<story><title>Federal safety official slams Tesla, regulators for misuse of its Autopilot tech</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-25/tesla-autopilot-crash-hearing</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eaurouge</author><text>&amp;gt; You are no longer concerned with minute adjustments to the wheel, and you no longer have to maintain a constant high priority task of staying centered in the lines. Now, instead, you perform higher order functions of route planning, estimating traffic flow, observing other drivers and whether they are paying attention or drifting toward you, etc.&lt;p&gt;Staying centered in the lane should be muscle memory for an experienced driver. The higher order functions you mentioned are all things you should be doing regardless, with or without autopilot. I can perform those tasks just fine while driving a stick shift, most drivers can.&lt;p&gt;The other side of the coin is that reduced engagement in the driving process can lead to lapses in concentration. That&amp;#x27;s not just my experience, it&amp;#x27;s the same opinion expressed by F1 drivers tasked with bringing the lead car home in an unchallenging grand prix.</text></item><item><author>zaroth</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s actually less exhausting than manual driving.&lt;p&gt;With manual driving you have to focus predominantly on one specific task - keeping your car between the lines. Bends in the road, poorly drawn lines, irregularities in the road surface, gusts of wind, all conspire to make this task require constant attention. Look in the rear view mirror for a couple seconds and then look back ahead and you might find that you&amp;#x27;ve drifted, etc.&lt;p&gt;With AutoPilot the task has changed. You are no longer concerned with minute adjustments to the wheel, and you no longer have to maintain a constant high priority task of staying centered in the lines. Now, instead, you perform higher order functions of route planning, estimating traffic flow, observing other drivers and whether they are paying attention or drifting toward you, etc.&lt;p&gt;So by no means are you passive at all. It&amp;#x27;s actually extremely engaging, but significantly less monotonous form of driving. I find it quite pleasant, and not at all hard to stay engaged.&lt;p&gt;If I&amp;#x27;m going to play a game on my phone, it&amp;#x27;s because I&amp;#x27;m choosing to risk my life and the lives of the drivers&amp;#x2F;passengers around me, not because I couldn&amp;#x27;t handle looking out the window to pay attention.</text></item><item><author>allovernow</author><text>&amp;gt;With autopilot engaged, I am monitoring everything - probably with more accuracy then if I was driving, due to the decreased cognitive load.&lt;p&gt;This sounds like a false sense of security. I find it extremely difficult to believe that a typical human can maintain their attention glued to the road in a purely passive manner for hours on end. Even if you were paying attention, without your hands constantly on the steering wheel you would have a slowed reaction time where milliseconds matter.&lt;p&gt;More importantly this kind of vigilance defeats the purpose of autopilot. I&amp;#x27;m not necessarily saying you&amp;#x27;re doing anything dangerous since the autopilot function seems to be fairly safe, but your apologism comes across a bit like like an alcoholic claiming they drive better when drunk.</text></item><item><author>tristanb</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t agree with many of the points here. My partner bought a Tesla, I had little interest in them. I now would buy no other car. The autopilot has changed how I drive forever. We regularly take long three hour drives to get to a scenic spot that I would never consider doing in another car. With autopilot engaged, I am monitoring everything - probably with more accuracy then if I was driving, due to the decreased cognitive load. I don&amp;#x27;t get tired, like I do in an other car, with all the negative effects that come with that.&lt;p&gt;Im a safe driver, and autopilot makes me better at driving. I am not surprised that if you don&amp;#x27;t follow the instructions bad things can happen. (I believe statistically less than meat powered driving). That is on the human, not the technology.&lt;p&gt;The guy in the article was playing a phone game. He crashed into a barrier he had had problems with before.&lt;p&gt;Same guy, playing a phone game, whilst on cruise control in a BMW. Should we regulate that? No, we should regulate idiots in cars.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>LeifCarrotson</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve driven about 250,000 miles in the last 10 years (a lot of trips for work, coupled with a 50-mile commute for all but the last 2). 2 of 3 personal vehicles and 2 of the 5 work trucks were manual transmission.&lt;p&gt;Apparently it takes more than that to be an &amp;quot;experienced driver&amp;quot;, because lanekeeping and speed control leave me very fatigued after a 3 hour drive. I became accustomed to eating in at lunch diners and sitting down for dinner halfway home but other co-workers were not fatigued and could go through the drive through and eat in the truck.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s definitely easier than it was, and I don&amp;#x27;t have to think about the mechanics much at all anymore when backing up a 5th wheel or controlling a truck sliding in the snow, but this human doesn&amp;#x27;t have a chunk of my brain that can do lane centering automatically. That is not a universal brain function, every human can drive but it takes a lot more energy and concentration for some of us. My stress levels have gotten lower and my life has gotten a lot better since I realized that and cut my commute down to a 2.5 mile trip with ~monthly travel instead...</text></comment>
