"Note that this took place in England, so the left-hand side is the driver side"

No, in UK we drive on the left, the driver side is the right of the car.

He was not banned from the M1, but banned from driving for 18 months. ie he got his driving licence suspended.

Neither does one pay the Crown Prosecution (a clue to their role) Services (also CPS is Crown Prosecution Service singular) one's fine.

That's enough proof reading :)

[0] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-43934504

Drivers get a false sense of safety and stop paying attention. This case is just one extreme example, but I'm sure that many of the drivers that stay in their seat are just as absent as this guy.

I agree the reminder needs to be stronger, but it's not possible to safely slow or stop on English motorways.

Here's the road on Google maps: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.793955,-0.4119246,3a,75y,1...

I don't know which direction he was travelling.

The speed limit on that stretch can vary depending on how heavy traffic is, as high as 70, but sometimes 60, 50, 40 or probably even lower.

Bullshit. Never broken down? It's perfectly possibly in the worst possible circumstances to safely pull over to the hard-shoulder.

Smart motorway? The left lane becomes hard shoulder with several miles of lane-closed warnings for other motorists.

Random dual-carriageway with no hard shoulder? Limp-home speed under control is far safe than inattentive driver at motorway speeds. Worst case, stopped in the left (or any!) lane is better than having the driver in the passenger seat.

Jeez!

Feel free to check back in when you pass the driving test.

Rule 264: You MUST NOT drive on the hard shoulder except in an emergency or if directed to do so by the police, traffic officers in uniform or by signs.

Rule 270: You MUST NOT stop on the carriageway, hard shoulder, slip road, central reservation or verge except in an emergency, or when told to do so by the police, traffic officers in uniform, an emergency sign or by flashing red light signals. Do not stop on the hard shoulder to either make or receive mobile phone calls.

(I'd agree with the general point though that a system that can't handle driving alone is also going to have difficulties to stop safely, which in many cases is probably the harder problem)

It seems that in cases like these there are two possibilities --either the driver is passed out/dead, so you definitely do want to stop as soon as possible, or the driver is a dangerous idiot, as it is in this case, so he also should be stopped quickly, and if he rack up another traffic violation in process, well, serves him right.

Practically speaking, of course, it is not obvious if Tesla is capable of safely navigating to a safe shoulder.

Also, there is another safeguard... it will warn you when you disconnect the drivers seatbelt.

I think the earnings are adequate. There are not much alternatives, as deactivating autopilot could potentially be more dangerous

[1]https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cruise-uncontrol/

...which has a hard time being "fully attentive" when the car (mostly) drives itself. On the other hand, given the recent head-on-into-a-divider incident, I'd say using it has become worse than manually driving since you now have to correct it when it surprises you by suddenly steering into obstacles.

Edit: while the end result of both “steered into” and “failed to avoid” an obstacle are the same, the method is very different. If a car suddenly steers into an obstacle, an attentive driver might not be able to react quickly enough to avoid it, whereas driving straight into something the car fails to see is very unlikely with an attentive driver.

To have to fight the autopilot and correct the wrong decisions it sometimes makes is what makes it scarier than manual driving, since in the latter case you don't have to fight where the car goes --- unless the steering/suspension is defective or the road is very uneven, it will go in a straight line with no driver input.

So then what is the point of Autopilot at all? I'm a big fan of Tesla, and I've wanted to try Autopilot for years, but after I saw that YouTube video of the driver needing to slam on the breaks to barely avoid hitting the divider, I thought "no thanks". If Autopilot dangerously lulls you into a false sense of security, I'd rather drive manually where I'm forced to be attentive.

[0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-439345...

[1] https://www.gov.uk/driving-disqualifications

To be banned from driving on the highway is to be banished to private grounds.

And the teardown guy who was raving about how awesome Tesla's part of the battery pack was, he must be in on it.