Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Striking Motorcyclists More Than Any Other Brand: New Analysis
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This is another reason I’ll never drive a motorcycle. Fuck that shit.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byIt's like smoking: if you haven't started, don't XD
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Interesting! I did not know that - I assumed the teleoperators took direct control, but that makes much more sense for latency reasons (among others)
wrote 6 days ago last edited byI always just assumed it was their way to ensure the vehicle was really autonomous. If you have someone remotely driving it, you could argue it isn't actually an AV. Your latency idea makes a lot of sense as well though. Imagine taking over and causing an accident due to latency? This way even if the operator gives a bad suggestion, it was the car that ultimately did it.
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TL;DR: Self-Driving Teslas Rear-End Motorcyclists, Killing at Least 5
Brevity is the spirit of wit, and I am just not that witty. This is a long article, here is the gist of it:
- The NHTSA’s self-driving crash data reveals that Tesla’s self-driving technology is, by far, the most dangerous for motorcyclists, with five fatal crashes that we know of.
- This issue is unique to Tesla. Other self-driving manufacturers have logged zero motorcycle fatalities with the NHTSA in the same time frame.
- The crashes are overwhelmingly Teslas rear-ending motorcyclists.
Read our full analysis as we go case-by-case and connect the heavily redacted government data to news reports and police documents.
Oh, and read our thoughts about what this means for the robotaxi launch that is slated for Austin in less than 60 days.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byUnless it's a higher rate than human drivers per mile or hours driven I do not care. Article doesn't have those stats so it's clickbait as far as I'm concerned
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Unless it's a higher rate than human drivers per mile or hours driven I do not care. Article doesn't have those stats so it's clickbait as far as I'm concerned
wrote 6 days ago last edited byThe fact that the other self driving brands logged zero motorcyclist fatalities means the technology exists to prevent more deaths. Tesla has chosen to allow more people to die in order to reduce cost. The families of those five dead motorcyclists certainly care.
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I think i had a stroke reading that. Take your upvote and get out!
wrote 6 days ago last edited byI'm not going to lie, I almost had a stroke writing it...
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Unless it's a higher rate than human drivers per mile or hours driven I do not care. Article doesn't have those stats so it's clickbait as far as I'm concerned
wrote 6 days ago last edited byThanks, 'Satan.
Do you know the number of miles driven by Tesla's self-driving tech? Because I don't, Tesla won't say, they're a remarkably non-transparent company where their tech is concerned. Near as I can tell, nobody does (other than folks locked up tight with NDAs). If the ratio of accidents-per-mile-driven looked good, you know as a flat fact that Elon would be Tweeting all about it.
Sorry you didn't find the death of 5 Americans newsworthy. I'll try harder for the next one.
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I'm not going to lie, I almost had a stroke writing it...
wrote 6 days ago last edited byI upvoted every comment in this sub-thread shitshow and hated all of it.
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wrote 6 days ago last edited by
1000 fake internet point to you sir.
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I upvoted every comment in this sub-thread shitshow and hated all of it.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byYer welcome!
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For what it's worth, it really isn't clear if this is FSD or AP based on the constant mention of self driving even when it's older collisions when it would definitely been AP.
So these may all be AP, or one or two might be FSD, it's unclear.
Every Tesla has AP as well, so the likelihood of that being the case is higher.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byThat's not good though, right? "We have the technology to save lives, it works on all of our cars, and we have the ability to push it to every car in the fleet. But these people haven't paid extra for it, so..."
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This is another reason I’ll never drive a motorcycle. Fuck that shit.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byAs someone who likes the open sky feeling, this is why I drive a convertible instead.
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For what it's worth, it really isn't clear if this is FSD or AP based on the constant mention of self driving even when it's older collisions when it would definitely been AP.
So these may all be AP, or one or two might be FSD, it's unclear.
Every Tesla has AP as well, so the likelihood of that being the case is higher.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byIn this case, does it matter? Both are supposed to follow a vehicle at a safe distance
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TL;DR: Self-Driving Teslas Rear-End Motorcyclists, Killing at Least 5
Brevity is the spirit of wit, and I am just not that witty. This is a long article, here is the gist of it:
- The NHTSA’s self-driving crash data reveals that Tesla’s self-driving technology is, by far, the most dangerous for motorcyclists, with five fatal crashes that we know of.
