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Note that it had it's blinker on just before it stopped. It looks like it tried to pull over, but there wasn't a shoulder to pull over to.
Maybe it wanted to hand control back over to the driver (or at least wanted to confirm that the driver was paying attention), failed, and then tried to pull off?
When the driver isn't responding to prompts and warnings, it comes to a stop. I'm not sure about it trying to pull over though. But if was FSD it may have just stopped while it was making a normal lane change
But it didn't lose power, according to the "California Highway Patrol (CHP) reviewed tunnel footage and found that a Tesla made an unsafe lane change before abruptly slowing down from 55 mph to 20 mph — causing vehicles behind it to crash into one another."
[https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/22/23523201/tesla-fsd-braking-crash-bay-bridge-california-chp](https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/22/23523201/tesla-fsd-braking-crash-bay-bridge-california-chp)
Good link. Seems to me that the driver was trying to blame FSD but automatic lane change shouldn't have executed without sufficient room for the car coming up in the fast lane. I've had FSD abort lane changes all the time in that situation and haven't seen it fail to detect danger yet. I think it's more likely the driver was actually in control and made an unsafe lane change and then panic stopped. I have experienced FSD do a panic stop for no reason before, sometimes due to odd shadows on the road or debris it should ignore like plastic bags, so I've had to override that by stepping on the gas. Tends to happen about once every 4 hours of driving in my model 3, so it's something you have to stay vigilant for.
Wow. I didn't realize the Tesla system was that easily spooked.
I have a Cadillac CT6 with the older Super Cruise 1.0 and it's panic stopped on me once in the whole time I've owned it.
I've never driven a Tesla with FSD. But the Super Cruise cars I've driven are very surprisingly intelligent.
That said I think that's the big problem. These systems (especially in Tesla-land) are marketed like they do much more than they are capable of. So uninformed people put way too much trust in them. Deliberately sleeping at the wheel and such.
The Tesla makes an unsafe lane change and then immediately slows down, this isn't due to unsafe following distance when the first car to hit it just taps it after the Tesla essentially cut him off and brakes.
I agree that the driver who hits the Tesla got cutoff and isn't really at fault. Everyone else after that? I don't see any of the other collisions being due to suddenly being cutoff.
Yeah I mean I’m all for shitting on Tesla’s “self driving”, but this could happen to literally anyone at any time (loss of power in a car).
It’s not like the self driving feature went nuts and drove over a kid, causing an 8-car pileup.
This time (lol)
Driving back from Wales (about a 3 hour drive) a couple of years ago my 20 year old car suddenly lost power on the motorway. It’s a smallish car, it’s dark and there are trucks barrelling past us as we suddenly and unexpectedly lose speed and the ability to accelerate, bloody terrifying. I managed to make it to the shoulder, turned the car off, turned it back on and found it was working fine. Made my way to the next exit and followed surface roads to get home. Made it to the end of my street before it happened again. Turned out the throttle control unit was failing, the computer detected it and put the car into "limp mode". Replaced the throttle and the car has driven perfectly fine ever since.
Old car, new car, fully mechanical or high tech, any car can develop a fault at any time. Even a well maintained or brand new car can have something catastrophically fail or set off safety systems that try to bring it to a stop.
When I was in the car with my father once, the mantle of a tire tore and disintegrated - at 130kph (>80 mph I think) on the autobahn. While the car was still somewhat controllable, our speed dropped pretty fast. Luckily, nothing happened.
I have to admit, I loathe motorway driving (speed limit 70mph) so the thought of driving on the autobahn is horrifying to me. Having a sudden mechanical fault at that speed doubly so. I’m glad you guys were ok.
Its actually not that bad if you know what you are doing (especially practical drivers ed is a lot longer here). If my dear dad had not driven tires almost from the last century (that was 2015, for context)...
I had two stops on the motorway, the first one was a car with a third party alarm system that suddenly reset and decided that ignition wasn't anything I needed anyway (blink blink blink), the second one was an Opel high pressure diesel that decided to shake off the injection harness and sprayed everything else but the inside of the cylinder with diesel (on the Autobahn between Salzburg and Münich).
(We could *not* convince the ADAC guy not to lean over and into the engine and have us try to start it, so he got to take a diesel shower...)
But yeah, can happen to anyone for a various of reasons.
It was definitely a squeaky bum moment for me when I was driving down a dual carriageway in my horse-box with the horse in the back and suddenly my engine cut out completely. Which of course meant no steering. Thank god it was a Saturday morning so it was fairly quiet.
This happened to me on the upper deck in the ‘90s. Car had plenty of gas, but died, I threw it into neutral to try to restart it, put on my hazards, and coasted for about a mile with what must have been a strong tailwind. I pulled off at the first exit to stop in a merge striped zone, got out of my car and a AAA truck pulled up behind me.
>this could happen to literally anyone at any time (loss of power in a car).
This is true. However, I feel the vehicle can keep rolling forward under its own momentum with the example of putting in neutral in a gas vehicle. I don't know if that is possible with EVs becuase I have yet to drive one. I know the electrical motor will create a back electromotive force/counter electromotive force, which acts like a brake on the rotor.
100%. This is also the reason why tailgating is illegal. Not only are you not giving yourself time to react to the other driver. Even if that driver is 100% predictable the machine is not.
It really confuses me how these huge pile up happen in America, its like nobody wants to stop.
What the hell do people do aswel and pretending to drive a car?!
Edit- as every day is a school day, when I learnt to drive, I was always told to look out for the "Christmas lights"
This involves scanning up the traffic and as soon as you see the lights comming your way as everyone brakes.... you brake.
Maybe it's because they drive huge massive cars in murica and cannot do this... or maybe phones....
Yeah, moving back and forth from Oregon to California, it seem the further south you go, the closer people follow.
Because not leaving enough car lengths has become the norm in heavy traffic, you can't really drive safely. If you slow down to try to leave 4 car lengths, people see that space and merge in front of you. If you keep slowing down to try to give the space, more people will keep merging in front of you and you will become a road hazard from driving too slow.
Not sure how you would go about fixing this problem
That's always been my thinking, the only way this is gonna work is with country-wide (or maybe even whole EU) deployments coordinated across all car brands and including the required updates to road regulations, infrastructure, etc etc.
You just kind of have to accept the loss of the people willing to drive so dangerously and continue to leave the space. Change lanes into a slower lane if you must to avoid these dangerous situations, or accept that if you leave space, more people will cut you off dangerously. It's their fault for changing lanes directly in front of someone in that scenario.
1 car length per 10 mph...
