80-year-old cyclist killed in prang with Tesla Model S An 80-year-old man has died in County Durham, England, after being struck by a Tesla Model S. He was cycling along the A177 near High Shincliffe, when the car collided with him. After being struck by the Tesla at around 9.20am on November 10, the unnamed man was taken to James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough where he …
According to this report he was cycling on the southbound side, presumably in a southerly direction. Also keep in mind that while Mr. Heppell may have been in good health he was 80 years old and even a very low speed collision could be serious enough to cause death to anyone especially if suffering a head injury. Also consider unintentional falls are the leading cause of injury death for people over 65 in the U.S. with over three times the number two cause, motor vehicle deaths.
That said, accidents do happen and some are even unavoidable with no real blame attributable and until more is known there is little point in speculating.
The investigation into the Florida fatality provided some detail. Like Tesla's reluctant to provide details. It does have cameras, but think they're primarily for it's rear-end detection system rather than storing images.
So the Police may request the evidence, and Tesla may say 'Nope'. There's probably fun with jurisdictions and liability. Or they could print the data logged, one hex char per page. But as more autonomous vehicles hit the other road users.. I mean roads, these issues need to be addressed.
AFAIK in a fatality, the Police seize the vehicle and examine it. So they could have the data, ie the 'black box', but no means to decode or interpret it. So it would probably be a good thing to have some system similar to aircraft investigations where TPTB can access car data. The Florida crash showed a CDIT (Controlled Drive Into Truck) with neither the driver nor the vehicle making any attempt to avoid it. Data from this fatility may show if the driver was in control, and if collision detection activated. But the Florida crash also showed several blind spots.
It's not a problem unique to Tesla, but I think there should be a way for investigators to access vehicle data, quickly and conveniently, especially in fatalities.
'I think it has front facing cameras and if the Police demand the evidence required to investigate a road death, I'm sure Tesla will be forced, if necessary, to hand it over."
The question is whether those cameras are recording video or just using the feed in real time for navigation. There might not be anything to hand over.
Quote:
The telemetry won't lie.
Which is why both my motorbikes are fitted with cameras (called rather morbidly "My last five seconds" )
Their job is to record what I run into and what it and I were doing before hand (in case I get splattered by events and cant say anything)
Far as I'm concerned every motor vehicle on the road should be fitted with one (and a black box recording things like throttle/brakes/steering and gear), and you might see some better driving out there
As for the tesla.... a tesla car hit a cyclist, cyclist died.. thats all we know.
If so I would say they are doing pretty well so far.
If the news reported every incident with, say a BMW, we would have several hundred a week.
I am inclined to think though that Autopilot is too much of a compromise between driverless and driver assisted that is likely to result in the meatbag manual pilot being rather too slow to intervene in the event of something unexpected, particularly if that unexpected thing is related to another meatbag.
Most drivers will know, that at speed, regardless of your input to steering and brakes there is an area in front of your car that you will be unable to avoid. If animal, bird, cyclist, car, or pedestrian puts itself in that area and cannot get out fast enough there is nothing at all that you can do and it will get hit.
Neither, humans or autopilots will make the car or others invulnerable unless they creep about at walking pace with a man waving a red flag walking in front of the car.
> I am inclined to think though that Autopilot is too much of a compromise between driverless and driver assisted that is likely to result in the meatbag manual pilot being rather too slow to intervene in the event of something unexpected, particularly if that unexpected thing is related to another meatbag.
Not with the current level of autopilot. On a non-motorway when you engage it you definitely keep your hand(s) on the wheel since the car will react like a learner driver and, for example, over-steer or slam the brakes on thinking that a car in opposite lane is about to do something. By having your hand on the wheel as the car attempts to do something that you weren't expecting then it'll turn itself off automatically.
It's still a much better experience than driving without, but once you've spent more than 10 minutes you quickly learn the limitations and how to correctly handle it. On the motorway it's fantastic, similarly on large A-roads it's amazing, but on smaller A roads, or normal side streets, autopilot isn't perfect. Nor is it sold as such.
What's the story here? You state that its not known if AP was in use, so it's 'car hits cyclist'. Good grief. Why not publish a story that says 'Mercedes on cruise control hits cyclist' when it unfortunately happens? At least wait until there are known facts to make a story.
The story is that a large chunk of metal on 4 wheels, probably moving very fast, and quite possibly under the active control of an AI system (the other big selling point of this car aside from being electric powered), has killed a road user. Non-AI cars killing people is not big news as this is sadly common.
The growth in the number of AI controlled cars is a big deal for all sorts of reasons.
Most people in charge of cars and bikes are on occasion incredibly careless and slipshod in the way they control their vehicle of choice - this is why lots die and are mutilated every year on the roads. AI may be a way of reducing the carnage (pardon the pun).
There are well understood and established laws and principles which determine how the people involved in vehicle related incidents are treated by the legal systems.
It's still early days for how AI systems will in practice affect this whole area of the law.
