Man Dies After Being Mowed Down by Self-Driving Tesla, Police Say
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View original on lemmy.cahttps://futurism.com/advanced-transport/man-dies-tesla-self-drivingOpen linkView original on lemmy.ca
33 replies
I won't even use cruise control. I can't imagine giving this kind of control to an ai.
The sad irony with the human specie is how we collectively believe and engage in systems that get proven times and again that never work the way they are advertised for. but we still believe in the fairness of the justice system and the illusions of the power in the hands of the people in representative democracies.
If anyone of us has made their own self-driving system. embedded it in our cars and run someone over. we sure would be spending the rest of our lives in jail. But if a multi billionaire gets a license from bureaucrats, they car sell their cars and run over many people without anyone spending one night in jail. Rich people are always exempt from punishment.
“And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions.”
and more to the point...
"Indeed, if a poor man will spend a year in prison for stealing out of hunger, how high would the gallows need to be to hang the rich man who breaks the law out of greed?"
~Discworld novels
Hell, if you are starving to death and you rob a gas station just so you can literally eat and survive to the next day you will be punished more severely. We live in the theater of the absurd.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
I've got no love for Tesla and even less for FSD. But a pedestrian crossing one of the widest spots on one of the largest freeway in the nation in the middle of the night…
Agree with you. I don't care how good a person's reflexes are. If your car is traveling at 70 mph, you are not going to be able to avoid hitting someone who chooses to cross an interstate highway in the dead of night. A human driver would have hit the person too. This is just bad journalism with a sensationalized headline.
We have to both acknowledge that this isn’t the smoking gun against FSD, but that FSD could (and does) lead to inattention and that could’ve played a part.
...was not the person responsible for operating an immense metal box capable of killing with ease in a safe manner.
Could have been a deer and a very a similar situation, it is still on the driver even if you can also argue it is on the person the driver hits. The pedestrian didn't introduce a weapon threatening to go out of control, the driver did.
You’re absolutely right, it’s still 100% the responsibility of the driver, FSD or not. I’m no fan of FSD, in part because of situations like this.
But your hatred of cars is clouding your judgment here. Calling all cars “weapons” has some merit where cars and pedestrians/cyclists have to co-exist, but on freeways such as this where pedestrians are legally prohibited it falls a little hollow. That someone was crossing 12+ lanes of protected freeway (meaning is separated by fences or walls) at 2:35am is very very unexpected, making it more of an outlier than indicative of anything. It also points to mental health or some other impairment of this 71 year old person, which like you said could’ve been a deer or something.
Like it or not (I’m guessing you do not, and I don’t blame you) this happened in a car-centric area; I only bring that up because I think it’s reasonable to not expect pedestrians where they are legally prohibited. Of course, that does NOT resolve the driver of any responsibly, but it does explain it a bit.
Calling all cars “weapons” has some merit *anywhere they are moving fast enough to hurt and kill.
I see that you cannot accept nuance.
71 year old crossing I-80 at 2am sounds like a potential dementia case, sadly. Also still the driver’s responsibility, 100% skill issue
No question.
I’m just saying there’s a lot of reasons to hate Musk/Tesla/FSD (and I do), but this particular incident isn’t at the top of my list.
Tesla has the highest crash rate of any brand, 2023-2026.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebanker/2025/02/11/tesla-again-has-the-highest-accident-rate-of-any-auto-brand/
17 NTHSA investigations went poof under DOGE.
Which is crazy that they beat out the Dodge Ram, the previous contender
That's the DUI truck of choice! Takes work to outcrash that demographic.
https://www.lendingtree.com/insurance/brand-incidents-study/
Ultimately from the same source, but more up to date. It also has Tesla third in incident rates, behind BMW and Ram.
Well, I mean, maybe their DUI crash rates would be lower if BMWs came with turn signals installed. /s
I know a guy who puts on sunglasses and sleeps while his cybertruck is in self driving mode on the highway. I assume all Teslas are death machines and avoid them as much as possible.
I'm so jaded by the blinding headlights that I'll now go out of my way to fuck with them when they come up on my ass and follow too closely while refusing to pass. like get your fucking floodlights out of my cabin mf, or at least back off a second or two if you're just gonna follow me, being this close accomplishes nothing but stokes the fire of road rage
keeps me entertained and engaged on long drives, rather than zoning out.
Holy fucking shit that is terrifying report that guy to the police he is going to get people killed.
He drives a cybertruck in Texas, no one will do shit to him.
Texas is a deathcult desperately trying to convince everyone it is just another shithole.
I fucking book it if I see one. Death knives on wheels.
"Police say the vehicle was being driven when a pedestrian tried to cross a highway at night and struck him." But that wouldn't be a story, would it?
I'm anything but a Tesla cheerleader, but this story is a picture perfect example of how the internet has ruined our ability to calculate risk and fucked our risk tolerance. "Man who was cold-stone sober ran over a pedestrian with a Kia in broad daylight.", would be a blurb on your local news station, if it was reported at all.
And yet… Hitting people with cars doesn’t become OK in certain times/places.
No, it doesn't become okay, but the situation is quite different depending on the context surrounding the hit.
A pedestrian crossing a dark highway at night, is a completely different situation than someone being hit in a well lit downtown area or even a neighborhood.
Context does matter, even if it doesn't make a difference for the outcome.
Whether hitting people with cars is a news story or not is the whole point. The point you skipped right over.
Tesla heavily leans into the idea that it is selling self driving cars, both parties are culpable.
Point being, my car is driven by me. If I kill someone it wouldn't make news. Because a self-driving Tesla did it, AH! So which is truly more dangerous? I suspect there's not enough data yet to day, and I'll be fucked if I trust Tesla's self reporting.
"The Tesla's facial scanner determined the victim was a registered Democrat."
Maximum overdrive ass headline