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Comment by saiya-jin | Hacker News Reader

I would do pretty bad things to any person who would severely harm or kill my kids for example, and no amount of blaming car electronics or recent update would change that...

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In this circumstance (crashing into the back of a tesla breaking hard) you would have been the person primarily to blame. Yes tesla sells a dodgy "autopilot" that does unexpected things (and in my opinion should not be road legal until fixed), but you were tailgating to the point where you couldn’t stop in time. The car behind has to be responsible for maintaining safe separation to the car in front (under reasonable circumstances).

edit: The "you" in the above being the hypothetical driver.

I kind of agree, however at least from my experience in Germany keeping at least the minimum legal distance is an exception rather than the norm. It kinda makes me mad and I wish it was mandatory for all cars to have sensors which would either not allow you to get closer given a certain speed to be in line with the regulations or at least make a really annoying sound so that you simply wouldn't want to. I would bet this would save so many lives.

You and the Tesla aren't the only ones on the road. You can't control people behind you being just close enough to not be able to stop. Or having another person behind the Tesla swerve into you when trying to avoid hitting the Tesla.

There are plenty of scenarios where you are still impacted by the brake checking Tesla without you being at fault.

There's a difference between doing bad things to prevent someone from hurting your kids and doing bad things to someone who hurt your kids in an accident. Acting in defense is justified, but acting in revenge should rightly land you in legal trouble (including prison depending on the severity of the "bad things").

My first thought was, what if it's a sheriff, police officer, or state patrol? Now you've got a couple nights in the county lockup, a reckless driving charge (this can be a misdemeanor or felony depending on the severity), and $thousands in towing and impound fees.

I don't think abrupt braking constitutes reckless driving (maybe it varies by location), and it seems like it would be pretty easy to fight by claiming you saw a deer/etc in the road. If the cop says he didn't see it, you respond with some variation of "unsurprising because you were following me too closely to see anything else". Of course, none of this absolves Tesla from fixing their software.

I can't imagine a cop anywhere in the world responding well to the phrase "unsurprising because you were following me too closely," especially if s/he already thinks you were brake checking them!

By the time you're fighting the ticket, it doesn't much matter how the cop reacts.

> By the time you're fighting the ticket, it doesn't much matter how the cop reacts.

Now you get to add a defense lawyer's trial rate...

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