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Tesla loses Autopilot wrongful death case in $329 million verdict

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  • That text you italicized so proudly, is what Tesla CLAIMS happened. Did you know Tesla repeatedly told the court that they did not have the video and data that had been captured seconds before the crash, until a forensics expert hired by the PLAINTIFFS found the data, showing Tesla had it the entire time?

    Gee, why would Tesla try to hide that data if it showed the driver engaged the accelerator? Why did the plaintiffs have to go to extreme efforts to get that data?

    A jury of 12 saw that evidence, you didn't, but you believe Elon the habitual liar so hey, keep on glazin'.

    Please read the article. I hate when people upvote bullshit just because it says things they like to hear. I dislike Elon Musk as much as anyone else, but the jury's findings were this:

    • The driver is ⅔ responsible for the crash because of his negligent driving.
    • The fact that the driver did in fact keep his foot on the accelerator was accepted by the jury.
    • The jury accepted that the driver was reaching for his cell phone at the time of the crash.
    • Evidence in court showed that the speed of the car was about 100 km/h. Keep in mind that this incident occurred in the Florida Keys where there are no high-speed expressways. I couldn't find info on where exactly this happened, but the main road in the area is US Route 1, which close to the mainland is a large four-lane road with occasional intersections, but narrows into a two-lane road for most of the distance.
    • The jury found Tesla ⅓ liable because it deemed that it had sold a faulty product. For international readers, in the US, a company that sells a product which is defective during normal use is strictly liable for resulting damages.
    • Obviously Tesla plans to appeal but it is normal for everyone to appeal in these sorts of cases. Many appeals get shot down by the appellate court.
  • Good that the car manufacturer is also being held accountable.

    But...

    In 2019, George McGee was operating his Tesla Model S using Autopilot when he ran past a stop sign and through an intersection at 62 mph then struck a pair of people stargazing by the side of the road. Naibel Benavides was killed and her partner Dillon Angulo was left with a severe head injury.

    That's on him. 100%

    McGee told the court that he thought Autopilot "would assist me should I have a failure or should I miss something, should I make a mistake,"

    Stop giving stupid people the ability to control large, heavy vehicles! Autopilot is not a babysitter, it's supposed to be an assistive technology, like cruise control. This fucking guy gave Tesla the wheel, and that was a choice!

    It is assistive technology, but that is not how tesla has been marketing it. They even sell a product called full self driving, while it's not that at all.

  • Whether or not its the guys fault I'm just glad Elon is losing money.

    Unfortunately, for companies like this, that would be just another business expense to keep things running.

  • Unfortunately, for companies like this, that would be just another business expense to keep things running.

    $329mm is a little more than a standard cost of doing business fine. That's substantially more than 80% of these companies get fined for causing huge amounts of damage.

  • This is gonna get overturned on appeal.

    The guy dropped his phone and was fiddling for it AND had his foot pressing down the accelerator.

    Pressing your foot on it overrides any braking, it even tells you it won't brake while doing it. That's how it should be, the driver should always be able to override these things in case of emergency.

    Maybe if he hadn't done that (edit held the accelerator down) it'd stick.

    I think the bigger issue is that Tesla might be diminishing the drivers impression of their vehicle responsibility with their marketing/presentation of auto pilot.

    I say that knowing very little about what it's like to use auto pilot but if it is the case that there are changes that can be made that will result in less deaths then maybe the guys lawyer has a point.

  • Absolutely. I hope he and the company burn in hell, but I do not want to start giving drivers who kill people a free pass to say "well, it was the car's fault!"

    "Autopilot", especially in Tesla cars, is beta software at best, and this feature should never have been allowed to be used on public roads. In that sense, the transportation ministry that's allowed it also has blood on their hands.

    Woo, both parties are terrible, irresponsible, and should be held accountable

  • It's not that simple. Imagine you're dying of a rare terminal disease. A pharma company is developing a new drug for it. Obviously you want it. But they tell you you can't have it because "we're not releasing it until we know it's good".

    This is, or was (thanks RFK for handing the industry a blank check), how pharma development works. You don't even get to do human trials until you're pretty damn sure it's not going to kill anyone. "Experimental medicine" stuff you read about is still medicine that's been in development for YEARS, and gone through animal, cellular, and various other trials.

  • Hope he has to sell twatter at some point. Not that any good would come from that, but just the thought of him finally eating some shit makes me giggle.

