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WASHINGTON (Aug. 22, 2017) — The NTSB announced Tuesday it scheduled a board meeting for Sept. 12, 2017, to determine the probable cause of the fatal, May 7, 2016, crash of a Tesla car near Williston, Florida.

One person was killed when a 2015 Tesla Model S collided with a 2014 Freightliner Cascadia semitractor-trailer on US Highway 27A. The Tesla's Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer lane-keeping assistance features were being used by the driver at the time of the crash. The Tesla was traveling at 74 mph just prior to impact.

A team of five NTSB investigators traveled to Williston to conduct the on-scene phase of the investigation, using three-dimensional laser scanning to document the crash location, the damaged trailer and the damaged car. As the investigation progressed, the team expanded to cover nine areas of inquiry.

The board meeting is scheduled to be held here in the NTSB's Board Room and Conference Center, 429 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Sept. 12, beginning 9:30 a.m. The meeting is open to the public. For those who cannot attend in person, the meeting will be webcast and a link to the webcast will be available shortly before the start of the meeting at http://ntsb.capitolconection.org/.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board will vote at a Sept. 12 hearing on the probable cause of a May 2016 crash that killed a man using the semi-autonomous driving system on his Tesla Model S sedan, the agency said on Monday.

The fatal incident raised questions about the safety of systems that can perform driving tasks for long stretches with little or no human intervention but which cannot completely replace human drivers.

In June, the NTSB said the driver, Joshua Brown, kept his hands off the wheel for extended periods of time despite repeated automated warnings not to do so. Brown was killed near Williston, Florida, when his Model S collided with a truck while it was engaged in the "Autopilot" mode.
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During a 37-minute period of the trip when Brown was supposed to have his hands on the wheel, he apparently did so for just 25 seconds, the NTSB said in June.

Tesla in September 2016 unveiled improvements in Autopilot, putting new limits on hands-off driving and other features that its chief executive officer said likely would have prevented the crash death.

A board spokesman, Eric Weiss, said the NTSB could use the September board meeting to make policy recommendations. The board cannot order recalls or force regulatory changes.

In January, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had found no evidence of defects in the aftermath of Brown's death.

The NHTSA said Brown did not apply the brakes and his last action was to set the cruise control at 74 miles per hour (119 kph), less than two minutes before the crash - above the 65-mph speed limit.

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Tesla in September 2016 unveiled improvements in Autopilot, putting new limits on hands-off driving and other features that its chief executive officer said likely would have prevented the crash death.

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mnannola said:

Even though it's the drivers fault mostly, this:



doesn't bode well for Tesla saying it wasn't their fault at all. If an update could have prevented this, then it means they are at least partially responsible, right?

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Paz said:

No? That's not how improvements to things work.

If I make a knife and warn you that it's sharp and you cut yourself with it I don't become responsible for you cutting yourself because in the future I invent a knife that auto retracts when it detects human skin.

If safety improvements retroactively made people responsible for accidents that occurred before they existed then it would break much of the world.

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numble said:

They shouldn't call it autopilot if it isn't meant to be used as an autopilot. They actually changed the name of the feature in China because the meaning of the term they named it was "automatic driving".

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Future said:

Autopilot is definitely a bad term. It's cool because of the implications, but the implications cause recklessness

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captive said:

people are stupid, thats the arugment you're going with?

since no one answered i looked it up, this is the guy who was watching harry potter. https://www.theguardian.com/technol...illed-autopilot-self-driving-car-harry-potter

no sympathy.

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captive said:

people are stupid, thats the arugment you're going with?

since no one answered i looked it up, this is the guy who was watching harry potter. https://www.theguardian.com/technol...illed-autopilot-self-driving-car-harry-potter

no sympathy.

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captive said:

people are stupid, thats the arugment you're going with?

since no one answered i looked it up, this is the guy who was watching harry potter. https://www.theguardian.com/technol...illed-autopilot-self-driving-car-harry-potter

no sympathy.

