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Tesla loses Autopilot wrongful death case in $329 million verdict

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  • 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!

    I dig blaming the people who wind up believing deceptive marketing practices, instead of blaming the people doing the deceiving.

    Look up the dictionary definition of autopilot: a mechanical, electrical or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. FULL SELF DRIVING, yeah, why would that wording lead people to believe the car was, you know, fully self-driving?

    Combine that with year after year of Elon Musk constantly stating in public that the car either already drives itself, or will be capable of doing so just around the corner, by the end of next year, over and over and over and

    Elon lied constantly to keep the stock price up, and people have died for believing those lies.

  • 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.

    U believe everything elon says.

  • I will repeat, regardless of what the (erroneous) claims are by Tesla, a driver is still responsible.

    This is like those automated bill payment systems. Sure, they are automated, and the company promotes it as "easy" and "convenient", but you're still responsible if those bills don't get paid for whatever reason.

    From another report:

    While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone that he was using and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced Autopilot would brake if an obstacle was in the way. His Model S accelerated through an intersection at just over 60 miles per hour, hitting a nearby empty parked car and its owners, who were standing on the other side of their vehicle.

    Isn't using a phone while being the driver of a vehicle illegal? And what the hell is was up with highway speeds near an intersection??? This dude can blame autopilot, but goddamn, he was completely negligent. It's like there were two idiots driving the same vehicle that day.

    Yes, of course the driver is at fault for being an idiot. And sadly, a shitton of drivers are idiots. Ignoring this fact is practically ignoring reality. You shouldn't be allowed to do false marketing as a company exactly because idiots will fall for it.

  • There’s no way this decision stands, it’s absolutely absurd. The guy dropped his phone and was looking down reaching around looking for it when he crashed. He wasn’t supervising autopilot, like you are required to.

    Dude, slow down, if you keep glazing Elon this hard, it's gonna start getting frothy.

    I guess the lesson is, if your car doesn't provide a system that can be used to guide the vehicle WITHOUT ASSISTANCE FROM A HUMAN BEING, then don't be an idiot and call it "AUTOPILOT"

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

    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.

  • 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.

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    If openai can find a use for the government that'll be swell. They tend to get it under everybody's feet otherwise.
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    Relocate those Native American to reservations because those computers need a place to live. Or something like that.
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    eyekaytee@aussie.zoneE
    They will say something like solar went from 600gw to 1000 thats a 66% increase this year and coal only increased 40% except coal is 3600gw to 6400. Hrmmmm, maybe these numbers are outdated? Based on this coal and gas are down: In Q1 2025, solar generation rose 48% compared to the same period in 2024. Solar power reached 254 TWh, making up 10% of total electricity. This was the largest increase among all clean energy sources. Coal-fired electricity dropped by 4%, falling to 1,421 TWh. Gas-fired power also went down by 4%, reaching 67 TWh https://carboncredits.com/china-sets-clean-energy-record-in-early-2025-with-951-tw/ are no where close to what is required to meet their climate goals Which ones in particular are you talking about? Trump signs executive order directing US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement — again https://apnews.com/article/trump-paris-agreement-climate-change-788907bb89fe307a964be757313cdfb0 China vowed on Tuesday to continue participating in two cornerstone multinational arrangements -- the World Health Organization and Paris climate accord -- after newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump ordered withdrawals from them. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250121-china-says-committed-to-who-paris-climate-deal-after-us-pulls-out What's that saying? You hate it when the person you hate is doing good? I can't remember what it is I can't fault them for what they're doing at the moment, even if they are run by an evil dictatorship and do pollute the most I’m not sure how european defense spending is relevant It suggests there is money available in the bank to fund solar/wind/battery, but instead they are preparing for? something? what? who knows. France can make a fighter jet at home but not solar panels apparently. Prehaps they would be made in a country with environmental and labour laws if governments legislated properly to prevent companies outsourcing manufacturing. However this doesnt absolve china. China isnt being forced at Gunpoint to produce these goods with low labour regulation and low environmental regulation. You're right, it doesn't absolve china, and I avoid purchasing things from them wherever possible, my solar panels and EV were made in South Korea, my home battery was made in Germany, there are only a few things in my house made in China, most of them I got second hand but unfortunately there is no escaping the giant of manufacturing. With that said it's one thing for me to sit here and tut tut at China, but I realise I am not most people, the most clearest example is the extreme anti-ai, anti-billionaire bias on this platform, in real life most people don't give a fuck, they love Amazon/Microsoft/Google/Apple etc, they can't go a day without them. So I consider myself a realist, if you want people to buy your stuff then you will need to make the conditions possible for them to WANT to buy your stuff, not out of some moral lecture and Europe isn't doing that, if we look at energy prices: Can someone actually point out to me where this comes from? ... At the end of the day energy is a small % of EU household spending I was looking at corporate/business energy use: Major European companies are already moving to cut costs and retain their competitive edge. For example, Thyssenkrupp, Germany’s largest steelmaker, said on Monday it would slash 11,000 jobs in its steel division by 2030, in a major corporate reshuffle. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/High-Energy-Costs-Continue-to-Plague-European-Industry.html Prices have since fallen but are still high compared to other countries. A poll by Germany's DIHK Chambers of Industry and Commerce of around 3,300 companies showed that 37% were considering cutting production or moving abroad, up from 31% last year and 16% in 2022. For energy-intensive industrial firms some 45% of companies were mulling slashing output or relocation, the survey showed. "The trust of the German economy in energy policy is severely damaged," Achim Dercks, DIHK deputy chief executive said, adding that the government had not succeeded in providing companies with a perspective for reliable and affordable energy supply. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/more-german-companies-mull-relocation-due-high-energy-prices-survey-2024-08-01/ I've seen nothing to suggest energy prices in the EU are SO cheap that it's worth moving manufacturing TO Europe, and this is what annoys me the most. I've pointed this out before but they have an excellent report on the issues: https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/97e481fd-2dc3-412d-be4c-f152a8232961_en?filename=The+future+of+European+competitiveness+_+A+competitiveness+strategy+for+Europe.pdf Then they put out this Competitive Compass: https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/competitiveness-compass_en But tbh every week in the EU it seems like they are chasing after some other goal. This would be great, it would have been greater 10 years ago. Agreed
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    Me too, except I didn't get the email saying my pro vpn was about to expire, which might be my fault ofc. Gotta check the oarameters It's really good IMO and I'd recommend it fullheartedly, Switzerland has some of the best laws out there too concerning privacy too.
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    douglasg14b@lemmy.worldD
    Did I say that it did? No? Then why the rhetorical question for something that I never stated? Now that we're past that, I'm not sure if I think it's okay, but I at least recognize that it's normalized within society. And has been for like 70+ years now. The problem happens with how the data is used, and particularly abused. If you walk into my store, you expect that I am monitoring you. You expect that you are on camera and that your shopping patterns, like all foot traffic, are probably being analyzed and aggregated. What you buy is tracked, at least in aggregate, by default really, that's just volume tracking and prediction. Suffice to say that broad customer behavior analysis has been a thing for a couple generations now, at least. When you go to a website, why would you think that it is not keeping track of where you go and what you click on in the same manner? Now that I've stated that I do want to say that the real problems that we experience come in with how this data is misused out of what it's scope should be. And that we should have strong regulatory agencies forcing compliance of how this data is used and enforcing the right to privacy for people that want it removed.