So to summarize:

- Freeways account for 93% of distance travelled with Autopilot

- Freeways account for 28% of the distance travelled by regular drivers.

- "vehicles on non-freeways crashed 2.01 times more often per mile"

a quick back of the envelop calculation suggests merely driving on the freeway lowers accidents per mile by ~40%, which accounts for most of the difference between Autopilot and regular drivers.

Again the old tricks, from "How To Lie With Statistics."

I get you a perfect Sample around age, income, sex, nationality, times of day and others. Prove to you 98% of people in this Town love Romantic Comedies.

The only thing I am not telling you, is that I am running the Inquiry at the exit atrium door of a Romantic Comedy movie...

I doubt you'd be able to get much over 50%, given how often the audience there is couples on dates :P

There are additional factors.

Teslas are on average substantially newer than the average US passenger car fleet and thus have significantly more safety features and driver assistance tech, are better maintained, etc.

If Tesla compared only to vehicles of similar age and class (Audi/BMW/Mercedes etc) their stats would be much less favorable.

> are better maintained, etc.

Recent statistics released by TüV^1 show that among relatively new cars Tesla competes with Dacia for the highest failure rate among all cars that go through Germanies mandatory road worthiness tests.

^1 https://www.pcwelt.de/news/TUeV-warnt-vor-typischer-Schwachs...

Go find the HN discussion on this report. German processes and bureaucracy surrounding road worthiness checks is not favourable towards non-established car brands like Tesla.

In short: big car brands' cars go through a preliminary check at manufacturers' licensed dealerships, and only after that get sent to the government's checks. It enables manufacturers to fix cars before independent verification so their safety numbers look great. Tesla doesn't have this kind of extensive network for "pre-checks".

You're explaining (one of) the reasons Tesla is failing at the metric. Far from showing the metric is flawed, you're exposing the value of a dealer system and what Tesla's customers are losing because there isn't one.

What value are you talking about?

Not publishing open stats on test failures? Why is that something the customer would want to pay for?

The value is as an additional line of QC. If you think about it as "hiding statistics" then there is no value. If you think of it as the last step in the production process, then clearly the cars making it to the customers are of a higher average level if the bad ones get rejected.

It also lets Tesla play with the numbers of shipped cars, because cars returned by dealers don't count as shipped.

But look at the recent HN story about the Tesla without a brake pad.

I think you may be confused as to the context. Or else I am, let me check.

Ok, so this is a check done after the car has been used for 3 years.

So, it's not QC before the car leaves the factory, it's fixing things before the government checks them and puts them into the public stats for test "failures".

I may have misunderstood. These statistics are generated by the government checking vehicles after they've been in service for 3 years by an end consumer? And only after the dealer gives it an immediately preceding check? If so, that invalidates my point.

If it's just the results of regular dealer maintenance, it's fuzzier.

> And only after the dealer gives it an immediately preceding check?

Some dealers are qualified to perform the checks and also offer to perform a pre check for free. However cars checked by a dealer would not end up on a statistic of cars checked by TüV.

If your mom warned you a day in advance that she is going to see how lean your room is, is she going to get a true understanding of your cleanliness, or just a snapshot of what your room is like?

Also, I think the biggest flaw in tesla’s statistics is that people will turn of autopilot when they see a dangerous situation ahead - it is pretty much as self-selecting “good” samples as it gets.

indeed, either they turn off autopilot to avoid the crash, or it crashed. The cases 'would have crashed if the human did not intervene' should also count if you want to claim it is super safe

That seems irrelevant for the statistics, though? It doesn‘t give the Tesla driver an advantage.

It does? Those drivers remove a small portion of the autopilot miles driven, but a large portion of the challenging/dangerous miles. The result are stats with a low accident per mile ratio.

It definitely skews the statistics. Compare two driver's records, but use all the driving of the first, and only the driving on safe/clear/clean/visible sections of highway for the second. Voila: the second will very probably be the "better" driver.

Sure, but the important question is the capability of the Autopilot, not the Tesla driver.

I've driven someone's new Tesla. The rear right door didn't align with the body. New, fresh from the factory.

Please don't compare it to high end german cars.

People often save up especially for a Tesla (incorporating gas and maintenance savings in the price), including a lot of people who wouldn't be buying a BMW, so I'm not sure price would be the right metric there.

Are you saying just because more people are being financially irresponsible when buying Teslas, we should cease such comparisons?

No, I’m saying that people incorporate a $10k price of gasoline into the price of the vehicle instead of paying for them separately as you would with a BMW.

Parent does not include price as a metric, but cars of the same age and class, which probably have many of the same default extra safety features. Older cars might not even have ESC, they certainly don't have cameras that help you detect cars in blind angles and so on.

“Class” here refers to pricing, does it not? Luxury car owners will be quick to point out that the Model 3 and Y are not “luxury” class even if the cost ranges aren’t far apart.

so in sum, Thomas Bayes just kicked Tesla square in the ass?

Square in the frunk.

> more often

This is what matters. If/when it becomes less often, the case will be made (i.e. driverless doesn't have to be perfect to be better).

From what I heard the autopilot code is pretty old by now, with the new developpement on FSD I think we will see a lot of improvement, in human driving... not so much.

There are additional confounding variables noted in the paper:

  - Age of driver
  - Specific highways used (congestion, road conditions)
  - What is classified as a highway

Overall this is pretty good news for "autopilot" systems. It gives some humans an ego-boost as they clutch to steering wheels like John Henry. It gives others interested in a more relaxed driving experience the confidence that the computer isn't going to kill them any worse than they already do.

And you know what? All I want out of the first fifteen years of self-driving is a really good highway autopilot.

As in one I can hopefully sleep at the wheel on a late night trip between midwestern US cities.

John Henryism can navigate the suburbs, stroads, and drivethrus. If they achieve a backup safety system that monitors the humans, well, ok great.

But right now, I want long distance automation, and I can handle the messy last mile. Highways are much easier to get uniform infrastructure convergence: some sensors, PSA warnings, better signs + markings + construction notices, etc.

I think Uber making as big a splash at it did sidetracked this low hanging fruit. IMO that was where the bootstrap bucks were, because you would have gotten freight/shipping to pay the cost of the next gen software, and would have provided the impetus for the convergent infrastructure.

Alas, they are obsessed with robotaxis.

Actually, seems like you want a train

Trains don't operate from door to door. The last mile problem persist, unless you travel between railway connected city centres. Not everyone lives anywhere near a railway station.

(I live in Europe which has relatively good railway network, still I prefer my Tesla as transport method.)

There are trains that transport cars.

True, they also run such a trains here in Finland, an overnight trip from south to north (Lapland). The train tickets for our family of 5 plus a car are so expensive (total 1200 eur) compared to minimal marginal cost for using our EV (150 eur), that we always choose the car.

highways don't go door to door, and that's what they were suggesting.