    Indeed, just the feeling of loss crossing his path would taste sweet for us peasants.

  • Which they have not and won't do. You have to do this in every condition. I wonder why they always test this shit out in Texas and California?

    I guess they just didn't want to admit that snow defeats both lidar and vision cameras. Plus the fact that snow covers lane markers, Street signs, and car sensors. People can adjust to these conditions, especially when driving locally. No self driving system can function without input.

  • Have you even read what happened? The driver dropped his phone and wasn’t watching the road but instead was rummaging around on the ground looking for his phone, while having his foot on the accelerator manually accelerating. Autopilot was supposedly turned off because of the manual acceleration.

    FreeDumbAdvocate serving Elon for free.

  • I think the bigger issue is that Tesla might be diminishing the drivers impression of their vehicle responsibility with their marketing/presentation of auto pilot.

    I say that knowing very little about what it's like to use auto pilot but if it is the case that there are changes that can be made that will result in less deaths then maybe the guys lawyer has a point.

    You gotta remember we're also back in 2019. Most of the talk back then was about what it was going to be able to do when FSD was ready, but no one got access to it until 2020 and that was a very small invite only group, and it lasted like that for years. I'd say the potential for confusion today is immensely more.

    I have used AP back then, and it was good, but it clearly made lots of little mistakes, and needed constant little adjustments. If you were paying attention, they were all easy to manage and you even got to know when to expect problems and take corrective action in advance.

    My \ the big beef with this case, is that he kept his food on the accelerator, and the car tells you while you do this, that it won't brake, and having your foot on the accelerator is a common practice, as AP can be slow to start, or you need to pass someone etc, so it's really unfathomable to think that the first time this guy ever did this, was when he decided to try and pick up his dropped phone, and thought, I should keep my foot on the accelerator while doing this! No amount of marketing, should be able to override "Autopilot will not brake. Accelerator pedal pressed" type active warnings with the screen pulsating some color at him. He knew about those warnings, without any doubt in my mind. He chose to ignore them. What more could you write in a small space to warn people it will not brake?

    That being said - The NHSTA has found that Tesla's monitoring system was lacking, and Tesla has had to improve on that because of that in recent times. People would attach oranges to the steering wheel to defeat the nag to pay attention type thing back then, but this goes well beyond that IMO. Even the current system won't immediately shut down if you decided to not pay attention for some reason, it would take time before it pulls itself over, but you might get a strike against future use where it will prevent you from using it again.

    Had his foot not been on the accelerator, this would have been a very different case had the accident still occurred (which is also still possible)

  • This is, or was (thanks RFK for handing the industry a blank check), how pharma development works. You don't even get to do human trials until you're pretty damn sure it's not going to kill anyone. "Experimental medicine" stuff you read about is still medicine that's been in development for YEARS, and gone through animal, cellular, and various other trials.

    Actually we have "right to try" laws for the scenario I described.

    But the FDA could use some serious reform. Under the system we have, an FDA approval lumps together the determinations of whether a drugs is safe, effective and worth paying for. A more libertarian system would let people spend their own money on drugs that are safe even if the FDA's particular research didn't find them effective. And it wouldn't waste tax payer money on drugs that are effective but exorbitantly expensive relative to their minimal effectiveness. But if a wealthy person wants to spend their own money, thereby subsidizing pharmaceuticals for the rest of us, that's great in my opinion.

  • The snopes article indicates that the study cited for reporting Tesla cars to have the most fatalities per billion miles driven cannot be validated

    In sum, while the claims across social media are correct in saying a study did find Tesla to have the highest fatal accident rate of any car brand, the study itself uses data that is not available to the public. Therefore, although this does not mean the data is incorrect, it does mean that ensuring the study's accuracy is not possible at this time.

  • The snopes article indicates that the study cited for reporting Tesla cars to have the most fatalities per billion miles driven cannot be validated

    In sum, while the claims across social media are correct in saying a study did find Tesla to have the highest fatal accident rate of any car brand, the study itself uses data that is not available to the public. Therefore, although this does not mean the data is incorrect, it does mean that ensuring the study's accuracy is not possible at this time.

    If the data is incorrect, I would expect Tesla to file suit for libel.

    Well we have other datapoints too, like the fact that here in Denmark Tesla fail a third of the initial 4 year safety check, without comparison the highest of any brand. That's not being a beacon of safety, no AI no-matter how good can make a car with faulty brakes or steering safe.

  • Thanks for the sources

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