Tesla crash Mountain View California

Has the official cause of death been determined and published?

For all I know, the driver could've died of (or been incapacitated by) a heart attack or stroke before the crash ever even happened, which would explain no reaction to system warnings.
 
amberwolf said:
Has the official cause of death been determined and published? For all I know, the driver could've died of (or been incapacitated by) a heart attack or stroke before the crash ever even happened, which would explain no reaction to system warnings.

This is the only thing I can find so far on that......

The fatal crash and vehicle fire of the Tesla near Mountain View, California, involved two other cars and delayed traffic for hours. The 38-year-old Tesla driver died at a nearby hospital shortly after the crash. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-on-autopilot-prior-to-accident-idUSKBN1H7023

Some of the batteries from the crash.
Part of Mountianview Batt Fire.jpg
 
for those that are interested in where the accident actually took place: open the link, click on the street image in top left corner, rotate until you can see the "This ramp will be closed" orange sign (not relevant in this case). The ramp, and barrier, can be seen - the ramp is from the EV lane on the left.
https://goo.gl/maps/jBqeAuwbKyM2
 
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Norman+Y.+Mineta+Hwy+%26+US-101+%26+Bayshore+Fwy,+Mountain+View,+CA+94043,+USA/@37.4109675,-122.0758541,3a,60y,113.87h,79.37t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZgeWEkfcebem-bdNVKdhFA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x808fba027e1726a3:0xc13f05bafd623ef2!2sAmphitheatre+Pkwy,+Mountain+View,+CA+94043,+USA!3b1!8m2!3d37.4232321!4d-122.085467!3m4!1s0x808fb7510f79a5d7:0x46162af799aa27b4!8m2!3d37.4108138!4d-122.0754483
 
So was the Tesla Autopilot trying to put the car in-between the two white lines?

Mountain view crash site.JPG
 
e-beach said:
So was the Tesla Autopilot trying to put the car in-between the two white lines?
Mountain view crash site.JPG
very good question...

it's also interesting that the crash barrier appears to have been longer previously, or at least there was something in the road before the barrier position (8 repairs where perhaps posts were removed)
 
Tesla smoked the end of the barrier, thats gotta suck. Safety barriers removed.
I can see the family sueing Tesla and the city/county. heck it being cali they probably sue the emergency crews too.

Plus Caltrans, who makes some questionable decisions in lane layout, markings and signage.

I heard they decided the lane markings weren't all that important, since without them the accident rate didn't go up. I'm sure they failed to measure the blood pressure of the drivers going through the unmarked sections.
 
Alan B said:
.... If you were a computer, what would you do?
As a Computer,....... i can only do what im programmed to do.
There ought to be some software & test programmers feeling a little guilty also.
Its like letting someone else that you do not know, and is not in the car, take control remotely !
Millions of motorists deal with those kinds of situations and decisions , every day. There are far more tricky situations also that have to be navigated safely.
Automation of car control has some way to go yet.
 
That's true. We've seen two fatalities in recent weeks. I wonder if testing procedures and standards are proper. These systems are not old enough to even take a driving test, have they actually passed one?

Humans are not too good at driving either, 30 people die, and many more are injured every single day in car crashes in the US alone. And that is with all the vehicle safety features that allow a lot of accident victims to survive. Poor markings on roads cause a lot of the carnage as well. I don't have numbers for that cause. One of my coworkers was killed that way, a PHD scientist who apparently was confused by road signs at the airport.
 
I don't know if its been said clearly enough yet (I did go through all the posts) but it has been confirmed that the owner who died in this Tesla did have Autopilot enabled when it crashed.

Tesla Model X was in autopilot before fatal crash
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/31/technology/tesla-model-x-crash-autopilot/index.html
https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-self-driving-crash-california/
https://www.recode.net/2018/4/2/17183860/tesla-crash-autopilot-elon-musk

There is some spectacular footage of the crash here, they even have Tesla engineers yanking out 18650 battery module remains.
https://youtu.be/EqUk19I-16Q , specifically here for the super impatient https://youtu.be/EqUk19I-16Q?t=13s

[youtube]EqUk19I-16Q[/youtube]


This guys photos are pretty good as well
https://twitter.com/DeanCSmith/status/977286282991755264

screen-shot-2018-03-23-at-8-34-09-pm.jpg


To me it really seems the front of the car didn't provide much protection at all.