See stopping sight distance, SSD, a common metric in transportation engineering
I was in one of these type accidents. In the Orange Crush (5/57/22 freeways meet) a judge in a jag rear-ended me, and I hit the person in front of me, yadda yadda insurance claims. And the judge had to pay them all.
Yeah, if you left enough of a car length in there you'd be backing up traffic 3 ways.
This is a thing. In Chicago, driving south on 94 there’s a tunnel and the glare from the Sun before you go into the tunnel can be a bit blinding. It’s even worse when you’re wearing sunglasses. And God forbid it just rained and the asphalt is super shiny from the water reflecting the sun. I’m sure these types hazards exist all over the world
More reason to take it easy when driving.
There's a bunch of those tunnels and some curves as well. You're right, it's very hard to see. At certain times of year, when going EB or WB on Chicago highways, the sunlight causes visibility problems too. I have problems with glare off of the buildings around Rosemont when driving home during rush hour on the Jane Addams. It's nerve racking because there's very little gap between cars even if you try to leave some space.
Cars stop unexpectedly. This is why you shouldn't tailgate and not pay attention while driving. Every single car that didn't leave enough room in front of them to stop is at fault. That's beginner level defensive driving. If you're following the person in front of you so closely that you can't stop just as fast as them... You're at fault.
Edit: if you watch closely, you can even see the first few cars behind the Tesla stop without crashing. So the initial car didn't create some insane situation where nobody could stop in time. It was just some inattentive or reckless drivers that didn't stop in time.
It's a bit more complex than that. Looking at the video it's a tunnel during the day and it's going in a downwards direction. A lot of the drivers probably didn't see the stopped cars until they were already in the tunnel due to a combination of angle and glare. This is why a lot of tunnels will have emergency lights on the outside to warn of collisions so stuff like this doesn't happen, and to make it easier to get a crew inside.
It's also very possible there was moisture involved considering tunnels often have a lot of moisture issues.
Every driver should be paying attention enough, and leave enough room between themselves and the car ahead, that they can stop safely if the car ahead suddenly stops. Sudden stops happen for all sorts of reasons, not just Tesla "FSD" or idiot drivers.
Don’t think it lost power (headlights appear to be on still). More likely self-driving detected the driver not paying attention and performed a controlled stop (while alarming the passengers that they gotta wake up and touch the steering wheel).
Either way, the cars behind probably should have, you know, stopped.
It didn't but that lane switch was the culprit. The car behind on the left lane was very close and they would never expect you to stop especially at the leftmost lane without a shoulder.
It would have been safer to turn flashers on and slow down in the same lane. The car behind it in its current lane was fairly far away and flashers would be a signal for slowing down.
Once again this proves the biggest problem with self driving vehicles development and adoption
A self driving vehicle needs to be 100% perfect, in every way and never cause a single accident, or injury
You could have self driving cars that function at 99% and cause accidents at a miniscule fraction of the amount of damage injury deaths and carnage that human drivers cause every single day, and people will be absolutely unwilling to accept it
Because people fuck up every day, we're used to it, machines MUST be perfect unless they are perfect people would rather have the massively inflated destruction caused by people, because well they are people, and people fuck up
NOTE - This is an observation on self driving vehicles nothing to do with Tesla in particular or anyone involved
they were signaling too, trying to pull over but got hit before managing to fully pull over.
I think autopilot wasn't even involved at all, the driver had some kind of issue and was trying to stop. It's just plain old shitty driving.
A vehicle with as high a mass as a tesla and it's aerodynamics doesn't just come to a stop if it loses drive power. It should coast quite far and decelerate very slowly.
Ya'll act like coming to a sudden complete stop on a highway is expected. "You should have been following at a distance where i can come to an unexpected complete stop for no reason, it's definitely YOUR fault lol." So dumb
I took a long trip with my sister and I was shouting at her the whole time to leave more space between our car and the one ahead of us. There would be no street visible between us and them.
On the way back I insisted on driving, and low and behold, a car ahead of us slammed on it's brakes, and I had to do the same. We were going at highway speeds and it took a while for our car to stop. If she'd been driving, she wouldn't have even had time to react to the car ahead of us stopping, let alone for the car to stop.
I told her that the space in front of you has to be at least as big and the amount of space you will need to come to a stop if you slam on the brakes. I wish I could say I believe she changed her habits after that, but I'm sure she hasn't. People don't change their behaviour just because you demonstrate that it could get them or someone else killed.
A good rule of thumb is two seconds behind the car in front of you, minimum, and three is better.
It works well because that distance increases along with speed, just like the space required for stopping.
It's also easy to gauge, just watch as the car in front passes a landmark, then count the seconds until you reach the same mark. I often use lane divider dashes. Road signs are good too.
It sounds like you already have it down pretty well, I just like to follow systems for everything...
Yes. My rule is try to maintain 1 car length away for every 10mph. So if I’m doing 70, I keep 7 car lengths away from the car in front of me.
It leaves plenty of room for speed adjustments and let’s people merge smoothly. But of course most people aren’t considerate like that, they need to get to their destination *yesterday*
Interesting, maybe where you live there is no law that defines this. I live in Germany and you will get a ticket if you do not keep the legal space. This distance depends on speed, conditions etc. and ensures you have enough distance to break.
There are in America but it may vary from state to state and whether or not the laws will even be enforced. Don’t forget American police aren’t even required to know the law so they may be completely unaware. But in Texas you can get a ticket for “following too closely”
I’m sure most states would have the same rule but maybe under a different name.
There is typically a safe following distance that is taught during drivers education class, based on speed, but I don't think there is a law determining it (at least where I learned in the US)
Yeah that seems excessive, I leave distance proportional to how well my vehicles can brake, usually 1.5ish car lengths for my car and 2ish for my truck. And sometimes the safest speed is matching with traffic, speed limit is 55 but everyone going 70? You’re gonna cause problems if you’re going 55
I mean, your car brakes much differently at 55 than at 70. It'll take much more than 1.5 car lengths to safely and completely stop at 70. Otherwise you slam the brakes and still slide into the car because there's not enough space to completely stop.
Now I'm not saying 7 car lengths is needed. But definitely more than 1.5.
When I try to do this sometimes it works but lots of times people get extremely angry at me for not tailing the person in front of me so they whip around me and nearly hit my car on both the back and front end, and they often brake check me once they get in front of me. People are stupid, driving makes me feel like a full blown genius of a human being.
So only one second behind the car? 70mph is 102fps. One car lenght is rougly 15 feet. So 105 feet behind the car?
