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Comment by haser_au | Hacker News Reader

> The driver of the vehicle, Heather Lommatzsch, 29, told police she thought the vehicle’s automatic emergency braking system would detect traffic and stop before the car hit another vehicle.

> Police say car data show Lommatzsch did not touch the steering wheel for 80 seconds before the crash. She told police she was looking at her phone at the time and comparing different routes to her destination.

This is not news. This is someone not following the explicit instructions of the manufacturer to maintain control and awareness while driving. They choose to ignore those instructions and it resulting in a crash.

Replace "Telsa" with "Audi/VW/Toyota/Holden/Ford/GM using adaptive cruise control", and this doesn't make front page news.

aresant's comment below is spot on. "Turn the thing off if hands aren't on the wheel, end of story."

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> did not touch the steering wheel for 80 seconds before the crash

From wikipedia [0]:

> Above 45 mph free hands are allowed for three minutes if following another vehicle or one minute without following a car

Wow I can't believe this is permissable. Ms Lommatzsch was actually within the rules of what Tesla allows as far as touching the wheel.

> This is someone not following the explicit instructions of the manufacturer

Drivers are stupid and Tesla know this from the videos on the internet. Tesla should be providing failsafes especially with such new technology.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#Alerts

Audi/VW/Toyota/Holden/Ford/GM didn't name their feature "autopilot" though.

And don't advertise on tesla.com/autopilot that the feature is capable of driving itself.

In bold letters on the same page:

> Please note that Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction. It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval.

Are you suggesting that it's not the people's fault they can't get to the bottom of the marketing page before going out, buying a Tesla, ignoring obvious UI warnings, and driving it without knowing that it currently doesn't full drive itself?

Yes, it's not the people's fault, when there's a large video right there showing the car driving itself. The text makes it seem like it's just a "red tape" thing where autopilot is there like in the video but it just needs approval in your jurisdiction. If this marketing came from any other car company, you probably wouldn't be defending it.

That would only suggest to me, not knowing any better, that the car can in fact fully drive itself but might not be allowed to yet in my jurisdiction, so only a legal barrier not a tech one.

Dissect this sentence and tell me how I can deduce that this feature does not exist yet. Like the car is unable to do that. That's not dependent on "regulatory approval" or "software validation" - it's dependent on that the software doesn't exist yet.

Also, for argument sake, lets assume someone reads that sentence and thinks "oh, maybe this isn't available yet" - you get to the next sentence, and guess what

> Please note also that using a self-driving Tesla for car sharing and ride hailing for friends and family is fine, but doing so for revenue purposes will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be released next year.

Does this sound like the feature is nonexistent? To me, it does sound like it exists, just in some locations some pesky regulators don't like it.

Tesla repeatedly claimed that the car drives itself in marketing.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/tesla-self-driving-car-video/

The manufacturer should not be giving such unrealistic instructions in the first place. Everyone damn well knows that people will treat this like full autopilot. And everyone damn well knows that if you give people the chance to be a bit lazy and stop paying attention to the road, they will! Tesla knows what human behaviour is like.

We've been saying this from the beginning. This half-baked "autopilot" will only end in blood.

"Replace "Telsa" with "Audi/VW/Toyota/Holden/Ford/GM using adaptive cruise control", and this doesn't make front page news."

Or maybe it doesn't happen because people have suitably realistic expectations of Audi/VW/Toyota/Holden/Ford/GM products.

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