They were suggesting they want to use the same vehicle door to door with it being automated during the freeway bit. A train would still mean find some transport to the station, wait for the train, ride train, find transport from station.

Or a train that takes cars, like a Ferry, obviously that massively cuts down on space efficiency but it’s not impossible.

Called a Motorail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorail

Like the euro tunnel

I'll answer that with another piece of prognostication: good highway self-driving will cause massive disruption to the airline industry.

Would you rather do this for a business trip to a 400-500 mile away city:

- fixed time to depart (and fixed for leaving your destination!)

- have to book ticket weeks in advance for a reasonable flight

- no flexiblity if plans change

- pack a small bag

- transit to an airport (parking or cab or whatever)

- arrive a sufficient amount of time in advance

- check in

- go through security

- get on plane, stuck in seat, no/crappy food

- get off plane, go to car rental place

- rent car (not yours, sucks)

- cost: 100-200$, and if you want to bring anyone it's a multiple of that.

- no cell phone, restricted to plane wifi if they have it

- door-to-door is what, 4 hours? Man I hope there isn't a delay....

Or, with self-driving:

- pack your car or minivan to the brim with stuff you need

- leave when you want

- sleep / stop to eat / stop to bathroom when you need it

- full cell coverage / hotspot

- take additional people

- EV cost is like... 20-40$ for the trip if you include wear and tear?

- door to door is... 5-6 hours

If the car is driving for you, it is far less stressful, flexible, much cheaper, especially if you want to take your family.

Trains are a ... bit ... better than airplanes, but still inflexible, surprisingly expensive, won't have your car at the other end, have to haul around your luggage rather than chuck it into YOUR CAR.

When good highway self-driving comes, I will probably never fly anything less than 1000 miles. If I get a self-driving RV that's EV self-recharging at charge stations? Hell I might get rid of my apartment.

I don't see how self-driving changes the calculus. Sure, sometimes I'll drive 5-6 hours instead of flying, but that's already the status quo.

Meanwhile, I don't see many people going somewhere 400-500 miles away regularly. Most places seem either much closer or much further.

If money is a concern, you can always take the bus.

Both trains and planes centralise assets, services and pathways, allowing for rent seeking and anti competitive behaviour, government and regulatory capture, and by their very nature are anti consumer and pro big business. Hence their dominance and the increasing pressure on self driving EVs.

>allowing for rent seeking

You are saying this in a thread about a company that regularly sells features as a subscription and revokes them upon resell, as well as voids warranty if you get it repaired anywhere that's not a Tesla shop. Tesla have entrenched themselves as rent seekers from the beginning.

But cars need infrastructure (roads) which tend to create the same exact thing (big construction corps getting all the cake, thanks to political connections). The scale is for sure smaller but still...

... the scale is smaller

Lol you describes me. I could fly my work routes but I take the car exactly because every reason you stated

Sure, and let me know where I can effectively vote and petition for extensive trains.

But until they get built freeway autopilot is nice.

> But right now, I want long distance automation, and I can handle the messy last mile.

Me too, and my Tesla handles daytime good-weather non-construction highway driving pretty well with just the standard autosteer. I finish a long road trip much less fatigued in a Tesla than I have in any other car. (Part of that is the seats. Tesla really sweats the details of making seats comfortable.)

But FSD is kind of a sad joke. Off-highway navigation only works in particular major cities, the car stops at green lights, tries to turn right from the left lane, etc. And Elon thinks that's worth an extra $15k. Nope. It really isn't, at least for me.

Obviously the article goes into a lot more depth, though in my opinion things could be a bit clearer if they first established if Autopilot performs any differently on freeways or not and then try to see if controlling for any of the other possible confounds has any effect. I'm also not overly fond of their reweighting method, if not done carefully you'll just be amplifying a lot of noise.

The study says this:

> An estimated 15% of injury crashes and 24% of property damage-only crashes are never reported to police (M. Davis and Company, Inc., 2015), while9% of injury crashes and 24% of property damage-only crashes are reported but not logged (Blincoe et al., 2015). Even with robust data, establishing the statistical significance of automated vehicle safety can be expensive. Kalra and Paddock (2016)demonstrated that establishing that an AV has a fatal crash rate equivalent to the national average with 95% confidence would require driving a fleet of 100 vehicles continuously for 12.5 years.

I presume there's an adjustment for this in the figures you compare to, but I am having trouble finding it, though that may be my own failure so I wanted to ask if you could help me find how that's adjusted for?

Kalra and Paddock's analysis is correct as far as it goes, but it's easy to misuse to claim that we couldn't feasibly demonstrate an autonomous vehicle is acceptably safe.

It never got accepted for publication because the reviewers didn't think it was significant enough, but I wrote a paper presenting an alternative way to analyse autonomous vehicle reliability data (you'll have to take my word for it, but the reviewers didn't quibble about the results presented, just whether it was important):

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.08901.pdf

The major technical contribution was demonstrating that a class of mathematical models called software reliability growth models are a reasonable way to estimate the "anomalous behaviour" rates of an AV system as bugs are found and fixed.

My second point was that using fatal accidents as a way to measure safety is not necessary; you can use more common events such as non-fatal accidents, or in the case of AV systems in development, even the number of occasions the safety driver overrode the automatic control.

I am surprised a scholar would take these reports without a massive grain of salt.

> In this study, all disengagement events listed in the company reports were included in the analysis. It is likely that in some cases, disengagements occurred as a precaution by the safety driver, and no adverse event would have resulted if the AV continued in autonomous mode.

Take a look at [1]. It says that:

> Waymo has developed a robust process to collect, analyze and evaluate disengages for this report. We set disengagement thresholds conservatively for our public road testing. The vast majority of disengagements are not related to safety. Our test drivers routinely transition into and out of autonomous mode many times throughout the day, and the self-driving vehicle’s computer hands over control to the driver in many situations that do not involve a failure of the autonomous technology and do not require an immediate takeover of control by the driver.

> To help evaluate the safety significance of disengagements, Waymo employs a powerful simulator program. In Waymo’s simulation, our team can “replay” each incident and predict the behavior of our self-driving car if the driver had not taken control of it, as well as the behavior and positions of other road users in the vicinity (such as pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicles). Our engineers use this data to refine and improve the software to ensure the self-driving car performs safely.

So effectively, Waymo has secret process, which may change all the time, to decide which disengagements to report and which not to report. There is no way to tell whether the car would have slightly bumped into another car, or killed a child if not disengaged.

Their reports to the DMV do not constitute data, they are PR.

Not trying to single out Waymo, they all do that.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190531071448/https://www.dmv.c...

Why would injury crashes go unreported?

If I had a single-car crash with minor injuries, why would I report it? It seems like there’s limited upside to me as the (obviously at-fault) driver. Go get medical care and go get my car fixed. (I drive cars cheap enough to replace and so do not insure them against collisions that are my fault.)

Drivers driving without a valid license, without insurance, under the influence, wanted by the law, etc would have all kinds of reasons to not report a crash.

