> Even normal collision avoidance systems cannot detect a semi truck sideways because semi trucks and trailers in NA aren't required to have side skirts and protection bars.
You know what can detect a semi truck sideways? Human eyes.
Collision detection systems are meant to trigger far later anyway, potentially after it's already too late. Side skirts would be helpful for sure in reducing fatalities in the event of a collision, but better still is avoiding the collision in the first place.
This kind of response is extremely condescending: "this is a poorly researched article because it didn't focus on the aspect of the story that I find most important." It's a perfectly valid approach to focus on the fact that Tesla's marketing of their "fancy cruise control" (their lawyer's words) causes people to trust it with their lives in unsafe ways, even when it's apparently incapable of something as simple as seeing the broad side of a semi truck. If you think the lack of side skirts is such an important issue, write your own article on it, don't cast aspersions on someone else's article.
The lack of side skirt is an important issue, though human eyes are certainly more important.
We do not just rely on just one system to keep us safe on the road, but multiple systems. Road design, trucking regulations, the software or lack thereof, human elements, all contribute to our safety.
Right, but it's completely unfair of OP to say that the article is poorly researched because it doesn't touch on something tangential. Tesla has marketing materials that say "the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons", while their lawyers in court say it's "basically just fancy cruise control". That's the story wapo chose to tell, and it's a perfectly legitimate story.
I'm sure there are plenty of other things we can learn from this incident, but they're not lazy for not focusing on them in this piece.
I disagree about this being tangential. This article focuses in-depth on a single fatal accident with fancy animations. It's the job of the reporter to explore how other vehicles protect against this and how other regions like EU mitigate loss of life. This is what you call "fact-based" and "unbiased" reporting, that WaPo claims. Otherwise all they would be doing here is exploiting someone's tragedy to drive a pre-ordained conclusion, also known as "opinion".
If the article is really about marketing issues with autopilot, they are many more avenues to explore, like how they're actually not allowed to call it "Autopilot" in Germany (try to find the word "Germany" in this article).
> Otherwise all they would be doing here is exploiting someone's tragedy to drive a pre-ordained conclusion, also known as "opinion".
They're emphasizing the point that the man's family is trying to make in court. That's hardly exploiting someone else's tragedy, it's telling their story.
Legal reasons include a big popup gating access to the autosteer feature, as well as active driver monitoring to ensure you're watching the road. It's not "only there for legal reasons" and I don't see any marketing material that implies as such [0].
You know what can detect a semi truck sideways? Human eyes.
Collision detection systems are meant to trigger far later anyway, potentially after it's already too late. Side skirts would be helpful for sure in reducing fatalities in the event of a collision, but better still is avoiding the collision in the first place.
This kind of response is extremely condescending: "this is a poorly researched article because it didn't focus on the aspect of the story that I find most important." It's a perfectly valid approach to focus on the fact that Tesla's marketing of their "fancy cruise control" (their lawyer's words) causes people to trust it with their lives in unsafe ways, even when it's apparently incapable of something as simple as seeing the broad side of a semi truck. If you think the lack of side skirts is such an important issue, write your own article on it, don't cast aspersions on someone else's article.