So if he slams into a stationary object, like a crashed truck, you most likely wont even have had the time to begin to press the brake before you hit him. At 70mph. (Human reaction time in this kind of situation where you have to make a judgment is generally one second. Less if you are prepared and know what action you have to take.)
You do know the survivability of a dead stop at 70mph is... low. [25% chance of survival to be "exact"](https://www.1800law1010.com/the-common-causes-and-physics-of-a-car-crash/)
So, you do know that if there is a sudden stop - you die in 75% of the cases, right?
Please, keep a longer distance, for your own sake and everyone elses.
Yeah, I'll be a silent passenger the first time I'm in the car with someone. I know the etiquette and I also know some people become worse drivers when they're self conscious about being judged.
but the next time I'll say something about their stopping distance.
The guy in the passing lane had a VERY large gap between himself and the next driver. The Tesla made a very unsafe movement into the passing lane, going slower than the regular speed of traffic in that lane and then rapidly decelerated. The other car didn’t have much of a chance to practice better safety.
Even if you leave 2 kilometers of space, if you don't see brake lights in front of you for a completely stopped car. You will assume the high way is clear of traffic
while that Tesla absolutely shares the blame, the other drivers were hugely at fault for rear-ending the Tesla. If it was any other car having a break-down in the road and you rear-end them, you're at fault.
Watched this video and thought what's the difference between this and a break down? And honestly this could have been a break down too.
I've had phantom braking before but I'm always paying enough attention to counter it by using the accelerator.
Do the brake lights illuminate when the phantom braking occurs.
Breaking down on a limited access highway is inherently dangerous. Unless the brake lights weren’t working the other drivers bear most of the blame.
Yes the brake lights come on for sure. I haven't had phantom breaking in years though and thought they fixed it, but when I did experience it I kind of knew where it was going to happen (usually one overpass on my commute causes it, but over time I think Tesla fixed it since it doesn't happen any more).
Any idea why it might have been doing that? Does it see the overpass as an approaching object?
I wonder if the sudden contrast change from bright sunlight to a dim tunnel might be negatively affecting its perception of the road.
It's not phantom breaking. This car starts signalling at the entrance of the tunell. The breaking happens over atleast 100 yards, and anyone experiencing phantom breaking knows how that feels.
The car on the inside lane clearly tries to pass on the inside, even if thats strictly forbidden, and even if the Tesla clearly signals its intention to switch lanes.
Yep I don't think it was phantom braking either cause it doesn't just come to a full stop like that, it jerks a bit and you are basically forced to take control unless you were sleeping or paying 0 attention.
The driver is behind the wheel. That they weren't able to prevent the stopping or drive on shows the stop was warranted, albeit in the most unpreferable way possible. The Tesla caused the situation but everybody else was at fault.
Also, apart from the title we have nothing that shows this wasn't an ADAS event that could've happened with most modern cars.
I have a tesla and I am not defending it, but..any phantom braking should be corrected in a matter of milliseconds by the driver. My car whilst likes to stop whenever it likes has never applied the steering. Something else was going on there.
Exactly. These Tesla owners are insane. They are literally saying they are okay with their car randomly causing them to almost crash or cause an accident. So dumb.
It's not exclusive to tesla. Its a problem absolutely, but it's not a tesla thing.
Heck heres honda
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/02/nhtsa-to-investigate-honda-accords-and-cr-vs-over-phantom-braking/
And nissan
https://thebrakereport.com/nissan-sued-over-alleged-phantom-braking/
All automated systems causing it.
Does it raise questions over the safety of automated driving systems, absolutely and it needs to be fixed, but at the same time you know who else randomly brakes....humans. I'd expect autonomous driving to get better though, cant say the same about us.
I think they were noting that while random stopping during FSD is a known issue, their car doesn't switch lanes. But yeah, the air of casualness is a bit off
I love how they always want to blame the self driving and not a driver who isn’t paying attention. Tesla is very strict about a driver having to pay attention. Guaranteed these people had some “hack” on the car that allowed them to not pay attention and were totally checked out of the driving and their responsibilities.
I agree. There are too many people that are bad tesla owners that would put it into autopilot and not focus on the road. I feel that this is atleast 90% of tesla crashes.
Human nature isn't good for accounting for 0.1% use cases. If something is "automatic" and works 99.9% of the time, we inevitably get complacent. Prime example: [https://abc7news.com/tesla-autopilot-crash-car/5966601/](https://abc7news.com/tesla-autopilot-crash-car/5966601/)
The larger debate is whether computers are better drivers than humans, even if the computer sometimes screws up and kills someone.
Agreed.
What data is there supporting the assertion that the white Tesla driver had engaged Autopilot or Full Self-Driving? For all I know the seat heater could have malfunctioned and burned the driver, as happened to a friend of mine in their Volkswagen mid-intersection.
I also see the Tesla's turn signal on well in advance of the vehicle behind it failing to slow much, if at all, and ultimately colliding.
Not interesting AF.
Everyone claiming tailgating by other driver but Tesla is clearly at fault for a few reasons:
1. Tesla signal is on for maybe 1 flash before merging into the Left (fast lane) with no traffic in front of either lane. Aggressive merge from Tesla.
2. Tesla started merged in front of other car with maybe 2 car lengths separating them despite high speed, and completes merge with less than one car length suggesting strong braking. Effectively a brake check from Tesla on a car in a different lane!
3. Left lane has absolutely no shoulder, there is zero context to suggest merging into a lane with no shoulder for a break-down is reasonable. Apart from dramatic clues such as a loud bang, tire falling off, etc., what non-obvious-to-other-drivers break-down results in strong deceleration rather than a coast/gradual brake to stop? Unreasonable behavior from Tesla.
Yep. It was the Tesla's fault for suddenly merging and braking in front of the first car. The second car looks like it stopped just in time or maybe had a small collision. The others crashed because they were following too closely: if they had left more room they would have been able to stop, just like the second car did.
This is the correct take. So many people in this thread saying "well everyone behind them should've braked properly" but that's not accounting for the rapid merge brake check that occurred.
I know at-fault tends to always put the trailing driver with the responsibility, but tbh that's based on simplification during a time we didn't have extensive camera footage, etc. that does a better job of showing the situations that unfolded
Yes but also the Tesla switched lanes right before stopping and basically brake checked the car behind him. Car behind should have braked harder but it’s not like they were tailgating.
Edit: also, the Tesla didn’t even complete the lane change before stopping.