Police responding to the actual crash scene, useful. Police report filed after the fact, only if there's some need for said report. And not all injuries are immediately apparent. 3 1/2 years ago I got a first-person view of what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a PIT maneuver courtesy of a woman who didn't look adequately. (Yes, when you looked left the road was empty--I saw that also and turned into that empty spot the block before you!) At the time the only injury I was aware of was a very minor scrape, not even worthy of a bandaid. Later I discovered a pulled muscle--it only hurt when I did certain things.

I also used to know a woman who thought it was nothing more than a fender-bender, went to the doc a couple of days later because her neck was bothering her. Doc sent her straight to the hospital--incomplete cervical fracture, one wrong move and she could have dropped dead.

After college I lived with roommates for a while. One went on a joyride of sorts and damaged a bunch of parking meters, crashed and injured themselves. They had a friend drive them home and repaired the vehicle with no reporting.

In some cities currently even if you want to have police respond to a traffic accident, you'd need to wait a VERY long time - they will tell you that unless you need EMS to try and get a safe spot and call for a tow. Some folks aren't willing to wait hours for police to show up to do what, take a report?

Depending on the state, though, reporting all injury crashes and any property damage over a certain (fairly low) amount is required by law. Not necessarily to the police, but to the DMV. I assume that statistically that would count in the 'reported to police' column.

I got hit a few weeks ago while walking my dog (dog was fine). I thought I had just bruised my tailbone so I waved the driver on after a short chat and never reported it. In hindsight I wish I had as it seems like my tailbone was fractured and not just bruised but it definitely happens.

So it sounds like it's Simpson's paradox [1] at work. I had always wondered why many people are slow to accept self-driving cars despite the claims of them being statistically safer. I think that explains it --- to make consumers confident about the self-driving technologies, it is not enough for them to be able to handle the "easy" kind of driving (e.g. on highway and under relatively good visibility conditions) better than humans; they need to demonstrate that they can drive better than humans in the most challenging driving environments too.

I guess this is the classic scenario where human intuition is defeated by carefully presented statistics.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

The thing is, you don't even need Tesla "self driving" for that.

Adaptive cruise control, tech we've had for what, 20+ years? is more than enough for most highways, it takes out ~80% of the stress/boredom of driving, especially since lane changes are minimal and curves are gentle.

The hard parts of driving (aka not highways) are the real problem, as expected. We solved the easy parts in 2000 and who knows if we'll solve the hard parts by 2050.

I have a car with adaptive cruise control and lane assist, and most of my morning commute (on days when I go into the office) is driven on the highway. Most of the time I don't turn it on because I'm in a self-perceived hurry to get to work, so I forget.

You know what would be really nice? Something that detects when it's safe and reasonable to suggest turning on adaptive cruise control so I use it more. Maybe something like detecting I've driven a few miles at a consistent rate of speed above a certain threshold.

The hard parts are definitely the problem, but there are lots of easy wins left on the table too.

Isn't it just 1 button on the steering wheel to turn it on?

I definitely hope your car doesn't put it in some hidden menus on the central screen.

I would personally hate for that to be on but I can see your point. Maybe a simple hardware switch for on / off and adaptive cruise control turns on once you are over 65mph for more than 1 minute and will only adapt +-15mph total?

GP doesn't suggest having the car turn on cruise control on its own (nightmare!), but instead to remind the driver that this may be a good opportunity to switch it on themselves.

My 2015 Tesla S 70D (AP1.5) does just this for Autosteer by adding an icon in the instrument cluster to say that the car thinks it could do it. I wish it had an optional chime for it though as I really don't want to spend much time looking at the instrument cluster.

i am thankful to turn autopilot on as soon as i reach a highway entry ramp. Even if i'm in no rush and fully capable, i want the assistance merging onto the highway. I don't want to constantly look over my shoulder for a window to get into the fast lane, I want one selected when it becomes available.

The hard parts are the whole point of autonomy.. the parts so hard that humans still fuck up and kill people. that's the ideal of autonomy imo and short of that its missing the point.

For sure. Though even non-tech people are well aware that adaptive cruise control cannot get us to true self driving but "AI" allegedly can.

What they really need is a blockchain. In Rust.

I like the idea. Introducing teslacoin, also crypto-powered climate control, and also real-time right of way auctioning.

In the interest of openness and accountability you need a transaction to turn the engine on, or to activate the brakes. They say that it takes a few milliseconds but never really tested it so who knows. Gives a new meaning to “gas fees”.

All other people need non fungible cars.

When it approaches singularity levels. Until then, it will be only hyped-up robot-vacuum logic.

I think traditional auto makers have done a much better job of communicating to consumers what the tech can actually do. We don’t have self driving cars (which implies that they can drive in those harder conditions). We have cars that are good at lane keeping on freeways.

I wish Tesla would celebrate that victory rather than double down on lies.

> it is not enough for them to be able to handle the "easy" kind of driving (e.g. on highway and under relatively good visibility conditions) better than humans

Is there any evidence that they actually do the easy stuff better than humans? I would want to see it compared with cars of similar age and cost driving on similar roads with similar aged people in control of the vehicle. I'm pretty skeptical that such a comparison would in fact be favourable to Tesla.

robots are better at reaction times, spatial awareness, impulse control. There are obvious advantages that are capable of making up for the short-comings of the NN implementation. Essentially, a lot of hard decision making is avoidable with proper awareness and caution.

I don't know what else to advise people who want evidence. The cars are real things you can experience...

People are slow to "accept" self-driving cars because they don't exist in a form that anyone can actually buy. Regardless of safety or lack thereof, I can't purchase a real SAE level 4+ vehicle today at any price.

Can you explain how Simpsons paradox applies here?

"Simpson's paradox, which also goes by several other names, is a phenomenon in probability and statistics in which a trend appears in several groups of data but disappears or reverses when the groups are combined. "

In this case, the effect when the data is separated out is that AP is only marginally safer. When they are combined, it appears to be significantly safer.

I'd say this isn't a case of simpsons paradox at all.

It's more traditional sampling bias than Simpsons paradox

The performance appears to be superior due to a large proportion of the driving is done on easy environment.

The groups aren’t segmented by freeway vs. non-freeway use, but it’s an important omitted lurking variable. After conditioning on the variable, the takeaway changes.

>I am not a Tesla-hater though — I just thought it was odd that the company was playing quite so fast and loose with their safety claims.

If you're still surprised by this you've not been paying attention to how Telsa operates.

He never said he was surprised.

> Facts: Tesla was the first to introduce such wide range of safety features in every car they sold.

Please itemize these "wide range of safety features" for us that other manufacturers do not have or did not have until Tesla innovated them.

> They invest in own crash test facilities. Only Volvo is kind of on par.

Audi owns one, for just one.

Sure, https://www.tesla.com/safety

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KR2N_Q8ep8

Tesla roll out cars in generations. So just take a $40k Model 3/Y platform was introduced in 2017 and compare it with any car been introduced that year. My friend bought a BMW in 2019 for similar money, it doesn't have half of that. Maybe you can have them but you have to buy extra packages for extra money.

