The safety of autonomous and semi-autonomous cars has once again been called into question after a Tesla Model S crashed into a police car in California, prompting concerns over whether drivers are receiving sufficient training about engaging the self-driving feature.
The aftermath of the crash was shown in a series of pictures tweeted by the Laguna Beach Police Department, which said that fortunately, no officer was in the police vehicle at the time. The woman ‘driving’ the Tesla sustained minor injuries, however.https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/29/tesla-model-s-in-autopilot-collides-with-police-suv/
This morning a Tesla sedan driving outbound Laguna Canyon Road in “autopilot” collides with a parked @LagunaBeachPD unit. Officer was not in the unit at the time of the crash and minor injuries were sustained to the Tesla driver. #lagunabeach #police #tesla pic.twitter.com/7sAs8VgVQ3
— Laguna Beach PD PIO (@LBPD_PIO_45) May 29, 2018
The website Engadget points out that Tesla tells drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel when the semi-autonomous ‘Autopilot’ feature is engaged, with the company reiterating that the technology “doesn't make the car impervious to all accidents."
Should a driver let go of the steering wheel for around a minute, the Autopilot feature will be lost for the remainder of the journey (you don’t have to be a genius mathematician to work out that even at 30 miles an hour, that is enough time to travel half a mile.
But Engadget questions whether the safety warnings given to drivers using Autopilot mode are sufficient, and suggests that many Tesla drivers do not entirely appreciate their legal responsibilities when engaging it.
At least two crashes while Tesla’s Autopilot is operational have resulted in drivers of the vehicle being killed – one, in 2016, when the car crashed into a truck after a motorist who was watching a Harry Potter movie apparently ignored repeated warnings to keep his hands on the steering wheel.
An official inquiry established that he had failed to respond to seven audible warnings, and six visual ones on the car’s dashboard.
The safety of self-driving cars around vulnerable road users including cyclists is something we have regularly featured here on road.cc.
Last year, 80-year-old cyclist Fred Heppell from Durham was killed in a collision involving a Tesla car, although it is unclear whether the Autopilot feature was in operation at the time.
In May last year, a robotics expert at California’s Stanford University said that the technology would result in cyclists being killed.
> Never use Tesla Autopilot feature around cyclists, warns robotics expert
Post-doctoral researcher Heather Knight said in a review posted on Medium that she “found the Autopilot’s agnostic behaviour around bicyclists to be frightening.”
She continued: “I’d estimate that Autopilot classified ~30 per cent of other cars, and 1 per cent of bicyclists.
“Not being able to classify objects doesn’t mean the Tesla doesn’t see that something is there, but given the lives at stake, we recommend that people NEVER USE TESLA AUTOPILOT AROUND BICYCLISTS!”
Dr Knight added: “Do not treat this system as a prime time autonomous car. If you forget that … bikers will die.”
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.