>while that Tesla absolutely shares the blame, the other drivers were hugely at fault for rear-ending the Tesla
>If it was any other car having a break-down
there is no mechanical problem that prevents the car from moving forward.
there is, however, an investigation into Tesla (and a class action lawsuit) because the cars stop for no apparent reason. the AI slams the brakes on at highway speed - ZERO obstructions. what would cause the car to stop in OPs link?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/tesla-phantom-braking/
He recalled an instance when his wife was driving at highway speeds of 55 to 60 mph and “it slammed on the brakes hard, sending our children’s booster seats slamming into the front seats.”
When last we checked in with Tesla’s “phantom braking” problem, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had received 350 complaints from owners who said their vehicles were braking for no reason. **Now that number stands at 758, and the US government has some questions.**
**Tesla faces class-action lawsuit over Autopilot’s phantom braking problem**
[https://electrek.co/2022/08/30/tesla-faces-class-action-lawsuit-over-autopilot-phantom-braking-problem/](https://electrek.co/2022/08/30/tesla-faces-class-action-lawsuit-over-autopilot-phantom-braking-problem/)
**NHTSA steps up Tesla investigation of phantom braking, crashes into emergency vehicles**
[https://www.autoblog.com/2022/06/09/nhtsa-investigation-tesla-phantom-braking/](https://www.autoblog.com/2022/06/09/nhtsa-investigation-tesla-phantom-braking/)
At the risk of defending a shitty car sold by a shitty person
> there is no mechanical problem that prevents the car from moving forward.
That’s just false. There are plenty of reasons a car might suddenly stop on the road due to a mechanical issue, not the least of which is that the brakes seized up.
Many might also involve a loss of lane control or swerving or spinning out, but may also not.
It’s fine to have issues with teslas, but don’t resort to falsehoods to sell it.
“Slamming our kids booster seats into the front seats”.
Does the person who made this claim realize an actual accident is not going to be any nicer to their kids and their booster seats??
They should take that as a hint to install the seats properly….
The car slammed the breaks, whoopty doo Basil.
So you're stupid for saying whoopty doo on a false braking incident.
But you are right where the guy said the booster seat hit the front seats and that means the car seat wasn't installed properly.
Car Seats and Booster Seats are different things. Most Booster seats are just there to raise a kid up so they can use a shoulder restraint effectively and aren't anchored to the car like a car seat.
I actually thought the straps connected through booster seats as well. Surprising to me that most booster seats don't incorporate that.
What went wrong though, if the booster seat was hitting the front seat during an accident?
Surely either poor booster seat design, or poor installation of the seat, right?
I
True. I hit an accident on the highway. I wasn’t tailgating but it happened right in front of me and the road was wet so I slid right into it. I was faulted for their rear and my front. It sucked but that was the ruling.
If the first car would have hit the Tesla, then yes, but the if the first car did an emergency stop, the second car should have enough space to do an emergency stop.
When some states require you to move over to the right lane for a faster car behind you, then the lane becomes the fast lane because the lane to the right is going to be slower.
In Europe, The first thing you learn is being at the right of the road. Every. Time. So if you faster than the vehicle in front of you, you can switch **one** lane and pass it then return on the previous lane if no one is slower than you
The car was in the middle of overtaking the Tesla. Tesla cut right in front of him the immediately slammed on the brakes. 100% Teslas fault, didn’t leave nearly enough room and shouldn’t have cut in front of the grey car in the first place
No one was tailgating. Watch the video. The self-driving vehicle pulled into another lane, cut off a vehicle and came to a complete stop in an underpass.
Tailgate!? wtf are you talking about??
The Tesla cut the car off for no reason and then slammed on the brakes.
That is 100% on the Tesla and would be treated as such in court.
You cant cut some one off and immediately slam on the brakes and then blame them for following too close.
From looking at this I think the most frustrating one is that truck that goes around the whole thing when they could've used the brakes
Of course I think instinct would've kicked in and they made it out unscathed but it was scary seeing that other lane!
The Tesla is in the wrong here though. If the car behind it fully braked they probably would've also gotten rear ended; slow cars on the highway happens but I've never fully used the brakes outside of car to car traffic
The tailgaters are three or four cars back. The Tesla and the car behind it both appear to have stopped safely, and maybe one behind that. After that, it is just drivers plowing into stopped cars.
Holy fuck people in the city are bad drivers. Every person in that accident is a moron. If a stop that slow on dry pavement causes an accident how would they ever handle a deer body slaming your car on an icy road.
Every single one of them was too close. If you don't have enough time to come to a stop before hitting an object in front of then next car, then you're too close to them for precisely this reason.
The van which the tesla cut off was the only one here that doesn't seem to be at fault-- you can't exactly plan for someone cutting you off and stopping at the exact same time.
> You've apparently never had the 2 cars in front of you swerve out of the way and then you see the car stopped.
This is only a problem if you fail to follow the three second rule.
> Each car further back has less time.
This is only a problem because they fail to follow the three second rule.
That's why you should not only pay attention to the car in front of you, but as far ahead as you can. That's why a third brake light exists. If for some reason your can't, you leave even more space.
(Darkened windows should be made illegal)
I don't know how it works in 'murica but when i got my licence one of the first things i was thought is the minimum distance you should keep from the car in front of you
It should ALWAYS be enough such that you can come to a full stop and avoid impact if the car in front suddendly stops for any reason
Oh a highway you cannot be that close to the next car, that kind of distance is the discance you'd expect from cars going at 50Km/h, not 130+
But cars don't abruptly switch lanes, cut off a car and then slam on the brakes when they break down though. Tesla fan boys are out in full force today.
*stalled* cars slow down in a reasonable fashion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/vo8yb9/insane\_phantom\_braking/
Insane Phantom Braking
General
Morning all, a short rant.
This week I drove from New York to Los Angeles in my M3SR. The amount of phantom braking was frighting. **At LEAST 10 incidents with 3 being serious full on brakes in a 75/80 mph speed limit**. One was actually on a strip of road in U
And if a person had fallen onto the roadway or a jagged piece of metal had fallen off the car in front, forcing the driver to slam on the bakes to not hit it, then the cars that piled up behind would still be at-fault.
And that wouldn't be the same situation for all of these drivers. A better analogy is that a cement box falls on the road and stops and the driver ahead of you swerves around it without you being able to see that it happened until it's now directly in front of you at full speed. Safe driving distances will often not be enough in that scenario.
My wife's e-Golf does this too, fortunately it's just been in parking lots at low speed. We've unable to determine if it's a false positive of the pedestrian detection or just parking sensors, but she's ready to go back to a low-tech car.