Tesla don't sell safety features for extra price. The only extra feature is Autopilot. But hardware, camera's , lane departure avoidance, blind spot collision warning etc in every car.

You can even take such a simple feature as forward collision warning system. When you drive it is super accurate it uses the same data and models from Autopilot to predict when there is a crash. If your slowing down dynamic is not good or the car in front/back change it dynamics it will warn you immediately. Only this feature saved me several times from collision. I'm not a good driver.

As I said in 2022 there are many car brands that catching up in some cases they doing better. And this is good.

Human is a bad, constantly distracted driver. Technology is the only way to make our life safer.

Automatic emergency braking is a required standard feature in the US.

Forward collision warning became standard in 2016 by at least ten manufacturers: Audi, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Volvo.

Without speaking to Blind Spot, my Audi does similar intelligent things. If you change lanes next to a vehicle or just in front of it, but you have a positive speed differential, it won't activate. If there is a vehicle in your blind spot approaching you but their speed differential to you is low, it will activate later. If there's a much higher speed differential (say they're in a HOV lane, and you're in a much slower regular lane), it will activate much earlier.

It's not about how to calculate it. It' about how can you understand what's around. And Audi is not super good about it. Tesla is far better at understanding the context. This year they will switch to FSD stack. The car will not drive me itself. But security features while driver engaged will have a huge boost. And that will be available for any car that was released from 2015-17 with some minor exceptions. That's how security should be handled.

And yes for these minor exceptions Tesla offers a retrofit.

> And Audi is not super good about it.

Based on what? "Understanding what is around", and "Tesla is far better at understanding the context" - my Audi has never attempted to drive into stopped traffic.

Your vision (and not just about Audi) that all other manufacturers have these dumb, simple systems and no context of what's going on around is simply, and factually, wrong.

My Audi (and I'm not saying they are the leader, I'm just speaking on them because of my experience) has no fewer than 13 radar sensors around the vehicle and will tell me of incursions into the vehicle's "space". It will recognize that some incursions are more "concerning" than others and alert appropriately.

I really have no idea what you mean by "Audi is not super good" about safety systems.

> And Audi is not super good about it.

You have proof for that statement?

I drive a 2021 Audi A1, the most basic version. From Tesla's safety page, this Audi has:

- Impact protection

- Structural integrity

- Crumple zones

- Lane departure warning/prevention

- Collision detection

- Emergency braking

The only thing it doesn't have is the blind spot sensor. But, again, it's on an entry-level car that costs easily 10 thousand dollars less than the cheapest Tesla.

Ah yeah, and all that works in Swedish conditions where Tesla's would be blind for a significant amount of time (the sun hanging just above the horizon for a prolonged time, an reflecting from a snowy/wet road).

But sure. As maxdo would have us believe, "it's hard to match what Tesla offers".

You still haven’t provided any evidence that suggests Tesla’s have (1) more impactful safety features than other cars in the same class (2) that Tesla’s are safer in general.

Also, if your saying FSD is going finally, finally be properly released this year — I doubt it.

Your strong pro-Tesla bias and your sweeping, unfocused and unsubstantiated allegations against other car makers undermine your argument completely.

> Automatic emergency braking is a required standard feature in the US.

Not currently; I just bought a 2022 Jeep Wrangler that doesn’t have anything of the sort.

It is standard on the Cherokee and Compass. On the Wrangler it is part of the Advanced Safety Group with adaptive cruise control. I think it might have to do with false positives when off-road.

Having driven Audis for years, including an A4, S4, and a recent model A4 (and other models as rentals in Germany), I can tell you definitively that Audi _pales_ in comparison to my Telsa Model Y in terms of safety. It's not even remotely comparable. Until you've driven one on a regular basis, it's hard to explain. They are light years ahead of traditional automakers, to the point of embarrassment.

Suffice it to say, I don't foresee myself ever buying or leasing a BMW or Audi again. Telsa is so far ahead that it probably won't compute unless you've driven one for a while.

>> My friend bought a BMW in 2019 for similar money, it doesn't have half of that.

That's an incredibly bad example, because in German brands you have to pay extra for basic safety features(famously in the new Polo you have to pay extra to have more than the basic 3 airbags, I don't even know how that's allowed). Look at a brand new Peugeot/Citroen/Kia/Hyundai and you will pay less than what a Model 3 costs and get just as many safety features. Yes, all the stuff that is optional in a BMW - but look outside of Audi/Merc/BMW/Volkswagen and you will find that this stuff is also completely standard.

You just excluded 60% of luxury market. Peugeot/Citroen almost not exists in US. Kia and Hundai they will be the biggest competitors among legacy auto brands. Even though their tech is not ambitious, basically copy paste from best and make it a bit cheaper, but not very cheap :)

People shopping in the luxury market can afford options they want. Did you know that any paint other than basic black and basic white is extra cost on BMW? If your argument about luxury cars not having safety options because they cost extra money had been valid then the argument that there are only black and white BMWs also had been a sensible one.

Literally every safety feature listed on that site is on my 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe, which brand new was thousands of dollars less than a Model 3.

> Human is a bad, constantly distracted driver. Technology is the only way to make our life safer.

And humans are infinitely worse when they have to look after a mostly-ok automation. We can’t pay attention to static things for a prolonged time.

But regarding less “clever” safety features, I agree with you.

> My friend bought a BMW in 2019 for similar money, it doesn't have half of that. Maybe you can have them but you have to buy extra packages for extra money.

#1 lesson of buying cars is:

1. Don't buy German cars if you don't have to (or if you buy them, never complain about the price of their optional equipment).

The corollary is:

1". Buy Korean or Japanese cars.

Or buy Škoda which is usually "last year's VW with everything included, for a lower price" :)

Except for the Superb, which was their own design and actually a notch above anything else made at that time by VAG.

It looks like most of their cars have ~110 horsepower? Seems weak.

Usually there is this thing called transmission in a car that effectively make the car able to accelerate enough for most of the situations. The only problem with having less horsepower than other cars is that the maximal achievable speed is lower. But for sure riding above 100mph is much more comfortable in other brands.

Low horsepower vehicles feel downright dangerous. Especially in the third world where executing moves quickly is very important. I suppose there is a way of driving that takes this into account but it feels so unnatural to me.

Depends on the car and where you're driving it.

Well, apparently Tesla's motto should be "Bad driver's car"

>Facts: Tesla was the first to introduce such wide range of safety features in every car they sold. They don't make safety a premium feature. They invest in own crash test facilities. Only Volvo is kind of on par.

Volvo built their crash test facilities before Tesla came to existence.

> Tesla was first to introduce over the air updates of software and firmware.

I want the controls on my car to constantly change out from under me as much as I want my miter saw and power drill to startle me with a new interface. Screwing with safety critical controls does NOT make people safer.