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Al-ibn Kermit said:

It's been established that he was reckless. It's not just idiots who are going to get into accidents.

By your logic, cars would have zero side impact protection because that's an accident that only happens due to user error. Fact of the matter is that you need to protect against the most frequent and predictable crash situations and when you promise people that the car can drive itself, which you are basically doing when you name it Autopilot, then the 99.9% accuracy of the self-driving system isn't good enough.

Tesla getting spanked for this is necessary for the car industry as a whole.

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numble said:

He didn't watch Harry Potter (or anything for that matter). You can read the NHTSA and NTSB reports.

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Where did I say people are stupid? You don't see an issue with calling something "automatic driving" and expecting people to know it actually means "assisted driving"?

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ssolitare said:

What does it matter if the autopilot is set on 74 instead of 65?

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ssolitare said:

What does it matter if the autopilot is set on 74 instead of 65?

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GoldenEye 007 said:

Further establishes the driver was reckless and was speeding.

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captive said:

i mean, im not sure i would go that far. I am not familiar with where this guy is from. But generally here in Texas there's the speed limit and "the speed limit." Generally, and especially on highways, the flow of traffic is going about 10 miles above the speed limit and people going the speed limit or under are more dangerous because the flow of traffic has to avoid them.

Now if he were doing 85 or 90 in a 65 i would agree with you.

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captive said:

i mean, im not sure i would go that far. I am not familiar with where this guy is from. But generally here in Texas there's the speed limit and "the speed limit." Generally, and especially on highways, the flow of traffic is going about 10 miles above the speed limit and people going the speed limit or under are more dangerous because the flow of traffic has to avoid them.

Now if he were doing 85 or 90 in a 65 i would agree with you.

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numble said:

They shouldn't call it autopilot if it isn't meant to be used as an autopilot. They actually changed the name of the feature in China because the meaning of the term they named it was "automatic driving".

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sangreal said:

I agree with your point but autopilot doesn't mean full autonomy in any context. Planes still need engaged human pilots even with autopilot (for now)

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ssolitare said:

What does it matter if the autopilot is set on 74 instead of 65?

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mnannola said:

Even though it's the drivers fault mostly, this:



doesn't bode well for Tesla saying it wasn't their fault at all. If an update could have prevented this, then it means they are at least partially responsible, right?

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FrankCanada97 said:

I'm not so sure the layman understands this though.

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darscot said:

74 is speeding but may not be enough to make any difference. Even if he was driving he may not have reacted fast enough. The truck driver is 100% at fault, the Tesla clearly has the right of way. The reports states that there is no evidence he was using electronics. Seems like the truck cut him off the car failed to detect and he failed to react fast enough. It could easily be the same result if he was in control.

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darscot said:

74 is speeding but may not be enough to make any difference. Even if he was driving he may not have reacted fast enough. The truck driver is 100% at fault, the Tesla clearly has the right of way. The reports states that there is no evidence he was using electronics. Seems like the truck cut him off the car failed to detect and he failed to react fast enough. It could easily be the same result if he was in control.

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the driver took no braking, steering or other actions to avoid the collision; and 4) the last recorded driver action was increasing the cruise control set speed to 74 mph less than two minutes prior to impact. The crash occurred on a clear day with dry road conditions. On June 21, 2016, NHTSA deployed a Special Crash Investigations team to the crash site to evaluate the vehicle and study the crash environment. NHTSA’s crash reconstruction indicates that the tractor trailer should have been visible to the Tesla driver for at least seven seconds prior to impact.

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The Florida fatal crash appears to have involved a period of extended distraction (at least 7 seconds). Most of the incidents reviewed by ODI involved events with much shorter time available for the system and driver to detect/observe and react to the pending collision (less than 3 seconds). An attentive driver has superior situational awareness in most of these types of events, particularly when coupled with the ability of an experienced driver to anticipate the actions of other drivers. Tesla has changed its driver monitoring strategy to promote driver attention to the driving environment.

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