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Comment by zaroth | Hacker News Reader

They are thinking the same thing as people who drive drunk. People can be idiots.

You have to actively disable safety measures in order to get the car to drive for any kind of extended period without applying force to the wheel.

Anyone caught doing this intentionally should be cited for impaired driving same as a DUI.

Then there are the people who legitimately fall asleep at the wheel and AutoPilot saves their lives, which is a different matter.

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> They are thinking the same thing as people who drive drunk.

They're worse. People who drive drunk don't necessarily make a fully conscious decision to do that. Their judgement is already impaired.

But if they think that sleeping with autopilot on is reasonable, that's 100% on them. It's something they decided ahead of time.

Lots of studies show that people who are sleep deprived are just as bad with judgement.

That's a different question though. The people were asked if they considered it safe in general. They were not in a situation when they were sleep deprived (hopefully).

Yeah, the first time I drove one, I was holding the wheel at the bottom, with two hands, but not tight enough. The car gave me 3 warnings, then disabled autopilot for the rest of the journey. I had to get off the freeway, stop, get out and lock the car, then it would let me use autopilot again...

Your mistake was that it detects rotational force, not your grip.

Rotating the wheel just a nudge with one finger is enough to let it know you’re there. You can also rotate the volume or cruise speed adjutant wheels —- sometimes I will tweak it up and down a click (meaning you end up with no change in setting) instead of rotating the wheel.

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