I would like OTA updates that are opt-in. That would be a happy medium between Tesla and traditional automakers.

Big no. Every such update should require a complete re-licensing/safety and crash tests and what-not before they can be pushed.

It is not a goddamn webpage where fking up the fonts will make it temporarily miss some icons.

I think opt-in updates are fine. I want nothing to do with them myself, but have no problem with others making a different decision.

It wasn't much of an accomplishment for Tesla to introduce safety features across its lineup, when its lineup consisted of luxury cars.

Today, other car manufacturers are standardizing safety features across their model lineups while manufacturing cars that are a third the price of the cheapest Tesla.

BMW is a luxury Car, you still have to pay for safety extra. That's the difference. One car brand make it mandatory, other ask you extra dollars for every safety camera to install.

Absolutely false. Some BMW are luxury cars. Some BMW are business/premium trims, and some are fleet rental trims.

BMW is hated for a reason, and most car manufacturers (not just Tesla) would compare favorably to it.

Pretty much every major manufacturer makes safety features standard on the base models across their lineup today.

A third the price but still pouring disgusting fumes into our neighborhoods

The disgusting fumes are almost exclusively from diesel trucks and very old cars. Manufacturing affordable (no, the Model 3 is not affordable) new cars helps take old cars off the streets and make our neighborhoods cleaner.

Those are just more disgusting fumes, I prefer no fumes entering the cabin of my car and into my lungs from the car in front of me

Funny, most of the pollution of modern cars comes from tires and brakes. Tesla may remove particulates from brakes, but any mild hybrid+ does.

You are never going to convince me that a car emitting gray or black smoke out the back is somehow not any worse than one that has no emissions at all.

lol who cares about convincing you personally, besides, that's not even the point I was making.

> Tesla has lots of measures to return distracted customer back to the driving as opposed to any car on the road 10 years ago

Perhaps true, but I've seen more people asleep at the wheel in Teslas in the last 2 years (two) than the rest of my life combined (zero).

> Autopilot is a tool. You can miss use it, sure. But if you care about safety it's hard to match with what they offer.

1. It's not autopilot, by any measurable criteria

2. As the adjusted data clearl shows, it's not that hard to match it. And since you mention Volvo, they definitely match it. They are honest enough though not to call it "autopilot", or "full safe driving" or pin the plame for its failures on the driver.

Yup. Autopilot on aircraft is very different because pilots don't have to be ready to take over on a moment's notice.

Of course they have to be monitoring the flight but they can be generally assured that the autopilot won't decide to just fly into a mountain with only fractions of a second for the pilots to intervene.

There are moments a pilot has seconds to react and disengage autopilot.

Example: Traffic Resolution advisories require a 5 second reaction time and 2.5 seconds for any follow-on reactions. This reaction time includes the time to disengage autopilot and also put the aircraft into a climb-or-dive. Studies show that a situationally aware pilot takes at least 2 seconds to start the reaction, and another second to achieve the proper climb/descent. There are other times on e.g. approach, or ground collision warnings with even narrower margins for disengaging autopilot.

Pilots generally know when they need to be hyper-aware with autopilot and so do competent Tesla drivers. If there are issues with the name "autopilot" for Tesla, the same argument needs to be made for aircraft manufacturers.

> If there are issues with the name "autopilot" for Tesla, the same argument needs to be made for aircraft manufacturers.

If a drivers license required as much training as a pilots license then you might have a point.

"Example: Traffic Resolution advisories require a 5 second reaction time"

When the Autopilot swerves into a concrete wall for no reason, you will have 0.5 seconds left to live. Rwacting in the last 0.1 secons bwf9re collision will not save you - you must react in like 200ms.

It is physically impossible to react in time to some autopilot mistakes, stop defending this idiocy.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-drivers-autopilot-swerve...

The problem is bad enough that it killed someone; you don't need to use exaggerated made-up numbers.

In the example video the car starts turning at 40 seconds and passes the barrier at 47 seconds.

Surely you can see how you might have less than a second to react if Autopilot swerves into the oncoming traffik? I can't search all tesla accidents by 'least time to react'

If they actually do that, it could be a problem, but I'm not convinced that's a failure case that we need to worry much about.

> If there are issues with the name "autopilot" for Tesla, the same argument needs to be made for aircraft manufacturers.

Pilots require extensive training (an re-training). The must meet certain criteria to even fly certain types of plains. And they have to go through additional training if they have to switch planes (going from Airbus to Boeing for example).

So, if we're making "teh same argument" for Tesla, then Tesla needs all that to call its system an autopilot.

5 seconds (or the 2 seconds that pilots require) is a lot more time than you’re afforded to take action while driving a Tesla in autopilot. And when driving the Tesla you often won’t get a clear warning signaling that you have to take over and do something - it can fail silently and swerve straight into an obstacle.

The difference is that you can’t be a pilot with even as little physical impairment as a crooked nose and it takes extensive years to get a license, while every rich 18 years old can sleep behind a tesla’s wheel…

A sailboat autopilot is even simpler. The simplest ones maintain compass direction, but don’t compensate for drift due to water currents or side winds, or for the difference between magnetic and true north.

An IMO important difference with pilots is that pilots are professionals that get trained and periodically retrained on how specific planes and their autopilots work.

Tesla drivers, on the other hand, hear Tesla’s at times optimistic marketing, and may just learn how to switch autopilot on and off without understanding when to use it and when not to use it.

"Boeing instructed pilots to take corrective action in case of a malfunction, when the airplane would enter a series of automated nosedives. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings

And that is why the whole 737 Max fleet got grounded and none of those planes were allowed to be operational until Boeing put in place a fix for the problem.

And most airlines ended up cancelling pending orders for the 737 Max and switched to a different brand that didn't play nearly as fast and loose with safety.

Indeed, Tesla's autopilot behaves a lot more like MCAS than like an airplane autopilot.

> It's not autopilot, by any measurable criteria

It does seem quite comparable in capabilities to the actual autopilot in aircraft. And that’s what’s confusing to people; most don’t realize that an autopilot is a control used by a driver or pilot to reduce their workload. (As a pilot, I am still logging flight time as the “sole manipulator of controls” during the time the autopilot is engaged.)

And that "confusion" was created intentionally by Tesla. So that it is easy to pretend it was not deliberately pretending higher capabilities while giving yourself option to pretend you are not.

You know like that claim about human being there just because of pesky regulations and laws. Not because human would be needed.

The kind of environment that a car is in (and the kind of monitoring required by the driver) is much more akin to autoland than autopilot.

>It does seem quite comparable in capabilities to the actual autopilot in aircraft.

including the system's assumption that the operator of the vehicle is doing so as a trained professional in that skill, including the extensive continuous training requirements required to maintain professional-level expertise?

The author is projecting his assumptions based on 400 people questioned. Is it fair.