- This issue is unique to Tesla. Other self-driving manufacturers have logged zero motorcycle fatalities with the NHTSA in the same time frame.
- The crashes are overwhelmingly Teslas rear-ending motorcyclists.
Read our full analysis as we go case-by-case and connect the heavily redacted government data to news reports and police documents.
Oh, and read our thoughts about what this means for the robotaxi launch that is slated for Austin in less than 60 days.
wrote 6 days ago last edited bythe cybertruck is sharp enough to cut a deer in half, surely a biker is just as vulnerable.
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Tesla self driving is never going to work well enough without sensors - cameras are not enough. It’s fundamentally dangerous and should not be driving unsupervised (or maybe at all).
wrote 6 days ago last edited bythey originally had lidar, or radar, but musk had them disabled in the older models.
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Unless it's a higher rate than human drivers per mile or hours driven I do not care. Article doesn't have those stats so it's clickbait as far as I'm concerned
wrote 6 days ago last edited bySame goes for the other vehicles. They didn’t even try to cover miles driven and it’s quite likely Tesla has far more miles of self-driving than anyone else.
I’d even go so far as to speculate the zero accidents of other self-driving vehicles could just be zero information because we don’t have enough information to call it zero
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TL;DR: Self-Driving Teslas Rear-End Motorcyclists, Killing at Least 5
Brevity is the spirit of wit, and I am just not that witty. This is a long article, here is the gist of it:
- The NHTSA’s self-driving crash data reveals that Tesla’s self-driving technology is, by far, the most dangerous for motorcyclists, with five fatal crashes that we know of.
- This issue is unique to Tesla. Other self-driving manufacturers have logged zero motorcycle fatalities with the NHTSA in the same time frame.
- The crashes are overwhelmingly Teslas rear-ending motorcyclists.
Read our full analysis as we go case-by-case and connect the heavily redacted government data to news reports and police documents.
Oh, and read our thoughts about what this means for the robotaxi launch that is slated for Austin in less than 60 days.
wrote 6 days ago last edited byI wonder if a state court judge could mandate its use as unsafe?
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That's not good though, right? "We have the technology to save lives, it works on all of our cars, and we have the ability to push it to every car in the fleet. But these people haven't paid extra for it, so..."
wrote 6 days ago last edited byWell, only 1 or 2 of those were in a time frame where I'd consider FSD superior to AP, it's a more recent development where that's likely the case.
But to your point, at some point I expect Tesla to use the FSD software for AP for the exact reasons you mentioned. My guess is they'd just do something like disable making turns, so you wouldn't be able to use it outside of straight stretches like AP today.
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Unless it's a higher rate than human drivers per mile or hours driven I do not care. Article doesn't have those stats so it's clickbait as far as I'm concerned
wrote 6 days ago last edited byCybertrucks have 17 times the mortality rate of the ford pinto.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/report-cybertruck-safety-ford-pinto/
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It can't even perceive the depth of the lights?
wrote 6 days ago last edited byWhy not? It’s got multiple cameras so could judge distances the same way humans do.
However there have been both hardware and software updates since most of those, so the critical question is how much of a problem is it still? The article had no info or speculation on that
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In this case, does it matter? Both are supposed to follow a vehicle at a safe distance
wrote 6 days ago last edited byIn this case, does it matter? Both are supposed to follow a vehicle at a safe distance
I think it does matter, while both are supposed to follow at safe distances, the FSD stack is doing it in a completely different way. They haven't really been making any major updates to AP for many years now, all focus has been on FSD.
AP is looking at the world frame by frame, each individual camera on it's own, while FSD is taking the input of all cameras, turning into 3d vector space, and then driving based off that. Doing that on city streets and highways is only a pretty recent development. Updates for doing it this way on highway and streets only went out to all cars in the past few months. For along time it was on city streets only.
I’d be more interested in how it changes over time, as new software is pushed.
I think that's why it's important to make a real distinction between AP and FSD today (and specifically which FSD versions)
They're wholly different systems, one that gets older every day, and one that keeps getting better every few months. Making an article like this that groups them together muddies the water on what / if any progress has been made.
