Good start to 2023…

kitkat9933 · 1 Jan 2023 at 12:18

Coming home at 2am on New Year’s Day (sober as wife is pregnant and didn’t drink at all) and as driving through our driveway gate, the wind blew it into the side of the car very lightly.

The gate did no damage (that can be seen anyway)

However, my Tesla did an evasive manoeuvre I’m guessing (99.99% sure I did not steer it) forcing it to judder really fast to the right over a kerb and into our holly bushes. Fortunately, it seems this morning the only damage was a wheel got a chip in it and a tyre slightly damaged.

Very annoying as literally had the wheel refurbished on Friday evening and just recently had a new tyre put on after hitting a pothole on the motorway.

1 - I assume this tyre is going to need replacing?
2 - do I have any legal position against Tesla? Without the evasive manoeuvre there would have been no damage at all and the quick movement seems dangerous into a holly bush and wall compared to a small impact from a light wooden gate.

norm · 1 Jan 2023 at 12:24

How would Tesla assess your account of the story? Do the cars feature some kind of black box recorder?

Seems somewhat daft of the AI to behave like that though I must admit, automatic braking to avoid a crash is warranted but randomly swerving seems a recipe for disaster.

kitkat9933 · 1 Jan 2023 at 12:26

norm said:
How would Tesla assess your account of the story? Do the cars feature some kind of black box recorder?

Seems somewhat daft of the AI to behave like that though I must admit, automatic braking to avoid a crash is warranted but randomly swerving seems a recipe for disaster.

I have the dash cam footage but proves nothing. I know in serious crash situations they have pulled logs of what the car did.

norm · 1 Jan 2023 at 12:43

It would make for an interesting insurance claim though, if something on a much bigger scale happened and the AI controlling the car was found to be at fault and not the driver, does that make Tesla liable instead.

danlightbulb · 1 Jan 2023 at 13:20

Outright dangerous to have cars making those sorts of decisions, I think automated driving will be fraught with these if it ever takes off.

BUDFORCE · 1 Jan 2023 at 13:26

Is there any way of turning all that stuff off?

I don't mind driving assists if you can disable them all, maybe with the exception of ABS although driving on snow or loose gravel maybe and argument for that as well, but let's face it you won't be doing that often.

It honestly concerns me the ways cars are going.

peterwalkley · 1 Jan 2023 at 13:59

You're not having much luck with the Tesla

No way fit a latch to the gate, or just a brick or big rock to slide over to stop the bugger swinging ? Wife's parents house has a big gate on the drive and I'm always wary of the damm thing when we visit unless someone is holding it in place.

kitkat9933 · 1 Jan 2023 at 14:33

peterwalkley said:
You're not having much luck with the Tesla No way fit a latch to the gate, or just a brick or big rock to slide over to stop the bugger swinging ? Wife's parents house has a big gate on the drive and I'm always wary of the damm thing when we visit unless someone is holding it in place.

This car has been a curse. Also got paint flaking off.

The annoying thing is just replaced the tyre and then the alloy is high was damaged when replacing that tyre, only got repaired by Halfords (who paid for the repair on Friday).

Not having much luck and want to get rid.

jpaul · 1 Jan 2023 at 16:28

Does such a driving assist work at the low speed you'd be entering a drive ; does it fight you if you pull up onto a kerb to park, or,
aforementioned random event, like a bag blowing across the road(merc's can apparently auto brake on metallised crisp bags).

kindai · 1 Jan 2023 at 16:32

kitkat9933 said:
1 - I assume this tyre is going to need replacing?

Yup, nowhere would even try to repair that.

Scania · 1 Jan 2023 at 16:39

I dislike this automated assistance stuff, my current Scania (HGV) has it, and I distrust it hugely as it likes to activate when it sees parked cars, trees, post boxes… the list is endless.

That said, I leave it activated as in fairness, it’s activated twice recently and saved me from a certain prang!

Rimsy · 1 Jan 2023 at 17:07

This majority of the whole "assisted driving" crap is one of the most unnecessary and dangerous solutions to a problem that doesn't exist.

Make people take tests every 5 years in order to keep their licenses instead of this stuff!

mikeo · 1 Jan 2023 at 17:35

Rimsy said:
This majority of the whole "assisted driving" crap is one of the most unnecessary and dangerous solutions to a problem that doesn't exist.

Make people take tests every 5 years in order to keep their licenses instead of this stuff!

Totally agree with this comment.

Even "lane assist" drives me mad. Previous cars, I've had to switch it on manually should I wish (which I never did). Current car has it on by default and it's three button presses to disable it temporarily (comes back on when you stop/start car next time).

In the rural part of SW Scotland I live, there are countless pot holes that you need to swerve round at times with little warning. Plus a fair few roads round here are pretty narrow, with the inside edge broken up badly, so you need to drive pretty close to the white line up the centre of the road.

