With self-driving cars just around the corner there have been many concerns that seem like they’re from science fiction movies that are become serious discussions. Morality issues like whether cars should kill the driver to save the lives of others; and of course just their viability for mass production in our current infrastructure. Google is already in practical trials with their self driving car and rumors are that Apple might join the fray.
One common car that is semi-autonomous is the Tesla branded cars. The current and most popular model Tesla offers is their Model S which features an ultrasonic radar system that lets it follow cars in front of it with frightening precision. It can steer and adjust speed all on it’s own and can even come to a full stop when necessary. But, it’s not a totally autonomous system. Tesla warns that drivers should still be paying attention to the road at all times to intervene at a moment’s notice. It’s supposed to be a mild convenience not something that can do all the heavy lifting just yet.
With that said, there has been the first reported death of a driver from the semi-autonomous driving mode offered by Tesla. The accident itself occurred on May 7th but is just being made public now. Apparently, the Tesla’s auto-pilot couldn’t differentiate between the white sky and a white tractor trailer. The system got confused and so it tried to drive under the “sky” at full speed. The car crashed into the tractor trailer and ended up underneath it. The roof was sheared off by the force of the collision and the windshield collapsed inward from the bottom of the truck. The truck driver was unharmed but the driver of the Tesla unfortunately died.
In a blog post, Tesla said that their autopilot program was still in beta and as real world miles accumulate it will only get safer. All the tests and statistics show that even though this was an unfortunate incident their autopilot system is still safer than the average human driver.
“It is important to emphasize that the NHTSA action is simply a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the system worked according to expectations,” the Tesla team add, before mentioning that the autopilot feature is still in its beta testing phase, and that “as more real-world miles accumulate and the software logic accounts for increasingly rare events, the probability of injury will keep decreasing.”
The only other recorded accident involving a self-driving car was Google’s self driving car that very lightly bumped into a bus with no evident damage to either vehicle. With the vast majority of auto accidents being contributed to human error and not unavoidable circumstances, self driving cars can provide a much safer alternative. Though, this incident is a clear example of what can happen when there is a glitch in a system that we put our trust in.
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