Driver assist tools leading to disconnected drivers?

Good point. Do you have an alternate hypothesis for the 40% accident reduction?
It would be nice to see a breakdown of the number of accidents that happened with the level 2 automation on vs off.

To me, this indicates the reduction in accidents is even better than 40% right now when it is running.

 

That 40% is an awfully big number to simply dismiss. I feel there is sound basis to conclude a 40% or greater reduction in accidents when autopilot is active.

The IIHS results were disappointing, but the second best result wasn't a bad alternative. Congratulations to the Prime and Volt on there highest rating.
Sound like Tesla is already addressing the airbag issue via OTA updates. Not sure about the driver's leg issue, that may require slight reengineering. The headlights definitely will. I am confident both Tesla and BMW will get those issues addressed (other than the one they already did).

 

The best Autopilot is my hands on the wheel ......

 

No, it's a taxi driver

 

You're all wrong, it's my missus.... or so she tells me!

 

I love my TSS-P. However, I do not use a phone in the car. There are far too many people who are amateur demolition derby drivers around here. As Steve Miller sang, "clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am..."

 

Another Tesla crashes while in Autopilot mode:

Tesla in Autopilot mode crashes into fire truck - Jan. 23, 2018

In the last paragraph, I am heartened to see that Tesla has reprogrammed the system so that when drivers disengage and repeatedly ignore warnings, the car will now turn on the hazard flashers and come to a stop. And Autopilot will not restart for the remainder of the trip.

 

Yes, Tesla made those changes some time ago.
My take-away from this is twofold.

The driver is an idiot for driving into a stopped firetruck at 65mph.
The driver is lucky he was driving a vehicle with as high a crash safety rating as the X. Looks like he needed it.

 

If something's possible, it's probable? Which casts semi-autonomous capable vehicles in a very negative light. Even the most responsible/attentive driver is going to goof-off, a little.

OTOH, I guess the same thing was said about cruise control a few decades back.

 

To revisit this: I can see there would be a lot of "false positives" with something like the above. And it's not really false, just momentary lapse, especially during sudden slow downs. But maybe with some finetuning at the receipt end, it'd work: say if one license plate is coming up habitually, like a bad rash, they could nail some of these terrors.

 

My understanding of these systems are to prevent OR reduce the damage done in an accident. This stuff will get better as time goes on I am optimistic.

 

And before that, radios too.

Until my mother married into his family, stepdad never had a vehicle with a radio. His parents were opposed due to the driver distraction issue. And livings with his parents on the farm, he couldn't get away from that opposition until his own wedding day, when it was time to move mom out of the house to make room for the new wife and her young kids. And the wife brought her own car with a radio.

I'll argue that there are major qualitative differences between radios, old fashioned cruise control, and semi-autonomous driver assists. But while hazardous for drivers prone to mental disengagement, the later are also quite necessary stepping stones on the path towards fully autonomous vehicles.

 

I've heard the radio argument in the past - Dad never had one, I put one in my first car - and he gave me "the lecture". Back in those days, there were a lot of things to do which today are automated, you had to work the choke for the first mile or so of driving,, lights needed remembering, my direction indicators weren't self-cancelling (though that could have been a fault), putting windows down meant playing with a whirling lever etc etc - and the radio was a pre-press-button job which needed endless twirling of the station knob to find something worth listening to. But we managed fine, working a Manual transmission without synchro on some of the worn out gears.

We're in an in-between phase - somewhere in the next 15 yrs, we'll go autonomous - but now, some of our driving is automatic, the gears, RADAR Cruise, headlights, wipers, parking on some markets. And I think that's where some could get in strife, with concentration not needed to the same extent about the actual mechanics of driving, the driving environment is getting worse needing a different type of concentration.

 

Autonomous vehicle will only be fine when ALL vehicles are autonomous, not just a few. But, there needs to be a form of built-in redundancy for safety. Airliners using autolanding for example have three separate systems all checking each other.

 

I am less afraid of autonomous vehicles than those driven by humans, so the more autonomous vehicles there are on the road, even with the presence of human drivers too, the safer it will be IMO. Bring 'em on

 

Smoking used ro be a big distraction while driving but not so much anymore.

I remember my dad dropping a cigarette between his legs while driving.