The same topic is being explored in the 737 MAX clusterfuck where Boeing failed to provide sufficient safeguards OR sufficient training for non-expert users to manage catastrophic failure. People are stupid, yes. But you can't blame people being stupid as an excuse for insufficient safety engineering, just like you can't blame drag force being proportional to the square of the velocity. These are just the constraints we have to engineer around.

Kind of worked for SpaceX by ignoring all the political bullshit in aerospace. I'm slowly wondering whether that was luck or intention, so.

Just how the latest Tesla features ever became road legal is beyond my understanding so.

Chesterton’s Fence:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

—G.K. Chesterton, “The Thing,” 1929

Citation needed.

I'll let you read through these links to decide where you stand:

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124439_nhtsa-to-tesla-...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/07/business/tesla-model-3-safety...

...

It sounds like the regulatory body doesn't like that Tesla is claiming they got a 5.4 rating out of 5, as they say they don't give out higher than a 5 rating - and it sounds like Tesla is using public data points to calculate that 5.4. We'll have to wait to see if this goes to court to see if Tesla's methods for stating their 5.4/5 rating is unreasonable - or if the guidelines perhaps are if they "cap" what rating a vehicle can reach based on comparable data; as Tesla states in one of those articles alone, ~40% of vehicles have a 5-star rating - so they argue it's important to be more specific to allow consumers to better differentiate.

This thinking is what may cause many automakers to fail.

https://www.automotiveworld.com/articles/is-the-auto-industr...

Consumer products have to be designed to be safe against consumers, to a large extent. You can’t just add a feature, add a disclaimer that says, in effect, “don’t use this”, and blame the user if they use the feature.

Technology has always required basic understanding to avoid harm.

What about when the car is about to collide with something you cannot see from a remote point of view, or when the positions and/or velocities are distorted from the longer perspective? There are many common situations where hazards that would usually be visible from the driver's seat are obscured when looking at the car from a distance.

Also, people generally have to be trained and pass a test demonstrating basic competency at driving and pass a vision test. These tests don't include the slightly different skills/vision required to safely judge driving a car from a distance, so why would you assume a licensed driver is even capable of operating dangerous machinery to do something outside the scope of that license?

It’s bs

You can’t, I can’t, no can perceive angles appropriately from outside the car at distances that keeps the feature safe and makes the feature useful (50 yards out)

That sounds like the issue with the chap who tried it in his driveway.

(My feeling is that if the feature isn't more reliable than a 95th percentile human for the subset of functionality, it probably shouldn't be released.)