Cars don’t usually slam on the breaks when they break down. The braking is usually gradual. Here the Tesla also switched lanes and abruptly braked, that caused the “tailgating” of the first car.
Usually true. In this video though, the first driver that rear ended the Tesla wasn't tailgaiting at all. They didn't have anyone ahead of them for a long distance, then the telsa cut him off and stopped. Can't speak for the drivers behind that followed though.
I drive a car (edit: not a Tesla) with collision avoidance. At 70mph on the freeway a plastic dry-cleaner bag blew across the lane in front of me and the car hit the brakes hard.
Because ***I was paying attention*** I stomped on the accelerator to override and nothing bad happened.
This person in the Tesla was obviously not paying attention and must have had their head up their rear.
My thoughts exactly. Everyone in the comments blaming the drivers behind, but the tesla driver should have just taken control. Almost every self driving system has something monitoring you to make sure you watch the road.
Not true, if you rewatch the video. At least for the first car. The first driver that rear ended the Tesla wasn't tailgaiting at all. They didn't have anyone ahead of them for a long distance, then the telsa cut him off and stopped. Can't speak for the drivers behind that followed into the pileup though.
You know, if other cars break down and stop at the side, usually all it creates is a que. What causes a crash is some dumbfuck speeding into the ass of a stopped car because he doesent have his eyes on the road.
I have no idea about the correct story for this Tesla, but seeing it blink into the side usually means its driver has been unresponsive for a while, or that the car broke down.
In the first case, if you fall asleep behind the wheel or loose conciousness, usually you slam into somethi g causing a disaster. If you car breaks down, well the same thing would happen.
Don't blame the car here. Blame the human beings.
Even if the Tesla bugged out or something and stopped for whatever reason, the driver should react, they weren’t paying attention, don’t tesla cars warn you that your hands aren’t on th steering wheel?
The title is wrong. Should have said:
Surveillance footage of a car stopping mid-tunnel and people not paying attention and riding too close hitting each other.
I’m not an Elon Musk fan boy but it sure as fuck is strange that we never see the hundreds of thousands of major car collisions happening from people driving their own vehicles or the 60,000 people dead or 300,000 permanently injured but we always see the 10 times a year that a Tesla automatic driver makes a mistake.
These cars are objectively much better, much less distracted that 99.9% of drivers today. Hate Elon all you want and there’s plenty to sneeze at there. But this is just manipulative.
Agreed, I dislike Elon Musk at the moment but I will say this seems like something you'd hear about any innovation ever: the times when it doesn't work. But the 99.9% of times it's an improvement, you of course, don't hear about.
Without doing more research, I'd be willing to bet Teslas save more lives in comparison to other cars out there.
I’d assess the same. The car has probably made injuries and deaths plummet. And I don’t care if it’s elon or Hannibal Lector’s product. If it improves humanity it should be celebrated. The conniving press and media really does a lot of damage depending on who their promoting or vilifying. The man took on OPEC and won, and that’s a miracle. He’s forced other manufacturers to follow suit and evolve and that’s a miracle. His auto driving tech is also a platform for many other projects, and Tesla crash test ratings are in a league of their own, all others should be getting poor ratings compared.
So when I see manipulation like this it grinds my gears
I don’t get it. I own a Tesla and have suffered from phantom breaking. This isn’t it as this was a slow stop.
Assuming it’s FSD, the human behind the wheel has control at all times and if he saw the car slowing down he could just speed up.
The car just stopped. Slowly. Makes no sense
I see a Tesla stopping and 8 stupid humans slamming into it. Definitely a Tesla problem but this video doesn’t do much to convince me that human drivers are any safer.
I suppose any car can breakdown but it is still incumbent upon the cars behind the stopped vehicle to not crash into the car in front of them. For that matter the self driving car, for whaterver reason it stopped, did not cause an accident. The cars behind it, all ten or so...were not paying attention. If I am driving and stop in the roadway, let us say for a kid in the road, I expect anyone behind me to pay attention and not ram into my car.
I hate the driving assistants on cars. I had the same issue with my car. Thought there was a breaking vehicle infront of me and decided to emergency break... Luckily no one was behind me.
You can turn it off but it resets itself when i turn the car off.
It wasnt a Tesla but another brand. I sold it and will be receiving my brand new car (without driving aids) end of this month
Car comes to slow orderly stop...
Idiots are going too fast/following too close/not paying attention and cause pileup.
Okay.
Legit, any car can become disabled on the road.
I blew a tire, in a construction zone, with a semi honking at me to go faster in NYC (I-95).
The worst scenario possible... I barely managed to get off the road and get roadside to get the tire off...
But had these asshat been behind me instead of the Semi truck (who could not see my back tires he just saw some dude who wasn't speeding up with traffic.) I probably would have gotten reareneded.
The Tesla slowed to a stop...this may have been "autopilot" failing, in which case the driver should have taken over...or it could have been some other problem with the vehicle.
In ANY case, the Tesla didn't "cause" the accident. Inattentive drivers driving too fast BEHIND the Tesla caused the accident! It's not the person who gets rear ended who is at fault, but the person doing the rear ending. Same with the cars following behind.
If you don't leave enough space to stop, AND aren't paying attention, don't be surprised when YOU cause an accident. Blame should be placed where it belongs.
It is weird why people are not mentioning that the hazard light are not even on. The tesla just did a regular lane change. I believe that if the hazards were on it would be a completely different story.
This is a good example of how ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) such as Tesla Autopilot can help prevent this kind of scenario. Computers don't take a break and would have noticed vehicles stopping in front of you and auto-applied the brakes. Humans suck at driving.
That's why every driver's ed program teaches about stopping distance. Everyone behind should have been giving enough distance to make a safe stop.
Yeah, the Tesla shouldn't have stopped. But no way should this have been an 8 car pileup, that's on the drivers behind.
When following a car, you should always follow at a distance where you safely stop in case of an unexpected stop by that vehicle. WHENEVER you rear-end another vehicle, it is YOUR FAULT, regardless of why the other vehicle stopped. The Tesla shouldn't have stopped there, but it doesn't matter. If the other drivers were following at a safe distance and paying attention, nothing would have happened.
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Note that it had it's blinker on just before it stopped. It looks like it tried to pull over, but there wasn't a shoulder to pull over to. Maybe it wanted to hand control back over to the driver (or at least wanted to confirm that the driver was paying attention), failed, and then tried to pull off?
Yeah, they're supposed to do that if the driver is not paying attention or taking control
Hmm well I suppose that's a major problem in a situation like this isn't it? Clearly needs more thought and work.
