Drivers Even more Distracted than Usual with "Self Driving"

[wawa]

In Water Is Wet News - people with car features that do most of the driving for you, but not ALL of the driving....do not in fact pay attention when driving. 


www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/drivers-more-likely-be-distracted-while-using-partial-automation-tech-study-2024-09-17/

This reminds me to check in on the status of that lawsuits and investigations against Tesla for marketing their driver assist features as AutoPilot and suggesting (heavily implying) that you can totally just chill out on the highway, which has led to people in fact, chilling out on the highway (reading newspapers, napping, etc), and then crashing into things in construction zones or heavy traffic at rates well beyond any other car company with similar features with different marketing.

[waverly]

I honestly don't see how since there are sensors that know the eyes aren't looking at the road, and the car turns the auto pilot off if the person is not looking, but maybe the people are just so much idiots? Or they are just not taking control back or are crashing within seconds of not paying attention.

I mean, there are some problems with auto driving, I get that, but humans still have to drive. They still have to watch the road. Auto pilot aren't going to do crap for you if a deer runs in front of your car in one milisecond.

[wawa]

Sept 24, 2024 14:43:26 GMT -5 waverly said:

I honestly don't see how since there are sensors that know the eyes aren't looking at the road, and the car turns the auto pilot off if the person is not looking, but maybe the people are just so much idiots? Or they are just not taking control back or are crashing within seconds of not paying attention.

I mean, there are some problems with auto driving, I get that, but humans still have to drive. They still have to watch the road. Auto pilot aren't going to do crap for you if a deer runs in front of your car in one milisecond.

I mean...yes, the systems they're developing will in fact be able to brake for you when a deer runs out.  But the ones currently in cars can't reliably.  They also get deeply confused if the lane lines get wonky (construction zones) or there are a lot of bright lights doing random shit (like first responders) or if you're doing something inherently stupid, like going the wrong way down the highway, where it can't figure out the road markings.  

So as they mentioned in this article, people aren't holding the wheel, the car gives them some time to start again and then beeps at them, and they nudge the steering wheel and go back to looking at their phones.  The cameras in the car, at least in Teslas, aren't actually what's controlling the driver attention warnings.  It's the wheel.

Specific to Tesla - From when I read the NHTSA investigation on AutoPilot in general (which led to the recall a while ago, which then was being investigated as being insufficient) there are a few things going on when a car crashes under autopilot. 
Most of the bad ones are that they're literally just zero percent looking at the road and are ignoring whatever tepid warnings the system is giving and smash into something the system doesn't know what to do with.  (flashing lights, construction, etc)
Some of them are that the road was slippery, and once the car starts to leave the lane the lane centering can't compensate and if the driver wasn't paying attention they can't react in time.
Another weird wrinkle in Tesla's specifically, apparently if you made a manual adjustment to the wheel, it would turn the system off entirely.  So people were nudging their wheel so it stops beeping at them, not realizing they'd turned the system off entirely and then going back to paying no attention.  A lot of single vehicle/car leaves the road crashes with that failure mode. 


In theory they adjusted the first and last of those during the recall to get people's attention better and not shut itself off without a better warning, but there were then additional similar crashes AFTER the recall, so that's what NHTSA was investigating starting in May.  Not sure where that led.  

nerd details from the report I read back in the spring: static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INCR-EA22002-14496.pdf

[pixy0stix]

I'm shocked. So shocked I tell you.

[wawa]

As always, if you find the idea of paying attention to the road the ENTIRE TIME YOU'RE DRIVING onerous...take the bus. It's my favorite feature of being a transit rider.

[stuffandthings]

Sept 24, 2024 15:40:55 GMT -5 wawa said:

As always, if you find the idea of paying attention to the road the ENTIRE TIME YOU'RE DRIVING onerous...take the bus. It's my favorite feature of being a transit rider.

I mean, there are lots of places that don’t have bus transit systems. In the small town I grew up in in Ohio, there was basically one bus that went between the nearby university and Cleveland and that was it. It didn’t go to the grocery store, K-12 schools, library, post office, etc. My mom can’t drive and my dad worked all the time, so as a result I walked about two miles to school and two miles back every day.

Now, I agree that the solution is not self-driving cars, but rather better mass transit. But for a lot of people, transit systems aren’t at a place where they can actually use them. And I’m not sure they’ll ever be at that level in some rural areas.

[pixy0stix]

Sept 24, 2024 15:49:09 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

Sept 24, 2024 15:40:55 GMT -5 wawa said:

As always, if you find the idea of paying attention to the road the ENTIRE TIME YOU'RE DRIVING onerous...take the bus. It's my favorite feature of being a transit rider.

I mean, there are lots of places that don’t have bus transit systems. In the small town I grew up in in Ohio, there was basically one bus that went between the nearby university and Cleveland and that was it. It didn’t go to the grocery store, K-12 schools, library, post office, etc. My mom can’t drive and my dad worked all the time, so as a result I walked about two miles to school and two miles back every day.

Now, I agree that the solution is not self-driving cars, but rather better mass transit. But for a lot of people, transit systems aren’t at a place where they can actually use them. And I’m not sure they’ll ever be at that level in some rural areas.

I forget that we have new people on the board sometimes. LOL! This is an old discussion that we have with varying degrees of passion around here.