<story><title>Federal safety official slams Tesla, regulators for misuse of its Autopilot tech</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-25/tesla-autopilot-crash-hearing</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eaurouge</author><text>&amp;gt; You are no longer concerned with minute adjustments to the wheel, and you no longer have to maintain a constant high priority task of staying centered in the lines. Now, instead, you perform higher order functions of route planning, estimating traffic flow, observing other drivers and whether they are paying attention or drifting toward you, etc.&lt;p&gt;Staying centered in the lane should be muscle memory for an experienced driver. The higher order functions you mentioned are all things you should be doing regardless, with or without autopilot. I can perform those tasks just fine while driving a stick shift, most drivers can.&lt;p&gt;The other side of the coin is that reduced engagement in the driving process can lead to lapses in concentration. That&amp;#x27;s not just my experience, it&amp;#x27;s the same opinion expressed by F1 drivers tasked with bringing the lead car home in an unchallenging grand prix.</text></item><item><author>zaroth</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s actually less exhausting than manual driving.&lt;p&gt;With manual driving you have to focus predominantly on one specific task - keeping your car between the lines. Bends in the road, poorly drawn lines, irregularities in the road surface, gusts of wind, all conspire to make this task require constant attention. Look in the rear view mirror for a couple seconds and then look back ahead and you might find that you&amp;#x27;ve drifted, etc.&lt;p&gt;With AutoPilot the task has changed. You are no longer concerned with minute adjustments to the wheel, and you no longer have to maintain a constant high priority task of staying centered in the lines. Now, instead, you perform higher order functions of route planning, estimating traffic flow, observing other drivers and whether they are paying attention or drifting toward you, etc.&lt;p&gt;So by no means are you passive at all. It&amp;#x27;s actually extremely engaging, but significantly less monotonous form of driving. I find it quite pleasant, and not at all hard to stay engaged.&lt;p&gt;If I&amp;#x27;m going to play a game on my phone, it&amp;#x27;s because I&amp;#x27;m choosing to risk my life and the lives of the drivers&amp;#x2F;passengers around me, not because I couldn&amp;#x27;t handle looking out the window to pay attention.</text></item><item><author>allovernow</author><text>&amp;gt;With autopilot engaged, I am monitoring everything - probably with more accuracy then if I was driving, due to the decreased cognitive load.&lt;p&gt;This sounds like a false sense of security. I find it extremely difficult to believe that a typical human can maintain their attention glued to the road in a purely passive manner for hours on end. Even if you were paying attention, without your hands constantly on the steering wheel you would have a slowed reaction time where milliseconds matter.&lt;p&gt;More importantly this kind of vigilance defeats the purpose of autopilot. I&amp;#x27;m not necessarily saying you&amp;#x27;re doing anything dangerous since the autopilot function seems to be fairly safe, but your apologism comes across a bit like like an alcoholic claiming they drive better when drunk.</text></item><item><author>tristanb</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t agree with many of the points here. My partner bought a Tesla, I had little interest in them. I now would buy no other car. The autopilot has changed how I drive forever. We regularly take long three hour drives to get to a scenic spot that I would never consider doing in another car. With autopilot engaged, I am monitoring everything - probably with more accuracy then if I was driving, due to the decreased cognitive load. I don&amp;#x27;t get tired, like I do in an other car, with all the negative effects that come with that.&lt;p&gt;Im a safe driver, and autopilot makes me better at driving. I am not surprised that if you don&amp;#x27;t follow the instructions bad things can happen. (I believe statistically less than meat powered driving). That is on the human, not the technology.&lt;p&gt;The guy in the article was playing a phone game. He crashed into a barrier he had had problems with before.&lt;p&gt;Same guy, playing a phone game, whilst on cruise control in a BMW. Should we regulate that? No, we should regulate idiots in cars.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BluePen7</author><text>&amp;gt; Staying in your lane should be muscle memory for an experienced driver&lt;p&gt;The amount of effort needed for this can vary wildly depending on the vehicle, it’s mechanical condition, and the speed it’s being driven at. Some vehicles are more prone to being bothered by wind, or grooves in the road, or require more constant adjustments to maintain lane position.&lt;p&gt;My tiredness is dependant on the vehicle.&lt;p&gt;I’ve had cars I’m exhausted from driving just after a 1 hour commute, and I’ve had a luxury sedan I could drive basically indefinitely (once did 3000 miles in 3 days, I didn’t mind it at all).&lt;p&gt;I wonder if the person you’re replying to previously drive a much less refined car, and would see most of the same benefits even when driving the Tesla manually.&lt;p&gt;Honestly the second part of their focus, simply being aware of their surroundings, should also be muscle memory for any experienced driver. That’s probably why they find driving so tiring, because they don’t plan ahead enough to keep a peaceful flow, rather than slightly too late scramble to gather information when they have to change lanes or something.</text></comment>