Autonomy and Safety in Autonomous Cars: An Investigation Into the NHTSA’s “High-Attention-Like” Collision
The student who was hit was flown to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. The investigation found a pattern of inattention, combined with problems with the technology of Tesla, that resulted in hundreds of injuries and dozens of deaths.
NHTSA compared the Level 2 automation features of other companies’ vehicles to those offered byTesla. Drivers would be able to adjust their steering with other systems, but Autopilot would disengage and not allow that. The NHTSA said this discouraged drivers from staying involved in driving.
“If you’ve got, at scale, a statistically significant amount of data that shows conclusively that the autonomous car has, let’s say, half the accident rate of a human-driven car, I think that’s difficult to ignore,” Musk said. “Because at that point, stopping autonomy means killing people.”
Fourteen people were killed and 49 were injured in these crashes, according to data collected and published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Government engineers observed a trend of avoidable crashes involving dangers that could have been seen by an attentive driver.
Regulators concluded that even the Autopilot product name was a problem, encouraging drivers to rely on the system rather than collaborate with it. Automotive competitors often use “assist,” “sense,” or “team” language, the report stated, specifically because these systems aren’t designed to fully drive themselves.