Most Cars volvo produced is not as safe simply because Volvo is still making most of the money on Gasoline car, and they are less safe vs electric. Do we need to create a screaming article "Vovlo is deliberately making money on old tech that kills people"? Again volvo is a premium brand, so they don't want to invest more in EV to make your car more safe. They also promote hybrid Cars that has highest chances to catch on fire compares to EV and regular ICE cars.

But yeah, naming of an optional feature is so much more important compares to real tech, crash tests etc. That's a logic media is trying to put in our head. Don't think.

> Most Cars volvo produced is not as safe simply because Volvo is still making most of the money on Gasoline car

That's... quite a leap.

> Do we need to create a screaming article "Vovlo is deliberately making money on old tech that kills people"?

That would be just that: a screaming article.

> so they don't want to invest more in EV to make your car more safe.

Ah, yes. Because the only way to make a car safe is to make it electric.

1. I was responding to the ridiculous claim of "if you care about safety it's hard to match with what Tesla offers".

This claim is bullshit, and Volvo easily matches what Tesla offers when it comes to car safety

2. Volvo XC40 Recharge, C40 Recharge are the cars that exist, but you chose to ignore them

> Naming of an optional feature is so much more important compares to real tech, crash tests etc.

I tried to parse this sentense, and I couldn't. Are you saying that Volvo doesn't do real tech, or doesn't do crash tests etc.? If so, are you delusional?

BTW, here's Volvo's purpose-built crash-test laboratory: https://www.media.volvocars.com/se/sv-se/media/videos/154740...

> Again volvo is a premium brand, so they don't want to invest more in EV to make your car more safe.

Dude, really?

https://group.volvocars.com/company/innovation/electrificati...

Volvo's plans all in the future, it's just a commitment. today is there in 2025, tomorrow web designer put another beautiful article with 2030. Gasoline cars is less safe to the same car with the same set of airbags just because of It's physics e.g. lower center of gravity, no engine in the front that can kill you during forward collision, battery at the bottom serve as a protection layer during other type of crashes.

In fact tesla is about to release structural batteries cars, that will use battery as part of the cars body, makes it even more safe. Model Y with structural pack will be out in March 2022.

Volvo at this moment promoting hybrids and ICE that doesn't have this features, because it's bloody business. And money is money.

Just compare real actions of Volvo who claim one of the safest brand and Tesla.

Did you even read the article I linked? I have friends that have the XC40 Recharge...

> In fact tesla is about to release structural batteries cars, that will use battery as part of the cars body, makes it even more safe. Model Y with structural pack will be out in March 2022.

I'll believe that when I see it. How's the Tesla Semi release going? Especially since structural batteries are still an active research topic that actual researchers think will be in mass production in 5 years or more.

> battery at the bottom serve as a protection layer during other type of crashes.

And it can nicely burst into flames that burn for hours on, without any easy way to put it out. I sure as hell would rather have a broken arm over being burnt alive in a steel frame.

What makes you say gasoline cars are much less safe than electric?

Hollywood movie explosions

> But because other brands release millions of boring cars with 0 innovation they are not criticized.

That's not actually why.

It's because carmakers are huge advertisers. You get on their bad side, they pull their advertising.

Tesla's advertising consists of Elon Musk's Twitter account, so Tesla gets the reporting the others would get if the authors weren't reliant on the subjects of those stories for their paychecks.

> naturalistic driving study of 28 vehicles

The study seems to extrapolate from this. Tesla has something like 10 billion miles total driven on Autopilot, on a fleet of a million cars.

This is the dataset: https://insight.shrp2nds.us/documents/shrp2_background.pdf

It covers 5.4 million trips in 3,400 vehicles with digitally collected records and vehicle data and has been independently validated by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and Department of Transportation.

The 93% highway driving figure, which is used to normalize Tesla numbers, and then compare agains the NHS dataset, is coming from that 28 Tesla cars study from 2018, or did I read that wrong?

Even after adjusting, it does look like autopilot is slightly safer (although not a strong enough effect to say for sure). It doesn't appear to be worse, so good enough to allow it, IMHO.

I actually wonder if there's another effect: Drivers only eligible for beta FSD if they meet a super high safety score (which isn't a perfect metric, but probably better than nothing). That incentivizes good driving even when FSD not engaged. Of course, that's a recent thing and hasn't shown up in data.

After correcting for age, it becomes less safe

So that Daily Beast article has been up for more than 5 years with nobody fixing the horrible typo in the headline? Wow.

Daily Beast, not the Economist.

> I just thought it was odd that the company was playing quite so fast and loose with their safety claims.

That's because it's marketing, not science.

And because it's Tesla, not Honda.

Every car company does marketing. Few make over-the-top safety claims about their products. This is the company that decided to have its cars not stop at stop signs. Normal rules don't apply to Tesla.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60230072

"In recall documents, the electric vehicle maker notes that if certain conditions are met, the "rolling stop" feature is designed to allow the vehicle to travel through all-way-stop intersections at up to 5.6mph without coming to a complete stop."

I mean... I am "Tesla Hater" in that I don't like the direction they're proceeding in; but every human being I ever met in real actual life does rolling stops under some conditions. Last time I can confidently state that "I never rolled through a stop at very slow speed" is when I was 17, and only NOW do I realize how much of an annoying bum I was :P. So if a car does a rolling stop through a stop sign when there are no other cars obstacles or people, my thought is 1. yes that's a breach of law as written 2. It's what everybody else safely does.

Kind of like in many jurisdictions, police will gently talk to you if you drive 60kph on the freeway, or even if you're doing 90kph in the left lane. Yes it's legal, no it isn't safe.

It is one thing to note that humans regularly break the law. It is another thing to task people with programing a robot to break that law. I'm very sure that many people break the speed limit regularly. But I would never expect to get away with programing a car to break that limit. No sane person would ever tell an employee or customer that rolling stops are OK, not in writing.

And 5.6mph isn't rolling. That's beyond a walking pace. That's jogging territory. Any cop watching an intersection would ticket this.

I fully support the noble notions and idealistic ideas.

But let's make it real, and let's ask a question about the real world:

Does that mean that expectation is all automated cars will go exactly the speed limit on the left lane of North American superhighways?

If so, those cars will inherently be a danger to life and limb. I don't care about any self-righteous driver who indicates houghtily "I drive speed limit on left lane of American super highway", I've spoken to advanced driver safety instructors, highway police officers and city councilors who all agree those people need to bloody well move it along - it's just not safe.

> Does that mean that expectation is all automated cars will go exactly the speed limit on the left lane of North American superhighways?

It’s already against road rules to stay in the passing lane when cars behind wish to pass, regardless of the speed limit, or if you’re already driving at it. If cars behind desire to overtake, give way. This is already codified. No need to blame the cars or the self-driving tech. It’s the human driver who bears responsibility for what the car does or doesn’t do, as are the only ones able to countermand the autopilot. Blaming Tesla for any of that seems like dogpiling and behind the point.

Not in California. Left lane fast, right lane slow isn't the law, and you can pass in whatever lane you'd like.

