See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39261349 (exact reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39262976)

> > Update 10:17 AM EST: When contacted by Gizmodo, Dante Lentini confirmed that the video was a “skit” that he made with friends and that he wasn’t arrested.

Tesla anything and it's front page news.

This 'taimurkazmi' user seems to post a huge number of 'flagged' or 'dead' submissions, so probably has some axe to grind, as judged by those with flagging permissions at least.

I don't know whether this belongs to HN, but how does that update change anything?

Does recklessly endangering other people for internet points make it less serious than doing it out of pure ignorance? If anything, I'd say it makes it more serious.

I'm assuming it's done with video tricks, like compositing etc. I'd certainly hope no one was actually endangering anything!

For a few minutes, and then users will probably flag it off. This is the cycle of life on HN.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

As someone who was in an accident less than a week ago due to an inattentive driver:

## PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE ROAD. YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE THERE.

How is that different from cars that project information on the windshield? The virtual windows are right there in front of you where the road is, not a smartphone that you have to move your eyes to.

(This is an question, not an argument. I don't drive, so I honestly don't understand).

When you're wearing the headset, you're not truly seeing what's in front of you in realtime; it's not a window. Instead, you're seeing a video using the cameras on the exterior of the device which is then streamed to the displays on the interior. This introduces latency. The published stats are something absurd, like 12ms which is allegedly faster than the human eye can even perceive, but what if there's a CPU spike and lag?

On top of that, the FOV is much more restricted in the headset than the average human's, and there is noticeable distortion introduced at the edges of the displays as documented by several reviews. So you're seeing less than you normally would, and it's warped.

Those things aside, if you're wearing the VR headset, it's likely you're doing something that is pulling your focus away from the act of driving.

A windshield HUD is limited to displaying information used to operate the car. The Vision Pro is limited to displaying things that are not related to operating the car and are generally things you should under no circumstances do while operating a car.

The AR aspects of the headset also obscure the wearers view. He could a 72" "TV" being displayed inside the headset, obscuring the road completely.

I think this is extremely different for a few reasons:

1. When the car’s projector stops working, you can still see through your windshield (I realize AVP can keep rolling the cameras in some circumstances, but not all)

2. The info projected on the windshield is inherently limited to a few key indicators vs. an open ended OS that can display almost anything

3. The windshield projector doesn’t eliminate your peripheral vision and hamper your field of view

Mainly because laws. Refer to CA Veh Code § 23120 (2022)

> No person shall operate a motor vehicle while wearing glasses having a temple width of one-half inch or more if any part of such temple extends below the horizontal center of the lens so as to interfere with lateral vision.

FWIW, I think this is entirely legitimate, since your peripheral vision is definitely impaired. That wouldn't be the case if the information was on a HUD instead.

But even if there was some hypothetical VR headset that has perfect peripheral vision pass-through, it's still at best ambiguously legal until the legislature takes action.

By the way, a HUD is probably illegal too, CA Veh Code § 26708 (2022)

> (2) A person shall not drive any motor vehicle with any object or material placed, displayed, installed, affixed, or applied in or upon the vehicle that obstructs or reduces the driver's clear view through the windshield or side windows.

There is a list of exceptions to this, but none appear to apply.

IANAL but that doesn't sound like a HUD would be illegal. Unless it is illegal to have dash cams, phone mounts, or even my car's distance sensor since it is behind my review mirror. Probably depends on the precise definition of obstruct and "clear view" though I think you can make a better case for a HUD since it is transparent and a lot of the markups I've seen do away with a lot of the dashboard so you'd end up with actually an increased view. But laws are weird, so I'm just curious if others know and can clarify this for me. I'm more writing asking to be corrected than writing to assert what the law is.

> dash cams, phone mounts, or even my car's distance sensor since it is behind my review mirror.

There are actually carve outs for these, although I agree the fact that the HUD is "transparent" makes it ambiguous (still, I think you can argue it "reduces" the driver's "clear view").

Without those carve outs, yes, they'd clearly be illegal.

Here's the relevant provisions:

> (b) This section does not apply to any of the following:

> (1) Rearview mirrors.

> (11) An electronic communication device affixed to the center uppermost portion of the interior of a windshield within an area that is not greater than five inches square, if the device provides either of the following:

> (A) The capability for enforcement facilities of the Department of the California Highway Patrol to communicate with a vehicle equipped with the device.

> (B) The capability for electronic toll and traffic management on public or private roads or facilities.