Like the Uber fatality as I pointed out here ( https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=93360&start=100#p1369139 ) where the car continued for another 40-50 meters after the collision, these two companies self-driving technology is garbage, the Google self-driving car is massively better/smarter.
Tesla and Uber are putting their company share prices valuations well above public safety.

Tesla and Renewable energy articles/videos are Bloomberg bread and butter it seems for the amount of news they do on it, everyone seems to just love watching this kind of stuff, there's almost a Tesla video here every day just on their Bloomberg Technology YT channel. So you can watch videos on Tesla until your head falls off.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrM7B7SL_g1edFOnmj-SDKg/search?query=Tesla
 
Driving edge on into a concrete barrier with no brake application at all is a pretty tough test.

It seems surprising that the self driving systems don't seem to have a panic mode that gets triggered at all. Generally drivers impact with brakes on and that takes a lot of energy out of the system before impact, even if not completely stopping before contact.

A lot of new cars without self driving have emergency braking systems built in that trigger when approaching a stopped vehicle. Wonder if they would detect the edge of a barrier like this.

Caltrans should never allow the end of a barrier to be so poorly marked. Or perhaps it was well marked and all that was swept away.
 
TheBeastie said:
To me it really seems the front of the car didn't provide much protection at all.
You are seeing the front of the car after much of it was cut away by rescue workers trying to extract the victim.
 
if you look at this video - it appears to show the car just after the crash, there are no rescue workers I can see
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Sig-Alert-Issued-After-Accident-Causes-Car-Fire-on-Hwy-101-477762763.html
 
Failure Number One: Failed to allow for SHT. (Stupid Human Tricks)
Failure Two: Physics 101... The kinetic energy contained in a "large" mass moving...
Failure Three: Chemistry 101... The energy contained in cells (a "battery"), released "all at once".

This despite decades and centuries of injuries and deaths trying to "perfect" the horseless carriage ("car").

SHT. Keeps happening. It's inevitable. Simple solution? Shrink the size and weight and speed of the vehicle (see "ebikes").

:wink:

EDIT: Watts worse than SHT? Doctors will confirm that half the worlds human population will have less than "average intelligence". And inflict their SHT on others.
 
billvon said:
TheBeastie said:
To me it really seems the front of the car didn't provide much protection at all.
You are seeing the front of the car after much of it was cut away by rescue workers trying to extract the victim.

Actually, I think that is what the car looked like just after the crash. From the video I posted by the guy who was there, I don't see any fire trucks in the background yet. They seem to appear later in the news reporting.
 
Simple solution? Shrink the size and weight and speed of the vehicle (see "ebikes").

Hehe...Sadly, folks will continue to babble on... with fantasy so much preferred versus reality. :wink:
 
PRW said:
if you look at this video - it appears to show the car just after the crash, there are no rescue workers I can see
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Sig-Alert-Issued-After-Accident-Causes-Car-Fire-on-Hwy-101-477762763.html

That is a better angle of the crash scene.
There were no water barrels in front of barrier.
 
I don't care how large or hard the barrier was the autopilot didn't see it, or the autopilot is so badly programmed its coded in a way that it just ignores huge steel/concrete barriers and continues to drive into them hoping its just an identification road mistake or something.

Obviously, Tesla/Uber management/engineers decided to just put these cars out and see how many people they kill before it becomes a problem.
 
TheBeastie said:
Obviously, Tesla/Uber management/engineers decided to just put these cars out and see how many people they kill before it becomes a problem.

Its sad but companies do put a cash value on that sort of thing.
 
TheBeastie said:
Obviously, Tesla/Uber management/engineers decided to just put these cars out and see how many people they kill before it becomes a problem.
Probably. Every other car company out there has done the same.
 
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