Hi there,
I have just read about this in the UK and wondered if this or anything similar has happened in the US?
A driver was in his Tesla on the motorway ( highway / freeway / interstate? ) and was caught not being in the drivers seat and was in the passenger seat. It seems he turned on the autopilot mode and then climbed into the passenger seat. I guess the car has no systems in place to detect if the driver is still in the drivers seat.
From what I understand, the autopilot mode is some sort of lane control mode and it will keep the vehicle in its lane and control its steering and speed accordingly. This is not a fully autonomous mode which can drive anywhere through traffic lights, roundabouts, junctions, etc. And you need to keep your hands on the steering wheel and pay attention to what is going on.
He got an 18 month ban on his drivers license, a £1800 ( $2470 ) fine and has to do 100 hours of community service. And rightly so. And his insurance will be sky high when he can drive again.
I remember the famous story about someone engaging the cruise control on their motor home and then got into the back. And they sued and won? Not sure how true this story is or if it is just a story. This is totally crazy as the cruise control just controls the speed and nothing else. But I guess they could argue it does not make it clear ( back then ) that you could not do this. I imagine car owners books now explicitly state this?
Don't get me wrong, I am not against the development of these systems as this will be the future of driving for future generations. But it does worry me how this makes people drive their cars and not use common sense. For some time now we have had systems on cars to check blind spots, automatically brake if you are about to crash into something and other such things. I worry that these drivers aids will make people drive less carefully as they will assume these systems will just take care of it. Or they might drive another car without these systems, and forget to check things themselves.
Jeremy.
I have just read about this in the UK and wondered if this or anything similar has happened in the US?
A driver was in his Tesla on the motorway ( highway / freeway / interstate? ) and was caught not being in the drivers seat and was in the passenger seat. It seems he turned on the autopilot mode and then climbed into the passenger seat. I guess the car has no systems in place to detect if the driver is still in the drivers seat.
From what I understand, the autopilot mode is some sort of lane control mode and it will keep the vehicle in its lane and control its steering and speed accordingly. This is not a fully autonomous mode which can drive anywhere through traffic lights, roundabouts, junctions, etc. And you need to keep your hands on the steering wheel and pay attention to what is going on.
He got an 18 month ban on his drivers license, a £1800 ( $2470 ) fine and has to do 100 hours of community service. And rightly so. And his insurance will be sky high when he can drive again.
I remember the famous story about someone engaging the cruise control on their motor home and then got into the back. And they sued and won? Not sure how true this story is or if it is just a story. This is totally crazy as the cruise control just controls the speed and nothing else. But I guess they could argue it does not make it clear ( back then ) that you could not do this. I imagine car owners books now explicitly state this?
Don't get me wrong, I am not against the development of these systems as this will be the future of driving for future generations. But it does worry me how this makes people drive their cars and not use common sense. For some time now we have had systems on cars to check blind spots, automatically brake if you are about to crash into something and other such things. I worry that these drivers aids will make people drive less carefully as they will assume these systems will just take care of it. Or they might drive another car without these systems, and forget to check things themselves.
Jeremy.