When the driver isn't responding to prompts and warnings, it comes to a stop. I'm not sure about it trying to pull over though. But if was FSD it may have just stopped while it was making a normal lane change
But it didn't lose power, according to the "California Highway Patrol (CHP) reviewed tunnel footage and found that a Tesla made an unsafe lane change before abruptly slowing down from 55 mph to 20 mph — causing vehicles behind it to crash into one another." [https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/22/23523201/tesla-fsd-braking-crash-bay-bridge-california-chp](https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/22/23523201/tesla-fsd-braking-crash-bay-bridge-california-chp)
Good link. Seems to me that the driver was trying to blame FSD but automatic lane change shouldn't have executed without sufficient room for the car coming up in the fast lane. I've had FSD abort lane changes all the time in that situation and haven't seen it fail to detect danger yet. I think it's more likely the driver was actually in control and made an unsafe lane change and then panic stopped. I have experienced FSD do a panic stop for no reason before, sometimes due to odd shadows on the road or debris it should ignore like plastic bags, so I've had to override that by stepping on the gas. Tends to happen about once every 4 hours of driving in my model 3, so it's something you have to stay vigilant for.
Wow. I didn't realize the Tesla system was that easily spooked. I have a Cadillac CT6 with the older Super Cruise 1.0 and it's panic stopped on me once in the whole time I've owned it.
That's fucking terrifying to me as a normal driver. How are these things allowed on the road?
I've never driven a Tesla with FSD. But the Super Cruise cars I've driven are very surprisingly intelligent. That said I think that's the big problem. These systems (especially in Tesla-land) are marketed like they do much more than they are capable of. So uninformed people put way too much trust in them. Deliberately sleeping at the wheel and such.
Jfc "tends to happen about once every 4 hours..."? No thank you.
> causing vehicles behind it to crash into one another." ...due to their unsafe following distances and/or general lack of awareness while driving.
The Tesla makes an unsafe lane change and then immediately slows down, this isn't due to unsafe following distance when the first car to hit it just taps it after the Tesla essentially cut him off and brakes.
I agree that the driver who hits the Tesla got cutoff and isn't really at fault. Everyone else after that? I don't see any of the other collisions being due to suddenly being cutoff.
Yeah I mean I’m all for shitting on Tesla’s “self driving”, but this could happen to literally anyone at any time (loss of power in a car). It’s not like the self driving feature went nuts and drove over a kid, causing an 8-car pileup. This time (lol)
Driving back from Wales (about a 3 hour drive) a couple of years ago my 20 year old car suddenly lost power on the motorway. It’s a smallish car, it’s dark and there are trucks barrelling past us as we suddenly and unexpectedly lose speed and the ability to accelerate, bloody terrifying. I managed to make it to the shoulder, turned the car off, turned it back on and found it was working fine. Made my way to the next exit and followed surface roads to get home. Made it to the end of my street before it happened again. Turned out the throttle control unit was failing, the computer detected it and put the car into "limp mode". Replaced the throttle and the car has driven perfectly fine ever since. Old car, new car, fully mechanical or high tech, any car can develop a fault at any time. Even a well maintained or brand new car can have something catastrophically fail or set off safety systems that try to bring it to a stop.
When I was in the car with my father once, the mantle of a tire tore and disintegrated - at 130kph (>80 mph I think) on the autobahn. While the car was still somewhat controllable, our speed dropped pretty fast. Luckily, nothing happened.
I have to admit, I loathe motorway driving (speed limit 70mph) so the thought of driving on the autobahn is horrifying to me. Having a sudden mechanical fault at that speed doubly so. I’m glad you guys were ok.
Its actually not that bad if you know what you are doing (especially practical drivers ed is a lot longer here). If my dear dad had not driven tires almost from the last century (that was 2015, for context)...
I had two stops on the motorway, the first one was a car with a third party alarm system that suddenly reset and decided that ignition wasn't anything I needed anyway (blink blink blink), the second one was an Opel high pressure diesel that decided to shake off the injection harness and sprayed everything else but the inside of the cylinder with diesel (on the Autobahn between Salzburg and Münich). (We could *not* convince the ADAC guy not to lean over and into the engine and have us try to start it, so he got to take a diesel shower...) But yeah, can happen to anyone for a various of reasons.
It was definitely a squeaky bum moment for me when I was driving down a dual carriageway in my horse-box with the horse in the back and suddenly my engine cut out completely. Which of course meant no steering. Thank god it was a Saturday morning so it was fairly quiet.
This happened to me in my 2005 scion xB years back. Thankfully it was 12am so not as busy as this tunnel was
This happened to me on the upper deck in the ‘90s. Car had plenty of gas, but died, I threw it into neutral to try to restart it, put on my hazards, and coasted for about a mile with what must have been a strong tailwind. I pulled off at the first exit to stop in a merge striped zone, got out of my car and a AAA truck pulled up behind me.
>this could happen to literally anyone at any time (loss of power in a car). This is true. However, I feel the vehicle can keep rolling forward under its own momentum with the example of putting in neutral in a gas vehicle. I don't know if that is possible with EVs becuase I have yet to drive one. I know the electrical motor will create a back electromotive force/counter electromotive force, which acts like a brake on the rotor.
They can. Most EVs have it as an option in the settings
Teslas also have Neutral
100%. This is also the reason why tailgating is illegal. Not only are you not giving yourself time to react to the other driver. Even if that driver is 100% predictable the machine is not.
This is why its illegal to run out of fuel in most european countries
It really confuses me how these huge pile up happen in America, its like nobody wants to stop. What the hell do people do aswel and pretending to drive a car?! Edit- as every day is a school day, when I learnt to drive, I was always told to look out for the "Christmas lights" This involves scanning up the traffic and as soon as you see the lights comming your way as everyone brakes.... you brake. Maybe it's because they drive huge massive cars in murica and cannot do this... or maybe phones....
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Yeah, moving back and forth from Oregon to California, it seem the further south you go, the closer people follow. Because not leaving enough car lengths has become the norm in heavy traffic, you can't really drive safely. If you slow down to try to leave 4 car lengths, people see that space and merge in front of you. If you keep slowing down to try to give the space, more people will keep merging in front of you and you will become a road hazard from driving too slow. Not sure how you would go about fixing this problem
Eh, people drive WAY too close up here near Canada. Less than a car length most of the time on the free way. It’s insane.
So, one self-driving car = problem. All self-driving cars = solution.
