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"FSD Beta Attempts to Kill Me," and That's Not Even the Worst Part

Over-generalization is never a good thing and can easily lead to (and actually has on numerous occasions) a certain group of people indiscriminately hating other people simply for being part of a certain group.
Still from Tesla's "Paint It Black" video showcasing autonomous driving back in 2016 14 photos
Photo: Tesla
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It's a very delicate subject, so offering any actual examples can be tricky. Alright, we'll go with something that doesn't have anything to do with nationality, religion, or the color of one's skin: veganism. A lot of people tend to become aggressive toward someone when they hear they are vegan just because they think that person will try to preach this lifestyle and never stop rambling about it. However, just because some do indeed do that, it doesn't mean you shouldn't give the benefit of the doubt first and see where it goes from there.

It's the same with Tesla owners and particularly FSD Beta users. Most outsiders regard them as these brain-washed drones who have no problem endangering everyone on the road for the sake of helping push the self-driving technology forward (and TSLA stock along the way). Needless to say, not every Tesla owner is as blind to the dangers the FSD Beta poses right now and it looks like more and more of them are starting to realize (or at least speak up about it).

Sadly, though, in some cases, the countless videos on the Internet showing the advanced driver assistance system's (ADAS) repeated fails aren't enough to paint a more realistic image of what it can and can't do, so it takes a similar personal experience for the coin to finally drop.

One such example comes from a Tesla Motors Club (TMC) forum user called "tr6990," based in Missouri, who posted their recent experience with the system under the admittedly exaggerated (though not entirely incorrect) title: "FSD Beta Attempts to Kill Me; Causes Accident." So, what actually happened?

According to the user's recounting of the incident, the system was engaged while the Model Y was traveling on a "two-lane rural road." It was dark (right after sunset), but the conditions were clear and it was a section of the road the FSD Beta was no stranger to.

The hairy part began during a right-hand curve with another car approaching from the other side. About mid-way through the bend, for no apparent reason, the system decides it's time to go straight, putting the Model Y into the path of the oncoming vehicle.

The driver says they had their hands on the wheel so they could react immediately (about 0.3 of a second, according to their version of the story) by veering to the right and back into the correct lane. However, the correction applied was too severe and they lost control of the EV. The Model Y went through the ditch on the side of the road and into the woods. Luckily, they didn't hit any trees but the damage to the vehicle was still severe.

With the video accompanying the post is now removed, we have no way to gauge what happened ourselves and trust what the forum member wrote in their post. However, there is one thing about this story - and others like it - that raises the hairs on my back: the potential fate of the people driving in the other car.

For years - over a century now - we've been conditioned to accept that people tend to value their lives enough to stay in their lane and not come straight at us as soon as there is a bend in the road. It hasn't been a completely smooth ride (some people lose control of their vehicles when turning and others think it's a good idea to use a head-on crash as a method of committing suicide) but we'd argue the system worked reasonably well thus far.

Now, Tesla is basically asking us to trust a computer to do the same, even though the situation has two major holdbacks: one, as Tesla themselves put it, the system is still in its beta form, and therefore not ready for widespread public use, and two, as far as we know, computers aren't yet self-aware so they couldn't care less about crashing.

The author of the post is now looking to take legal action against Tesla but, as everyone else on the forum told him, I too don't see how he could have a case. Tesla makes it pretty clear it washes its hands completely of anything that happens during FSD Beta use with all the responsibility falling on the driver.

The sad thing is, though, that while FSD Beta users can opt-out, we can't. Nobody is asking us if we're OK with sharing the roads with an ADAS that's been proven to be faulty and the only safeguard being a driver whose attentiveness, skill, and reaction times we know nothing about. You can argue the latter part has been the same since forever, but at least this far, they've only had to manage their own mistakes, not those of an AI driver as well.

At the end of the day, there are three parties at fault here: Tesla, for releasing a potentially dangerous system to the public and marketing it aggressively as being more capable than it actually is; some of the drivers for over-relying on FSD despite the warnings; finally, the authorities for taking their sweet time with coming up with a set of regulations that would make it very clear what can and can't be done on public roads.

I don't know about you, but if I were to choose which of three to trust will address the situation somehow first, it would be the one in the middle. And it's posts like the one referenced earlier that give me hope. I just wish more people would do it before going through a situation where they could have potentially injured others as well.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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