Studies show that, adjusted for congestion and weather, SF Bay Area drivers have some of the highest accidents per mile in the country.

> Not in California. Left lane fast, right lane slow isn't the law, and you can pass in whatever lane you'd like.

That sounds really unsafe and surely must make driving much more stressful than it needs to be.

Seriously? That feels unpredictable and stressful, whereas I feel driving should be as predictable as possible.

That depends on the jurisdiction. In my state (MA), I can use the left lane while passing other traffic even if there is traffic behind me who wishes to go faster than I am.

I don’t think that is contrary to my point or what I was trying to say. The left lane is for passing cars in the right lane, and for turning left across traffic in cases with no middle turning lane. The left lane is not meant for driving. I don’t think this varies by jurisdiction and may not be a regulation per se, it’s just the norms and rules of the road.

Yes. For a company to program illegality into a product opens them up to untold liability. Normal car companies program their speedometers to read slightly high (5% ish). This keeps them from being into lawsuits by people who claim that an inaccurate speedometer contributed to the severity of a crash. Any car company who programs a car to drive faster than the limit will be either liable or have to pay lawyers in every crash involving such cars. Even if their car doesn't cause the crash, the fact that it was speeding will contribute to the severity of the accident. It would be like programing a robotic bartender to serve kids who are underage but look old enough to pass for 21. Corporate lunacy.

>Yes. For a company to program illegality into a product opens them up to untold liability.

People have been saying this for years yet Tesla is not being sued into nonexistence. Presumably their contracts are written well enough that if the user tells the car to go above the speed limit that's on them.

Because incidents involving these programs are very small. At the moment there are very few Teslas on the road in comparison to other car companies. There would statistically only be a handful at most of such accidents. But give it a few years until there are 10x or 20x as many teslas on the road. Then the class actions will start. That is if, like here, Tesla hasn't already recalled all such vehicles.

What are your odds and the amount you'd be willing to bet that this is true? There are sums of money and odds that I would be willing to play this at.

There's a difference between the driver setting the cruise control above the speed limit, and a computer unilaterally deciding that it should run a stop sign.

> Does that mean that expectation is all automated cars will go exactly the speed limit on the left lane of North American superhighways?

In the vast majority of states this would also be illegal. If Tesla decides it safe, they should be able to just rewrite the rules, though, right?

> And 5.6mph isn't rolling

Most cars idle at 5 to 6 mph, so any roll through a stop sign is likely to break the 5 mph mark.

> Any cop watching an intersection would ticket this.

Not sure where you live, but this is absolutely not the case where I am. I have only ever once heard of a traffic officer ticketing for this. On the other hand, I see cops watch on as people ignore "no turn on red" signs and let them get away with it pretty much every day. Let alone rolling through an intersection at 5 mph.

Lol, I live in SF. I've seen two cruisers waiting at a red light watch a car go right through it and do nothing. I'm not complaining or anything, but that guy is defo wrong that cops will ticket anyone.

I’ve gotten a ticket before for a rolling stop. It happens.

On a public road I almost always come to a full stop, and if I don't I recognize it as an error. That's the law and there are very good reasons for it. It's an unambiguous standard of performance, for example. Arguments for rolling stops based on personal utility are selfish, IMHO, and arguments pleading utility to others are disingenuous--the rolling stoppers say that it's safer to rolling stop because of the rolling stoppers? Please. Think it through. :-)

(Part of the reason I do it is because as I age I would like to ingrain habits that will make me a safer driver even as my cognitive ability declines.)

Near me there is an intersection where the same cars drive through on a daily basis and where the drivers have habituated themselves to rolling stops. Yes, it's almost always fine. But I have been almost T-boned twice, and was hit once, fortunately with minimal damage. And even though they do not have the right of way, their habit of rolling stops regularly pre-empts the actual rules of the road, and they cut off drivers who have the right of way.

That this is due to the normalization of deviance is abundantly obvious.

One thing that pops up into mind - I wonder if there's a difference between drivers of automatic vs manual gear shifts in propensity for rolling stops.

I don't know. I drive standard. Maybe part of the reason I always stop is because I love a well-executed launch. :-)

I'm struggling to respond constructively to your comment. Think about all the phenomena that make up "cognitive ability" and all of the possible dimensions and properties of "cognitive decline".

It should be obvious that your advice is not in any way useful or actionable. And rituals are a very well accepted strategy for dealing with situations which demand consistent and good attention, where human cognitive variability causes problems.

A couple of famous examples--checklists used by aircraft pilots, or the pointing rituals used on Japanese railways.

Safety rituals are extremely useful exactly because accidents happen when you have reduced capacity without realising it.

Doesn’t matter if it’s because of lack of sleep, work stress, cognitive decline, etc.

When I was a kid and we were living in Vancouver, my mum told me how she did a 'rolling stop' through a stop sign at 4am in the morning with empty streets, and a cop car noticed it and gave her a massive fine. She was in tears because my family wasn't earning much money at the time.

For some reason I still remember this story decades later and always come to a full stop at stop signs, that's how I was taught in driving school and that's how I will always do it. I'm a calm driver and I don't care if people are annoyed by me, I will drive the speed limit and I will not rush anywhere, it's not my problem that someone else needs to speed because they woke up late, safety should be the number one priority when you're operating a vehicle.

Sounds like a ticket to fight as the cop working at 4am would have a hard time showing up to court.

A) Cops don't work such shifts for the weeks/months it takes to get a court date. B) Cops don't normally "show up" in traffic courts. They can often appear via electronic means. C) Cops have great respect for courts. If called, they show up.

D) If your only defense is the faint hope that the cop doesn't show, the judge is going to rain hellfire on you for wasting everyone's time. Court costs. Amended tickets. Contempt. Unless you are about to lose your license, you don't want to roll that dice. If you go to court to fight a traffic ticket you better have an actual defense.

I’ve shown up to contest all but one traffic ticket I’ve ever received*. It’s up to the state to prove what I’m being accused of; I am not required to admit to it or passively pay the fine without appearing if I choose.

I’ve won many (outright or gotten reductions to non-moving violations) and lost some, but I’ve never had a judge “rain hellfire on [me]” or anything even remotely similar to that, even in cases where I pled “not guilty”, listened to the state’s case, and presented no argument in my defense.

* I got a camera ticket in Switzerland on a business trip that I did just pay rather than traveling back to appear and undoubtedly lose.

In this case you should go and ask the judge for a smaller ticket regardless. Getting a ticket so large that we are talking about it on hn 40 years later? Go to court.

In my area, cops have specific court dates; all their tickets are set to be handled on the same day that's already part of the cop's schedule.

Those are traffic cops working daylight hours who pull over many cars and it makes sense to stack those cases. We have a 4am case with a very high bill. If the officer keeps that shift chances are they are not going to want to show up 9am one day before going back to nights the next.

The cop working at 4am might be working a schedule like 12am-12pm and have their cases handled at 9am one day a month.