> (12) A portable Global Positioning System (GPS), which may be mounted in a seven-inch square in the lower corner of the windshield farthest removed from the driver or in a five-inch square in the lower corner of the windshield nearest to the driver and outside of an airbag deployment zone, if the system is used only for door-to-door navigation while the motor vehicle is being operated.

> (13) (A) A video event recorder with the capability of monitoring driver performance to improve driver safety, which may be mounted in a seven-inch square in the lower corner of the windshield farthest removed from the driver, in a five-inch square in the lower corner of the windshield nearest to the driver and outside of an airbag deployment zone, or in a five-inch square mounted to the center uppermost portion of the interior of the windshield. As used in this section, “video event recorder” means a video recorder that continuously records in a digital loop, recording audio, video, and G-force levels, but saves video only when triggered by an unusual motion or crash or when operated by the driver to monitor driver performance.

Thanks! That helps clarify things. Something didn't sit right given how vague the initial description was and seemed to make fairly normal things illegal.

So no safety goggles?

Yep. No ridiculous sunglasses either.

> How is that different from cars that project information on the windshield?

Are there any cars like that?

At any rate, for such cars to receive regulatory approval, they would need to be vetted to ensure that the UI elements don't exacerbate blind spots or hide critical pieces of the road, etc. The Apple UI is not designed with that in mind and may not give any such guarantees, and even if it were, it's still possible to abuse. There is also a formal process for removing such cars from the road if it turns out that they don't function as expected; whereas chasing down Apple Pro Vision users is left to the relevant highway patrol units.

Even if, in theory, the Apple device could be used safely, what happens in practice is far more important than theoretical use cases.

Kia Telluride has a HUD that projects a bunch of info on the driver’s side windshield. It is awesome, a bunch of info is available to you without having to turn your head away from the front.

This is different from a headset where you are not seeing things directly but instead through cameras and some amount of visual processing. Also, vehicle HUDs show limited info and are not distracting eg they don’t project a game or video on your windshield.

Yes, I rented a BMW X7 on a trip and it had a HUD projected on the windshield.

I once had a rental that projected a speedometer low on the windshield (and some other gauges I think). Of course, Apple Vision can project anything -- not just information related to vehicle operation.

The really important bit is it HAS to project everything. When it stops projecting you're left literally in the dark, and that's a poor failure state when you're hurtling along at 70 mph.

There was also a regular dashboard that one could use in that situation.

I mean for a vision pro.

Ah, gotcha.

The difference is interaction. I haven't ever been in a car with a windshield HUD, but I assume it doesn't require specific driver interaction to use. Using your smartphone while driving is also very illegal and can get you an expensive ticket. Anything that shifts your attention away from the road is dangerous, even if it's "in front of you". Passive information is very different from interactive menus.

I imagine it's also not truly see-through so if there's any kind of technical issue where the screen turns off or goes black, or it decides to put windows up where your eyes are focused, you are driving with a blindfold on.

Vision’s field of vision is ~100deg or so, so it substantially impacts peripheral vision and awareness. The cameras add almost, but not actually, zero lag or visual distortion, so visual acuity is impacted. The Vision windows occlude anything behind them, whereas typical car HUDs do much less of this. The car hud is also usually limited to information directly related to driving, whereas the Vision is not, and while it’s possible the user was only using a navigation app off to the bottom corner, I’ve got my doubts.

The one I have for my car is very basic info. Current speed, posted speed, and next turn/lane if I am using navigation. I think it can show current radio station if I scroll it from the steering wheel. Callerid if someone calls and I have it set to use bluetooth. I find it very nice as I do not have to take my eyes off the road.

That sort of headset looks like it would obstruct a good amount of your peripheral vision.

The AVP is not transparent like a windshield. They make it look like transparent ski googles, but it isn't. It has cameras pointing forward, and it displays that on the screen inside the headset. So all kinds of things will go wrong - the display can lag, freeze, turn off, etc. It would be like driving down the highway in reverse using only your backup camera.

Other issues aside, a person could not pass a driving vision test wearing Vision Pro. Its resolution is great but not that great, especially in extreme lighting.

You also lose most of your peripheral vision while wearing it.

A future model certified for driving, redundant and paired with a car’s cameras/sensors would be completely “Air Force” awesome but we are not there yet.

Mostly cause externally it's impossible to tell if they're watching a movie or just have some sort of HUD up for navigation.