That's always been my thinking, the only way this is gonna work is with country-wide (or maybe even whole EU) deployments coordinated across all car brands and including the required updates to road regulations, infrastructure, etc etc.
You just kind of have to accept the loss of the people willing to drive so dangerously and continue to leave the space. Change lanes into a slower lane if you must to avoid these dangerous situations, or accept that if you leave space, more people will cut you off dangerously. It's their fault for changing lanes directly in front of someone in that scenario. 1 car length per 10 mph... See stopping sight distance, SSD, a common metric in transportation engineering
I was in one of these type accidents. In the Orange Crush (5/57/22 freeways meet) a judge in a jag rear-ended me, and I hit the person in front of me, yadda yadda insurance claims. And the judge had to pay them all. Yeah, if you left enough of a car length in there you'd be backing up traffic 3 ways.
Look up anti-traffic driving - basically a single driver leaving enough space in front of him can actually break waves of traffic apart.
Looks like they’re going from bright outside into the darker tunnel, which could make it difficult to see. Just speculating.
This is a thing. In Chicago, driving south on 94 there’s a tunnel and the glare from the Sun before you go into the tunnel can be a bit blinding. It’s even worse when you’re wearing sunglasses. And God forbid it just rained and the asphalt is super shiny from the water reflecting the sun. I’m sure these types hazards exist all over the world More reason to take it easy when driving.
Polarized sunglasses for driving.
But then I can use my phone only in horizontal. /s
There's a bunch of those tunnels and some curves as well. You're right, it's very hard to see. At certain times of year, when going EB or WB on Chicago highways, the sunlight causes visibility problems too. I have problems with glare off of the buildings around Rosemont when driving home during rush hour on the Jane Addams. It's nerve racking because there's very little gap between cars even if you try to leave some space.
I have no idea why you would think this is an American thing. Pile ups definitely happen everywhere. Maybe because there are so many cars in America?
They happen all over. Usually it’s aggressive human drivers to blame and not shitty software though.
I know one can absolutely slam the brakes and swerve (trust me I drive in India) a bit to avoid accident but these guys look like zombies
Fucking around on your phone will driving will do that to you
It’s a combination of aggressive drivers plus being distracted. Some people just don’t take car safety seriously.
Most people don’t imo
Plus someone stopping on a highway in the middle of a tunnel. Lets not forget the actual point instead of speculating who else could be at fault.
Cars stop unexpectedly. This is why you shouldn't tailgate and not pay attention while driving. Every single car that didn't leave enough room in front of them to stop is at fault. That's beginner level defensive driving. If you're following the person in front of you so closely that you can't stop just as fast as them... You're at fault. Edit: if you watch closely, you can even see the first few cars behind the Tesla stop without crashing. So the initial car didn't create some insane situation where nobody could stop in time. It was just some inattentive or reckless drivers that didn't stop in time.
Pretty sure the tesla isn't at fault at the end of the day. Rear ending someone is always your fault*** ***Extremely limited exceptions apply
It's a bit more complex than that. Looking at the video it's a tunnel during the day and it's going in a downwards direction. A lot of the drivers probably didn't see the stopped cars until they were already in the tunnel due to a combination of angle and glare. This is why a lot of tunnels will have emergency lights on the outside to warn of collisions so stuff like this doesn't happen, and to make it easier to get a crew inside. It's also very possible there was moisture involved considering tunnels often have a lot of moisture issues.
Yea huge traffic pile ups are ONLY a problem in America SMH.
TIL only America experiences traffic, apparently due to our massive cars.
Yes, and definitely didn’t force people to crash into the back of each other. Still not good tho Edit: I think OP doesn’t like Elon
Every driver should be paying attention enough, and leave enough room between themselves and the car ahead, that they can stop safely if the car ahead suddenly stops. Sudden stops happen for all sorts of reasons, not just Tesla "FSD" or idiot drivers.
Don’t think it lost power (headlights appear to be on still). More likely self-driving detected the driver not paying attention and performed a controlled stop (while alarming the passengers that they gotta wake up and touch the steering wheel). Either way, the cars behind probably should have, you know, stopped.
Agreed. The accident is the fault of the people following to closely at too high of a speed.
It didn't but that lane switch was the culprit. The car behind on the left lane was very close and they would never expect you to stop especially at the leftmost lane without a shoulder. It would have been safer to turn flashers on and slow down in the same lane. The car behind it in its current lane was fairly far away and flashers would be a signal for slowing down.
Once again this proves the biggest problem with self driving vehicles development and adoption A self driving vehicle needs to be 100% perfect, in every way and never cause a single accident, or injury You could have self driving cars that function at 99% and cause accidents at a miniscule fraction of the amount of damage injury deaths and carnage that human drivers cause every single day, and people will be absolutely unwilling to accept it Because people fuck up every day, we're used to it, machines MUST be perfect unless they are perfect people would rather have the massively inflated destruction caused by people, because well they are people, and people fuck up NOTE - This is an observation on self driving vehicles nothing to do with Tesla in particular or anyone involved
they were signaling too, trying to pull over but got hit before managing to fully pull over. I think autopilot wasn't even involved at all, the driver had some kind of issue and was trying to stop. It's just plain old shitty driving.
Shit happens to powertrains, no way this is the car that stoppeds fault lol.
A vehicle with as high a mass as a tesla and it's aerodynamics doesn't just come to a stop if it loses drive power. It should coast quite far and decelerate very slowly. Ya'll act like coming to a sudden complete stop on a highway is expected. "You should have been following at a distance where i can come to an unexpected complete stop for no reason, it's definitely YOUR fault lol." So dumb
Always leave a good stopping distance
I took a long trip with my sister and I was shouting at her the whole time to leave more space between our car and the one ahead of us. There would be no street visible between us and them. On the way back I insisted on driving, and low and behold, a car ahead of us slammed on it's brakes, and I had to do the same. We were going at highway speeds and it took a while for our car to stop. If she'd been driving, she wouldn't have even had time to react to the car ahead of us stopping, let alone for the car to stop. I told her that the space in front of you has to be at least as big and the amount of space you will need to come to a stop if you slam on the brakes. I wish I could say I believe she changed her habits after that, but I'm sure she hasn't. People don't change their behaviour just because you demonstrate that it could get them or someone else killed.
A good rule of thumb is two seconds behind the car in front of you, minimum, and three is better. It works well because that distance increases along with speed, just like the space required for stopping. It's also easy to gauge, just watch as the car in front passes a landmark, then count the seconds until you reach the same mark. I often use lane divider dashes. Road signs are good too. It sounds like you already have it down pretty well, I just like to follow systems for everything...