In my opinion... if you can't drive on the correct side of the road, you maybe should not be driving at all.

snowdog · 1 Jan 2023 at 17:46

The driving aids contribute to the lack of attention, I also dislike mine, lane assist is more annoying than it fixes problems, for example in the most left lane I don't want to be in the middle but actually want to touch the edge to generally keep a bigger distance to the other car. Unfortunately you can't turn if off permanently, every drive it's turned back on

. But it'll pull towards the other car and beep beep beep to drive in the middle of my lane

.

I also don't like adaptive cruise control, it keeps a very long distance (much bigger than the average gap in busy hours, so you get a car constantly in front that causes you car to brake again) and often brakes unsmoothly. Also sometimes pannics with lane changes. Would prefer classic cruise control back.

As for the Tyre, if it's only superficial and the carcass is not exposed it's still a legal road tyre and afaik the structural integrity shouldn't be compromised, do as you deem safe though, I would only replace that tyre if it was also quite worn (provided it's not a deep cut)...

danlightbulb · 1 Jan 2023 at 19:49

mikeo said:
Totally agree with this comment.

Even "lane assist" drives me mad. Previous cars, I've had to switch it on manually should I wish (which I never did). Current car has it on by default and it's three button presses to disable it temporarily (comes back on when you stop/start car next time).

In the rural part of SW Scotland I live, there are countless pot holes that you need to swerve round at times with little warning. Plus a fair few roads round here are pretty narrow, with the inside edge broken up badly, so you need to drive pretty close to the white line up the centre of the road.

In my opinion... if you can't drive on the correct side of the road, you maybe should not be driving at all.

Yes I had a hire car a month back which had it and I didn't know and hadn't experienced it before. Tried to change lanes on the motorway and the car steering was actually fighting back against my movement (a bit like the feeling from a force feedback computer game wheel). The first time I just didn't know what was happening, it was a wierd sensation.

mikeo · 1 Jan 2023 at 20:51

danlightbulb said:
Yes I had a hire car a month back which had it and I didn't know and hadn't experienced it before. Tried to change lanes on the motorway and the car steering was actually fighting back against my movement (a bit like the feeling from a force feedback computer game wheel). The first time I just didn't know what was happening, it was a wierd sensation.

As you say, if you've not experienced it before, it can be a bit weird. Though it should cancel if you indicate to change lane or to pass another car.

Not like I use cruise control much, as there's not many dual carriageways etc. round here, mainly small A and B roads.. But the couple of times that I've tried the adaptive cruise control on my new Polo GTI, I've found it works pretty well. Brakes smoothly and it even lets you choose how far behind the car in front you are before it starts breaking. It will even brake to a standstill at roundabouts and then move off. Though I consider even this a bit of a gimmick and would rather be in full control at all times.

danlightbulb · 1 Jan 2023 at 20:57

Yeah I did find out within a few miles that it didn't do it if I indicated. But still, wondered what was going on at first when you try and change lanes and the car doesn't want you to.

TOW · 1 Jan 2023 at 21:29

norm said:
It would make for an interesting insurance claim though, if something on a much bigger scale happened and the AI controlling the car was found to be at fault and not the driver, does that make Tesla liable instead.

If it took over quickly and powerfully for the driver to reasonably react and maintain control - I'd assume so.

For the normal self-driving pieces, they have T&Cs that say it's only an assistant and the driver must stay alert and in control, with hand on steering wheel etc.

But if the thing reacts/darts too quickly and rips the wheel out of the driver's hand(s) ultimately causing an impact/incident that would not have otherwise happened - that should be a strong case for Tesla being liable, I'd imagine.

I guess the legal definitions covering something like this still haven't been updated in detail to make such things clear, although I haven't researched it in a while.

theone8181 · 1 Jan 2023 at 22:02

danlightbulb said:
Yeah I did find out within a few miles that it didn't do it if I indicated. But still, wondered what was going on at first when you try and change lanes and the car doesn't want you to.

Tbh that's on you for not indicating when changing lanes. That's doing axactly what it's supposed too :cry:

. I've tried turning off all this stuff too, I've got the assisted breaking set to late as otherwise it doesn't always register cars moving slowly and has slammed the brakes on before.

HangTime · 1 Jan 2023 at 22:35

danlightbulb said:
Outright dangerous to have cars making those sorts of decisions, I think automated driving will be fraught with these if it ever takes off.

It will, but manual driving is extremely dangerous also, I mean even before the rise of Tesla et all there were over a million people being killed every year in road accidents worldwide.

It's kind of crazy really to think nobody bats an eyelid at technology (human controlled automobiles) that is involved in over 1500 deaths every year in the UK alone. Proportionally as autonomous driving takes off it will be interesting to see how it compares i.e. if that hits 1% of vehicles are they killing 15+ people every year or not.

My feeling is AI will have a big issue with edge cases whereby information is misinterpreted and accidents result, leading to a lot of legal debate and suchlike, just generally slowing down progress and making insurers wary of what cover they offer. That said, because human drivers are so bad and insurance is all about risk, it could be that insurers would still prefer to cover autonomous driving despite there being these occasional freak occurences where AI makes errors a human probably wouldn't, simply because they are better drivers than the average human in the majority of situations.

Good start to 2023…

Sgarrista