AR goggles have a relatively narrow field of vision making it less likely to notice peripheral movement, such is critical for driving. They have quite short battery life – just a couple of hours. When they fail, you are effectively blind until you remove them. They can also fail due to a software glitch or crash. Removing the goggles can be disorienting and fiddly. They can be set so that there is little or no passthrough of external video – which would be highly hazardous, even if done accidentally. It's not really possible to establish eye contact with someone wearing AR goggles, which can be important when interacting with a driver. They're also not legal eyewear for driving.

> How is that different from cars that project information on the windshield?

Pass-through is done by cameras, not by window. This would more be like not having a actual windshield but a monitor. So you have the same issues of delay, ability for the device to malfunction and go completely black, glitches, etc. Though it is a bit worse, you have a very constrained field of view, so you aren't able to see any of the things from the side. Which you may not always consciously notice, but your brain sure does account for that information.

It is extremely different.

1. Field of View alone is the reason enough to ban it on the road. You don't see shit to the sides.

2. The amount of data presented (area) is an order of magnitude more in a case of a VR helmet than a typical HUD.

3. The type of content presented is way different, in the car the content is "boring" it's just a steady stream of telemetry so to say. No one stares at the tachometer most of the time they ride without interruptions. Unlike some media content like a movie, game, stream etc.

4. The brightness of the content is way higher than of a HUD.

5. Headphones block external sounds.

The Vision Pro is not an actual AR headset - it does not offer optical passthrough. Just digital reprojection of the exterior cameras. In case of a bug or crash, you are now blind.

I have no idea having not used an apple headset but a few thoughts are: latency compared to real-world, reduced peripheral vision, but probably the biggest is distraction

Who are you gonna sue when the VR headset lags for a few ms and causes an accident?

Information drawn on a windshield is very different than outside world captured by CCD sensors, processed and reprojected on a low-resolution, low-FOV screen.

The latency of passthrough video through glass windows is really good. Like way less than 1ms. Also, they’ve figured out how the passthrough keeps working even if the device isn’t powered.

Apple VisionPro is not see-through, you are looking at a camera feed.

Isn’t the headset constraining your FOV?

This extends to taking your damn time when the light goes green at an intersection during rush hour, entering a freeway 20 mph below the flow of traffic, and not using your turn signals.

Serenity now, serenity now!

Taking your time when the light turns green makes sense when there's a bunch of jackasses speeding up to zip in before (and sometimes after) the light turns red.

Or at least paying attention and using caution, even though the light says you're clear to proceed.

I’m talking about being in a long line of cars who are waiting at a light and the person five back who takes 10 seconds to start moving. It is not because they are playing it safe!

Yeah, someone I know just got hit by a red light runner the other day. It doesn't hurt to look.

In fact you must look. A red light won't stop anyone from t-boning you if they aren't paying attention.

There is an intersection in Seattle (Latona and 50th Ave NE) where I've seen people run a red light from a dead stop, because there are two layers of lights on 50th and the furthest turns green when traffic from Latona is green.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/xoUByEzUYExqe8Uc9 (Street view of the two sets of lights)

Sorry but anyone going because it’s green and not because it’s safe needs removing from the road.

So if you’re 10 cars back in a long line of cars and the light turns green do you basically stop in traffic to check both ways when you reach the intersection? In rush hour traffic?

Oh man! You hit a nerve there. The number of drivers I come across on a daily basis who refuse to use their turn signals is insane.

The end of the video just shows him in a parking lot with a couple of cop cars driving behind him, not of a cop actually coming to his window. I think this is staged BS made for internet points.

Edit: Called it.

> Update 10:17 AM EST: When contacted by Gizmodo, Dante Lentini confirmed that the video was a “skit” that he made with friends and that he wasn’t arrested.

https://gizmodo.com/apple-vision-pro-tesla-driver-arrested-a...

I have seen several videos of people actively driving while wearing the headset. Not sure why you think it is staged.

If he had actually been pulled over, he would have shown the interaction with police.

I was thinking this too.

He was driving on the freeway in the first clip and obviously in a parking lot on the second so definitely filmed at different points in time which I noticed as feeling faked. The fact that there were multiple officers seems a bit extreme for the situation but I guess plausible.

Also interesting that the police cars pulled up directly behind him while he was filming which is a point toward it being legitimate.

One thing you can't argue is this person is not smart and is filming themselves doing dangerous things for clicks.

Being pulled by multiple police cars may trigger some sense of "okay I should play nice and dumb and not push it further".

