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Lawsuits test Tesla claim that drivers are solely responsible for crashes
(www.washingtonpost.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
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My morality says both are accountable. The driver, and Tesla. Tesla for damage caused by their system, and the driver for and if he does not retake control of the vehicle given the chance.
But does the driver have a reasonable chance with adequate timeframe to regain control?
Like what happened with Boeing 737 Max MCAS incident, Boeing expects the pilot to disengage the trim motor in mere 4 seconds, which accoriding to a pilot "a lot to ask in an overwheming situation" or something similar.
Normal people in soon-to-crash situation are likely to freeze for a second or two, and the fear kicks up. How the driver reacts next is hard to predict. Yet, at the speed most US drivers love to go (I saw 70+ mph on freeway is the norm), the time avalible for them to make an well thought out decision I guess is quite short.
You made me think about this for a second.
In my head, the reason is not specifically to punish the driver, but to make drivers always be aware and ready to take control again. Yes 100 ppl will have 1000 different ways to react to such a software error, but you need ppl to pay attention, and in law the only way is to use punishment. Obviously this needs to be well calculated but either you have multiple lines of defense (the software, the driver, maybe even additional safety features) or you have to remove the autonomous system.
People are naturally going to pay less attention the more cars drive for them. You can't partially automate steering. Driver assisted steering is as close as it can be before the liability needs to fall on Tesla and other software manufacturers. A car isn't a plane. The driver needs to be in control when split second decisions happen, like a child running after a ball.
If I'm paying for an autopilot, I'm not the pilot. I.e., the driver. The car is. And Tesla's marketing bullshit and lawyers are going to fail here. This does not fall under puffery. It's false advertising that's causing consumers to place undue trust in a product. And the insurance industry is quite concerned just where the liability falls in all of this as well. And as they're the ones currently having to pay out claims when Tesla wins, they have a vested interest seeing that Tesla doesn't.