Every day, large numbers of people get away with their random stupid driving or cycling choices, but when something bad happens as a result and someone is hurt, the legal system will often examine the what the people involved were doing and their reasons for acting as they did.
AI control adds a whole new level of complexity to this exercise, such what was the AI doing, how was it designed to manage the situation it encountered, what AI settings/options did the "driver" select, did the AI actually do what it "should" have done, etc. etc.
First up - condolences to the bereaved family...
This case interests me greatly.
An 80 year old cyclist is particularly vulnerable - both from not carting around a tonne and a half or armour, and from the 80 years they have spent on the earth.
An 80 year old cyclist is also unlikely to have been a novice - most of the octogenerian cyclists I am aware of are life long cyclists continuing to do what they enjoy.
There is a pretty good chance that at least the authorities will get excellent data on the incident.
Assuming the normal case of motorist at fault (75% according to the police) then if any of the 'auto braking' systems have been actively disabled then I can't think that anything less than a manslaughter charge is appropriate.
If the cyclist has had to take evasive action for a road defect then I would hope that the courts would view that as a normal course to take.
It is also possible that the cyclist had a heart attack in the couple of seconds preceding the incident...
We just don't know - but I am interested in the investigation.
Wow, such hatred for the Tesla and its driver based on nil evidence in print.
Time to balance the scales:
This old octogenarian crinkly probably forgot where he was and what he was doing or wobbled all over the road while he tried to get his pills out of his pocket or suffered a heart attack and fell in front of the Telsa.
There we go. All nice and even now.
All based on the same reported facts in evidence per the article.
This just in! Honda runs down a cyclist... oh wait, that one didn't make the news? Oh oh, I don't... "Random Toyota crashes and kills a marmot". No?
Why is it at ALL a salient fact that the car that hit this unfortunate man was a Tesla? How is that relevant in the slightest? If it is news that this poor man died, then it should have been news regardless of the car's make... but that isn't the case. We're only here because it was a Tesla.
If the story had been
"80-year-old cyclist killed in prang with Lamborghini Huracán"
would anyone care?
Any car, with auto-pilot or not, can hit and kill someone if the driver isn't paying attention. Even if the Tesla's autopilot was engaged and working perfectly the driver was not paying attention to the road and thus is to blame, not the car. I believe Tesla makes it quite clear that the driver should not take their attention off the road even with the AP engaged.
As a driving instructor once said "There are no 'accidents', its always because someone wasn't paying attention"
Unbelievable that lot of people are slating Tigra 07for making assumptions while making assumptions themselves. How does that make you people any better? "I betcha" doesn't actually mean that he was apportioning blame to anybody incidentally. You can bet on anything, it doesn't mean that bet will come in.
I'm not a particular Tesla fan, but if this accident had involved literally any other make of car on this planet, would this article, and these comments, even exist? Even the header says “Not known if electric car's autopilot was in use “ so why is the fact it’s a Tesla even relevant? This is just sensationalist journalism, or as one commenter put it, CLICKBAIT, and el Reg should question why they even printed this article. Slow news day? Click count getting low?
There's a lot of know nothings on this thread. I am local (I work in durham and cycle commute 16 miles daily). that road is a 40 limit, but has islands, traffic lights as well as junctions. There is a very poor footpath which for some of it has been "converted" to make it legal for cyclists to use although in reality not fit for purpose
It was reported yesterday that the poor guy killed although 80, was an experienced long distance cyclist who still did 3 or 4 60ml+ rides a week, so probably a damn sight fitter and more alert than most people on this site. It would have been appropriate for him to be on the road and not on the poor path, so LA must carry some responsibility for lack of suitable infrastructure.
Bear in mind that a husband, father and grandfather died, some of the comments have been in decidedly bad taste and some verging on the offensive
there's been no reports about the mode the car was in, or any other circumstances surrounding the collision. However, last friday it was very sunny here, and at the time of the collision both parties would have been cycling into bright low sun, and my guess is that the driver was struggling to see, and obviously didn't slow so he could stop in that distance
Surprisingly, there has been almost no discussion òf a technical nature thus far.
I would be interested to know how visible a narrow cyclist would be to the AI systems in general and, as gaz7 noted the low sun may have contributed to a less than optimum detection of the bike/rider either by driver or AI.
Having to have some black boxery in every auto-possible AI vehicle would surely inform manufacturers of many more real world situations and in a shorter time.
It is known that Tesla's, ehem "AutoPilot" has problem correctly identifying bicycles and allowing for them. Another big problem is that the AutoPilot wants to exit the motorway all of the time even when the route continues on. If you really want something self-driving, take the train.
Autonomous cars either need to be perfect (well, 7 or 8 9's to the right of the decimal) or not used at all. The greatest danger is a self-driving system that works in most situations. People will be apprehensive and constantly vigilant for a little while when they first start using it and then become less attentive until they are watching a movie, reading or applying makeup more of the time right up to the point where they smash into something. The constant refrain is that computers are so much better at driving than humans, but that hypothesis doesn't have very many data points yet. You could be fine on the motorway that has fresh lane markings and bouncing between hedge rows on a country lane.
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