Probably prudent to assume everything is staged (or misrepresented). “Ragebait” is the term for this type of media, I think.

Of course it was a Tesla driver. Sigh. I like this car well enough, but dammit sometimes I don't want to be associated with the fans.

Or the CEO.

Its CEO's flaws are more publicized than any other car companies, but I think it's better to separate the CEO from your everyday car. People most probably do not support evading Japanese sovereign law when driving a Renault, pissing on environmental regulations when driving a VW or maintaining the iron grip of a familial dynasty on South Korea when driving a Samsung.

Compared to the people at this level, most of us here are mere peons trying to find the best fit for our daily driver.

I don't know if any of those things would impact car ownership. One of the main reasons to dislike Musk is his penchant for saying embarrassingly racist, anti-trans or otherwise similar views, although that also wouldn't impact car ownership.

What would be concerning for ownership of his products are his complete botching of twitter in multiple ways, seemingly driving it into the ground, and his mercurial way of running Tesla (removing then adding the ultrasonic sensors, constantly discounting new cars, etc).

> and his mercurial way of running Tesla (removing then adding the ultrasonic sensors, constantly discounting new cars, etc).

Is it much worse than VW patently cheating on regulations, virtually all brands eating reaping your personal data like there is no tomorrow, or Renault deliberately selling flawed engines?

Not that I'm trying to write Musk's hagiography, but the automotive industry is a nest of scandals and anti-customer practices where in the grand scheme of things Tesla is but another link in the chain.

Especially the CEO.

Of course it was a Tesla driver and an early apple adopter.

How do you even convince yourself this is a good idea?!

It's fine to grill this particular dude for his stupid behavior, but can you not insult everybody who has a Tesla because of this?

I don't even drive one and it's second-hand embarrassing seeing people make cheap jabs like this.

---

Come on, this is in your bio:

> HN is going through a wave of morons, probably refugees from Reddit.

Do you see the irony?

Hating on Tesla/Musk companies is one of the biggest trends on the internet right now, so that's going to be like asking people to be reasonable about Palestine. It goes well beyond rational reasons - well into identity/ideology - which on social media is usually an impenetrable wall when seeking nuance.

Musk has been very influential in making woke virtue signaling online less rewarding.

Of course the biggest virtue signalers are going to leave Twitter and look for other places to virtue signal.

I assume when you say this you just mean leftist woke virtue signaling.

I'll grant that right wing virtue signaling is more likely to be encountered in the physical world (e.g. the ubiquitous flag waving from the back of a pickup truck), but there's not exactly a shortage of it on Twitter either.

I'm not aware of the far right being labeled as woke before. Generally they are called conspiracy theorists, or MAGA. I don't think they are generally virtue signaling either. When they say Trump had the election stolen they seem to actually believe that and would like for Trump to take over the presidency today.

Unlike the left wing virtue signalers who say things like "abolish the police", but in reality do actually want to be able to call the police when someone is trying to break into their house.

I appreciate that some people read the rants I put in my HN profile.

I don't think it makes me a moron to recognize that Tesla has attracted a disproportionate number of enthusiasts who believe so strongly in the company and it's technology that they'll do dumb shit like turn on AP and then go to the back seat of the car. If you get into any kind of serious discussion, it doesn't take long to meet these people.

Besides, I wasn't insulting everyone who has a Tesla. I called out the fans specifically. Tesla has sold millions of cars, at this point most are not driven by fans.

You and me both, buddy. You and me both.

Elon fans are the absolute worst.

I like how efficient Teslas are and their class-leading range but the idiotic proliferation of touchscreens in mission-critical applications (like dashboards and control panels) is largely their fault, and they show no signs of stopping it. The new Model 3 has touch turn signals and none of the cars have had physical gear selectors for a long time because Musk thinks that they're unnecessary (lol). Why? Just why? Keeps me from buying one. Swipe to go into reverse? Really?

What's worse than that is that their fans ooh and ahh at this sort of cost-cutting nonsense because it "looks cool and futuristic" when it's far less functional (and frankly, more dangerous) than what it replaced. Apple already took their heel-turn with killing off the Touch Bar. Honda and VW both have scaled back touchscreen controls on their latest model vehicles. The F-35's touchscreen avionics have had problems and newer aircraft fielded (like the new F-15) tend to have more mechanical button backups while also retaining the advantages and flexibility of large flat-panel displays.

Musk's companies are the odd ones out here in terms of going the opposite direction. It's long overdue for them to correct this.

