Now that these other videos are showing up, and further details (the update) are emerging, that PR should bite them in the ass hard enough that they decide never to handle an incident that way again.

I don't want this to kill Tesla -- I sincerely hope they make their production goals and become a major automobile manufacturer -- but their handling of this should hurt them.

I'm also curious if any of the people at Tesla saying, "we call it autopilot even though we expect the human driver to be 100% attentive at all times" have studied any of the history of dead man's vigilance devices.

Tesla PR knows nothing about what updates the engineering team did. At least some people in Tesla PR probably don't even know the cars update their software regularly.

It's bad practice for them to speak out of turn, but I can absolutely see the PR team not having a good grasp of what really indicates safety and their job is to just put out the best numbers possible.

Their job is not to put out the best numbers possible, their job is to inform. Most likely they were more worried about the effect of their statement on their stock price than they were worried about public safety.

If they do put out numbers (such as 85K trips past that point) then it is clear that they have access to engineering data with a very high resolution, it would be very bad if they only used that access to search for numbers that bolster their image.

No the entire point of a PR department is to propagandize the public on behalf of the corporation.