this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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TL;DR: Self-Driving Teslas Rear-End Motorcyclists, Killing at Least 5

Brevity is the spirit of wit, and I am just not that witty. This is a long article, here is the gist of it:

  • The NHTSA’s self-driving crash data reveals that Tesla’s self-driving technology is, by far, the most dangerous for motorcyclists, with five fatal crashes that we know of.
  • This issue is unique to Tesla. Other self-driving manufacturers have logged zero motorcycle fatalities with the NHTSA in the same time frame.
  • The crashes are overwhelmingly Teslas rear-ending motorcyclists.

Read our full analysis as we go case-by-case and connect the heavily redacted government data to news reports and police documents.

Oh, and read our thoughts about what this means for the robotaxi launch that is slated for Austin in less than 60 days.

(page 3) 50 comments
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 children)

I imagine bicyclists must be æffected as well if they're on the road (as we should be, technically). As somebody who has already been literally inches away from being rear-ended, this makes me never want to bike in the US again.

Time to go to Netherlands.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Affectively, does it realy mater if someone has slite misstakes in there righting?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

Thank you for your service.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Self driving vehicles should be against the law.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago

Why? Crash rates for Self-Driving Cars (when adjusted for crash severity) are lower.

Removing sensors to save costs on self driving vehicles should be illegal

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago

WHY CAN'T WE JUST HAVE PUBLIC TRANSIT, FUCK! TRAINS EXIST!

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Good to know, I'll stay away from those damn things when I ride.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago

Commuting in CA feels like I’m navigating a minefield 🤡

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 days ago

Trucks in general have gotten so big they are pedestrian deathtraps

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Let's get this out of the way: Felon Musk is a nazi asshole.

Anyway, It should be criminal to do these comparisons without showing human drivers statistics for reference. I'm so sick of articles that leave out hard data. Show me deaths per billion miles driven for tesla, competitors, and humans.

Then there's shit like the boca raton crash, where they mention the car going 100 in a 45 and killing a motorcyclist, and then go on to say the only way to do that is to physically use the gas pedal and that it disables emergency breaking. Is it really a self driving car at that point when a user must actively engage to disable portions of the automation? If you take an action to override stopping, it's not self driving. Stopping is a key function of how self driving tech self drives. It's not like the car swerved to another lane and nailed someone, the driver literally did this.

Bottom line I look at the media around self driving tech as sensationalist. Danger drives clicks. Felon Musk is a nazi asshole, but self driving tech isn't made by the guy. it's made by engineers. I wouldn't buy a tesla unless he has no stake in the business, but I do believe people are far more dangerous behind the wheel in basically all typical driving scenarios.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

In Boca Raton, I've seen no evidence that the self-driving tech was inactive. According to the government, it is reported as a self-driving accident, and according to the driver in his court filings, it was active.

Insanely, you can slam on the gas in Tesla's self-driving mode, accelerate to 100MPH in a 45MPH zone, and strike another vehicle, all without the vehicle's "traffic aware" automation effectively applying a brake.

That's not sensationalist. That really is just insanely designed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (3 children)

FTFA:

Certain Tesla self-driving technologies are speed capped, but others are not. Simply pressing the accelerator will raise your speed in certain modes, and as we saw in the police filings from the Washington State case, pressing the accelerator also cancels emergency braking.

That’s how you would strike a motorcyclist at such extreme speed, simply press the accelerator and all other inputs are apparently overridden.

If the guy smashes the gas, just like in cruise control I would not expect the vehicle to stop itself.

The guy admitted to being intoxicted and held the gas down... what's the self driving contribution to that?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

He may not be an engineer, but he's the one who made the decision to use strictly cameras rather than lidar, so yes, he's responsible for these fatalities that other companies don't have. You may not be a fan of Musk, but it sounds like you're a fan of Tesla

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

"Critical Thinker" Yikes. Somehow the right made that a forbidden word in my mind because they hide behind that as an excuse for asking terrible questions etc.

Anyway. Allegedly the statistics are rather mediocre for self driving cars. But sadly I haven't seen a good statistic about that, either. The issue here is that automatable tasks are lower risk driving situations so having a good statistic is near impossible. E.g. miles driven are heavily skewed when you are only used on highways as a driver. There are no simple numbers that will tell you anything of worth.

That being said the title should be about the mistake that happened without fundamental statements (i.e. self driving is bad because motorcyclists die).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Did I ask a terrible question, or do you just not like anything being objective about the issue? I'm so far over on the left side ideologically that you'd be hard pressed finding an issue that i'm conservative on. I don't fit the dem mold though, i'm more of a bernie.... though I am very critical in general. I don't just take things at face value. Anywho...

Saying that the statistics aren't great just lends credence to the fact that we can't objectively determine how safe or unsafe anything is without good data.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Elon needs to take responsibility for their death.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

That's why Tesla's full self driving is officially still a level 2 cruise control. But of course they promise to jump directly to level 4 soon™.

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