[neverfstop]

Sept 24, 2024 15:01:56 GMT -5 wawa said:

Sept 24, 2024 14:43:26 GMT -5 waverly said:

I honestly don't see how since there are sensors that know the eyes aren't looking at the road, and the car turns the auto pilot off if the person is not looking, but maybe the people are just so much idiots? Or they are just not taking control back or are crashing within seconds of not paying attention.

I mean, there are some problems with auto driving, I get that, but humans still have to drive. They still have to watch the road. Auto pilot aren't going to do crap for you if a deer runs in front of your car in one milisecond.

I mean...yes, the systems they're developing will in fact be able to brake for you when a deer runs out.  But the ones currently in cars can't reliably.  They also get deeply confused if the lane lines get wonky (construction zones) or there are a lot of bright lights doing random shit (like first responders) or if you're doing something inherently stupid, like going the wrong way down the highway, where it can't figure out the road markings.  

So as they mentioned in this article, people aren't holding the wheel, the car gives them some time to start again and then beeps at them, and they nudge the steering wheel and go back to looking at their phones.  The cameras in the car, at least in Teslas, aren't actually what's controlling the driver attention warnings.  It's the wheel.

Specific to Tesla - From when I read the NHTSA investigation on AutoPilot in general (which led to the recall a while ago, which then was being investigated as being insufficient) there are a few things going on when a car crashes under autopilot. 
Most of the bad ones are that they're literally just zero percent looking at the road and are ignoring whatever tepid warnings the system is giving and smash into something the system doesn't know what to do with.  (flashing lights, construction, etc)
Some of them are that the road was slippery, and once the car starts to leave the lane the lane centering can't compensate and if the driver wasn't paying attention they can't react in time.
Another weird wrinkle in Tesla's specifically, apparently if you made a manual adjustment to the wheel, it would turn the system off entirely.  So people were nudging their wheel so it stops beeping at them, not realizing they'd turned the system off entirely and then going back to paying no attention.  A lot of single vehicle/car leaves the road crashes with that failure mode. 


In theory they adjusted the first and last of those during the recall to get people's attention better and not shut itself off without a better warning, but there were then additional similar crashes AFTER the recall, so that's what NHTSA was investigating starting in May.  Not sure where that led.  

nerd details from the report I read back in the spring: static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INCR-EA22002-14496.pdf

Agree and ditto almost everything.

I believe some of the newer Tesla's have in-cabin cameras that do additional driver monitoring. 

The steering input to override the Autopilot is pretty large & would be intentional...

Yes, the SAE levels of automation, specifically where there "driver should take over" are really really tricky.   It's almost easier to go to fully autonomous & don't rely on the driver to do anything.  I rode in a Waymo in SF the other week & it was really impressive. 

[stuffandthings]

Sept 24, 2024 16:10:01 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Sept 24, 2024 15:49:09 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

I mean, there are lots of places that don’t have bus transit systems. In the small town I grew up in in Ohio, there was basically one bus that went between the nearby university and Cleveland and that was it. It didn’t go to the grocery store, K-12 schools, library, post office, etc. My mom can’t drive and my dad worked all the time, so as a result I walked about two miles to school and two miles back every day.

Now, I agree that the solution is not self-driving cars, but rather better mass transit. But for a lot of people, transit systems aren’t at a place where they can actually use them. And I’m not sure they’ll ever be at that level in some rural areas.

I forget that we have new people on the board sometimes. LOL! This is an old discussion that we have with varying degrees of passion around here.

Whoops, sorry! 😂

[sillygoosegirl]

Yes, water is wet. And I am terrified of partially automated automobiles.

[wawa]

Sept 24, 2024 16:10:01 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Sept 24, 2024 15:49:09 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

I mean, there are lots of places that don’t have bus transit systems. In the small town I grew up in in Ohio, there was basically one bus that went between the nearby university and Cleveland and that was it. It didn’t go to the grocery store, K-12 schools, library, post office, etc. My mom can’t drive and my dad worked all the time, so as a result I walked about two miles to school and two miles back every day.

Now, I agree that the solution is not self-driving cars, but rather better mass transit. But for a lot of people, transit systems aren’t at a place where they can actually use them. And I’m not sure they’ll ever be at that level in some rural areas.

I forget that we have new people on the board sometimes. LOL! This is an old discussion that we have with varying degrees of passion around here.

Happy to amend my statement...if you find it onerous to pay attention to the road and live somewhere without alternative forms of transport, first move to a place with transit, then take the bus.

[Vespasia]

This is kind of off topic but I have been wanting to share it for ages.

Almost every day at work I see a car in the garage with a bumper sticker that says "Elon Musk is a Scourge on Humanity."

It's on a Tesla.

I understand how someone could want to have the car but distance themselves from that shithead. But it still makes me giggle.

[sillygoosegirl]

Sept 25, 2024 20:22:39 GMT -5 Vespasia said:

This is kind of off topic but I have been wanting to share it for ages.

Almost every day at work I see a car in the garage with a bumper sticker that says "Elon Musk is a Scourge on Humanity."

It's on a Tesla.

I understand how someone could want to have the car but distance themselves from that shithead. But it still makes me giggle.

I know multiple people who claim they didn't know what a shithead he was before buying their Teslas...

[sonrisa]

I hate Waymos. Creepy, often empty, robot cars spinning those little electric eyes and breaking in weird ways.