> touch turn signals

Agree 100%. This might very well mean that my current (which is my second) Model 3 is my last. The gear selector is annoying but it's possible I could overlook that detail if the rest of the car is executed flawlessly.

> none of the cars have had physical gear selectors

what do you need a gear selector for? There is only one gear: “Single-speed fixed (9:1 ratio)”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3

That argument works pretty well for any automatic, not just the EVs that only have a single speed transmission. There are still four modes to select, even if there is only one forward speed.

"Gear selector" is an anachronism. Most modern gear selectors are entirely electronic on newer cars. What I'm talking about is a physical, permanent fixture that is used to change the car's transmission state into/from park, reverse, neutral, and forward (drive). You still will occasionally need to do this in an EV, for instance, in the case of an electrical failure and you need to push the vehicle out of the way of traffic. Or literally just backing out of your driveway.

Seems sort of pedantic to say "what do you need a gear selector for," obviously I'm not talking about an H-pattern and a clutch.

In the case of electrical failure, wouldn't most newer cars fail to change modes even with a physical switch since the mode selector does not have a physical linkage?

In the case of an EV with electrical failure, no change in mode would be needed to physically push the vehicle since there is not a transmission lockout, right?

“Sometimes”?

Tesla is the best thing that ever happened to BMW. Its brand is no longer the strongest indicator of an asshat in traffic.

Interesting, do you really think it's that bad? I feel like most Teslas I see on the road are driven more like a Honda Civic than any kind of BMW. But it's not really fair to pick on BMW drivers either, I see plenty of asshats in cars of all makes & models.

My biggest complaint about other Teslas on the road are the headlights. I dialed my own down a couple notches to reduce the glare. But I see plenty of other Model 3s (and especially Ys for some reason) that are aimed way too high. They come from the factory this way.

It’s a lot more varied. It’s driven by asshats and regular drivers alike. And it’s really common. So the inference only works one way I guess, see an asshat driver, it’s likely a Tesla. But the inverse (which was pretty strong for BMW) doesn’t quite hold as well.

it's almost like this is pure conspicuous consumption.

I'm sure everyone using this in public right now is 100 % doing it to get attention and show off. It looks quite dorky, though. But who knows, maybe it works for Apple the same way the iPod or AirPods became a fashion article.

There is zero chance that strapping a giant rectangular box to your face is going to considered anything other than very weird by the majority of people.

As a (so far happy) Vision Pro owner, I completely agree with you. However, I remember when they launched the AirPods how just so immediately repulsed I was by that thing, how I truly felt like it looked like a tampon coming out of someone's ear, yet somehow, here we are. I grant you that this is, to put it mildly, a bit more of a stretch. But if somehow wearing VR glasses (don't care what apple says, these are VR glasses) will become mainstream, something tells me they'll be the ones to pull it off.

They still make everyone look like tampon cybermen. (I own two pairs)

I was skiing last week, where ski goggles are the norm... So yes, currently it might be weird, but things change. Did you watch or read "Ready Player One"? There it is the norm.

Ready Player One is a work of fiction.

I really hope you’re right!

If anyone can make it normal, it's Apple

google glass looks downright subtle by comparison

There have been numerous videos of idiots wearing a Vision Pro in vehicles and on busy streets and other places. The dumbest of the dumb seem to have gotten all of the preorders this time. I saw one of a person in a cybertruck and it’s 7000+ pounds of mass moving down the highway.

Reminds me of some of the Glassholes I met back when that was a thing.

Take that stupid fucking thing off your face when you're talking to me. All you're proving is that you have $1500 to set on fire.

I thought this VR headset started at $3,500?

They were talking about Google Glass, which was cheaper

glass was cheaper and smaller, and still too expensive and too obtrusive

It's a bit silly to pretend like the Vision Pro was destined for surgeons and rocket scientists. We did the same cat-and-mouse routine chasing down real-world workflows in Windows Mixed Reality, and the US Army was the only organization willing to foot the bill. The idiots are likely Apple's largest market, here.

And porn addicts, maybe?

It’s going to be the killer app no one talks about. As usual.

Without having seen the video, from the details in the article, I will assume it was either staged or fake.

Surprise to me that the iPhone do not allow you to use while driving the car, while Vision Pro is fine?

This is what makes America great. Things like this never happen in my country..

In related news, approximately 4000 people are pulled over and arrested per day for DWI.

It doesn’t take long for the morons to appear.