Or they switch between night and day shifts, like lots of nurses do.

They’ll make it work.

Overtime is used in some jurisdictions as an incentive to show up in court.

That's a very odd reason to contest a fine. Clearly it was justified.

It may not have been. Can the case be made, is there proof, will anyone show up? Contesting a fine takes time but the judge can reduce the amount if it was unusually high.

enlyth's mother did say she rolled the stop sign, so unless she's lying, it's clearly a justified fine.

I wouldn't hesitate to break traffic rules at 4 o'clock in the morning if there was zero risk of harm - especially while bicycling I'm very flexible, but I also wouldn't complain if I got fined breaking the law. The law must be upheld even at night.

I wonder if that might be a function of how roads near you are designed. I live in the Bay Area and there are definitely certain roads and intersections where I don't feel safe not coming to a full stop and looking both ways. It might be because of hills or that the other direction has no stop sign, etc. Maybe where you live roads have better visibility but at least in my experience in my part of the Bay Area, I often find myself needing to be very careful at some stop signs and has consequently been doing complete stops.

Some people have never seen sidewalks, tall hedges, or kids riding bikes on said sidewalks blocked by said tall hedges, because they don't exist in modern suburbia, particularly in certain climates.

> Yes it's legal

IDK about the US, but in France the speed limit is a target speed; if conditions are good (weather, visibility, traffic) you're supposed to drive at or near maximum speed. It's illegal to drive too slow, and there's a specific fine for this.

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000... [in French]

The law that you linked says that drivers aren't allowed to drive at an unreasonably slow speed, and defines that to be (for highways, with good weather, and just on the leftmost lane) 80 km/h.

It doesn't say that the speed limit is a target, or that you're supposed to drive at or near it.

Yes, but it's how we're taught at driving school. I think it's written down somewhere but can't find it at the moment, so the article I linked to is the closest I could find.

> ...but it's how we're taught at driving school.

It doesn't matter. People have all kinds of things they are taught about driving from their parents, instructors, and even official documents that don't carry legal weight (e.g., a highway patrol website).

Even when these types of ideas are good ideas, they aren't binding and you can't count on others to follow those rules. The only true rules of the road are the subset of the laws that are enforced; where enforcement might be done by law enforcement officers, civil judges, or insurance company adjudication processes.

In the US it’s legally a max. I have seen — although rarely — entire lines of cars pulled over and ticketed for speeding on an interstate (limited access, multilane divided highway, max speed 65-70 mph (104-112 kph)) Driving too fast for conditions, is a different fine, so if it’s foggy and you’re going the posted limit, you could also get fined.

You can get ticketed for driving too slow, but I’ve never seen it. I’ve only seen a minimum speed posted on an interstate (45 mph (72 mph)), but conceivably you can get ticked anywhere for impeding the flow of traffic.

> You can get ticketed for driving too slow, but I’ve never seen it.

I have (very gently) forced a car off the road once in Germany with the police on 112, a very elderly gentleman was doing 30 Kph on the autobahn and caused one near miss after another. Police came and helped him to get home, we talked for a while and it turned out that it was his first trip in a long time to go and see his sister in another town, he'd gotten lost and was frightened out of his wits by all the traffic zooming by.

I don't know how it ended, he probably kept his license because clearly there was no officer around to witness the event but I'm pretty sure he avoided the autobahn after that.

In Australia (I left 15 years ago) it was stated that you were required to drive at the _maximum_ speed that met the conditions:

- not exceeding posted speed limit

- appropriate for environmental conditions

- your ability to safely control the vehicle

And failure to do so could be fined.

This is incorrect (which is lucky, because it would both be extremely unreasonable and impossible to enforce). You can only be fined if you are driving so slowly that you are causing an obstruction.

Citations:

NRMA: https://www.mynrma.com.au/cars-and-driving/driver-training-a...

Australian road rules: http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/sa/consol_reg/arr210/s12... -- key paragraph: "a driver does not unreasonably obstruct the path of another driver or a pedestrian only because [...] (b) the driver is driving more slowly than other vehicles (unless the driver is driving abnormally slowly in the circumstances)." (Note that these rules form guidance for the States, so there will be per-state differences -- see below)

Western Australia is the only state which explicitly defines "too slowly", it's 20km/h below the limit, and it only applies to freeways. https://www.whichcar.com.au/car-advice/is-driving-slow-illeg...

Any idea how that worked out in practice?

Anyone can claim their ability to safely control the vehicle would have been impaired at $cited_speed + 1 km/h.

It's not like Honda doesn't engage in puffery.

Most retailers make over-the-top claims regarding their products, including safety.

https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-honda-fine-2015...

> This is the company that decided to have its cars not stop at stop signs. Normal rules don't apply to Tesla.

It's a driving profile which must be turned on that implements behavior extremely common among the driving public. My Honda with Traffic Sign Recognition and adaptive cruise control lets me set the speed above the speed limit, too.

Our traffic laws are in many ways ambiguous, such that even the police officers enforcing the laws will readily admit you're allowed to drive above the posted speed limit. When traffic rules are interpreted ambiguously, it's not that strange for a driving profile to do the same.

The driving public knows when it can't take such calculated risks. Does the ML classifier know what it isn't seeing?

I think there are two arguments here: legality, and actual safety. I would argue that the slow rolling stop is perfectly safe in all cases, but the law exists as it is only to reduce ambiguity for enforcement. It's not a calculated risk - there is no circumstance where it's unsafe.

In the UK stop signs are rarely used, they are in places where visibility is so poor approaching the junction that it wouldn't be safe not to stop.

There are definitely places where it isn't safe to roll through a stop sign, unfortunately in the US the system uses stop signs as a kind of traffic calming measure so then there isn't a clear way to mark the places where stopping is absolutely needed for safety. Of course in theory drivers should be able to notice the lack of visibility and drive accordingly but in practice the hazards can be somewhat subtle and many drivers have poor judgement.

Given your nick, do you happen to know of a map where stop signs are plotted? I can't think of a single stop sign in my city..

It is definitely unsafe to enter an intersection where visibility is compromised by an obstruction, hill, or curve. Rolling such stops is dumb even when you don't see anything to stop for.

> there is no circumstance where it's unsafe.

Famous last words

It could also be that being slightly controversial and possibly factually incorrect is by design in the "any press is good press"/"it's better to ask forgiveness than permission" kind of way. When you are a relative newcomer going against legacy incumbents with much larger ad budgets and fighting to live another day such guerrilla marketing style tactics can be advantageous.

The trick is to realize when you've jumped the shark and are now the established brand and wean yourself of the "fast and loose" approach.

What's the condition? No cop present? I know people who've gotten tickets for that.

The Silicon Valley Stop is the new Hollywood Stop, huh.

> And because it's Tesla, not Honda.

And because it’s Elon Musk, not some ethical CEO

Ethical CEO is an oxímoron.

I feel sad that you believe that.