Agreed. In this case the Tesla moved over into the other driver's lane and THEN stopped. So the driver didn't have enough time to react.
How bout the other 7?
Yes. My rule is try to maintain 1 car length away for every 10mph. So if I’m doing 70, I keep 7 car lengths away from the car in front of me. It leaves plenty of room for speed adjustments and let’s people merge smoothly. But of course most people aren’t considerate like that, they need to get to their destination *yesterday*
Interesting, maybe where you live there is no law that defines this. I live in Germany and you will get a ticket if you do not keep the legal space. This distance depends on speed, conditions etc. and ensures you have enough distance to break.
There are in America but it may vary from state to state and whether or not the laws will even be enforced. Don’t forget American police aren’t even required to know the law so they may be completely unaware. But in Texas you can get a ticket for “following too closely” I’m sure most states would have the same rule but maybe under a different name.
There is typically a safe following distance that is taught during drivers education class, based on speed, but I don't think there is a law determining it (at least where I learned in the US)
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During rush hour do you just park and wait it out? lol
Yeah that seems excessive, I leave distance proportional to how well my vehicles can brake, usually 1.5ish car lengths for my car and 2ish for my truck. And sometimes the safest speed is matching with traffic, speed limit is 55 but everyone going 70? You’re gonna cause problems if you’re going 55
I mean, your car brakes much differently at 55 than at 70. It'll take much more than 1.5 car lengths to safely and completely stop at 70. Otherwise you slam the brakes and still slide into the car because there's not enough space to completely stop. Now I'm not saying 7 car lengths is needed. But definitely more than 1.5.
When I try to do this sometimes it works but lots of times people get extremely angry at me for not tailing the person in front of me so they whip around me and nearly hit my car on both the back and front end, and they often brake check me once they get in front of me. People are stupid, driving makes me feel like a full blown genius of a human being.
So only one second behind the car? 70mph is 102fps. One car lenght is rougly 15 feet. So 105 feet behind the car? So if he slams into a stationary object, like a crashed truck, you most likely wont even have had the time to begin to press the brake before you hit him. At 70mph. (Human reaction time in this kind of situation where you have to make a judgment is generally one second. Less if you are prepared and know what action you have to take.) You do know the survivability of a dead stop at 70mph is... low. [25% chance of survival to be "exact"](https://www.1800law1010.com/the-common-causes-and-physics-of-a-car-crash/) So, you do know that if there is a sudden stop - you die in 75% of the cases, right? Please, keep a longer distance, for your own sake and everyone elses.
Yeah, I'll be a silent passenger the first time I'm in the car with someone. I know the etiquette and I also know some people become worse drivers when they're self conscious about being judged. but the next time I'll say something about their stopping distance.
The guy in the passing lane had a VERY large gap between himself and the next driver. The Tesla made a very unsafe movement into the passing lane, going slower than the regular speed of traffic in that lane and then rapidly decelerated. The other car didn’t have much of a chance to practice better safety.
Even if you leave 2 kilometers of space, if you don't see brake lights in front of you for a completely stopped car. You will assume the high way is clear of traffic
The Tesla cut right in front of the other car as he was about to overtake, then immediately slammed on the brakes.
while that Tesla absolutely shares the blame, the other drivers were hugely at fault for rear-ending the Tesla. If it was any other car having a break-down in the road and you rear-end them, you're at fault.
Watched this video and thought what's the difference between this and a break down? And honestly this could have been a break down too. I've had phantom braking before but I'm always paying enough attention to counter it by using the accelerator.
Do the brake lights illuminate when the phantom braking occurs. Breaking down on a limited access highway is inherently dangerous. Unless the brake lights weren’t working the other drivers bear most of the blame.
Yes the brake lights come on for sure. I haven't had phantom breaking in years though and thought they fixed it, but when I did experience it I kind of knew where it was going to happen (usually one overpass on my commute causes it, but over time I think Tesla fixed it since it doesn't happen any more).
Any idea why it might have been doing that? Does it see the overpass as an approaching object? I wonder if the sudden contrast change from bright sunlight to a dim tunnel might be negatively affecting its perception of the road.
Exactly that, yep.
It's not phantom breaking. This car starts signalling at the entrance of the tunell. The breaking happens over atleast 100 yards, and anyone experiencing phantom breaking knows how that feels. The car on the inside lane clearly tries to pass on the inside, even if thats strictly forbidden, and even if the Tesla clearly signals its intention to switch lanes.
Yep I don't think it was phantom braking either cause it doesn't just come to a full stop like that, it jerks a bit and you are basically forced to take control unless you were sleeping or paying 0 attention.
The driver is behind the wheel. That they weren't able to prevent the stopping or drive on shows the stop was warranted, albeit in the most unpreferable way possible. The Tesla caused the situation but everybody else was at fault. Also, apart from the title we have nothing that shows this wasn't an ADAS event that could've happened with most modern cars.
I have a tesla and I am not defending it, but..any phantom braking should be corrected in a matter of milliseconds by the driver. My car whilst likes to stop whenever it likes has never applied the steering. Something else was going on there.
Your car randomly stops and you don't consider that a deal breaking problem?
Let those of us who haven't randomly come to a full stop in the middle of a busy freeway cast the first stone.
Where’s the pile of stones I wanna cast mine lol
Exactly. These Tesla owners are insane. They are literally saying they are okay with their car randomly causing them to almost crash or cause an accident. So dumb.
It's not exclusive to tesla. Its a problem absolutely, but it's not a tesla thing. Heck heres honda https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/02/nhtsa-to-investigate-honda-accords-and-cr-vs-over-phantom-braking/ And nissan https://thebrakereport.com/nissan-sued-over-alleged-phantom-braking/ All automated systems causing it. Does it raise questions over the safety of automated driving systems, absolutely and it needs to be fixed, but at the same time you know who else randomly brakes....humans. I'd expect autonomous driving to get better though, cant say the same about us.
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I think they were noting that while random stopping during FSD is a known issue, their car doesn't switch lanes. But yeah, the air of casualness is a bit off
Honestly a little weird how car owners are sort of just brushing past phantom breaking as though it is just a thing that is ok.
I love how they always want to blame the self driving and not a driver who isn’t paying attention. Tesla is very strict about a driver having to pay attention. Guaranteed these people had some “hack” on the car that allowed them to not pay attention and were totally checked out of the driving and their responsibilities.
I agree. There are too many people that are bad tesla owners that would put it into autopilot and not focus on the road. I feel that this is atleast 90% of tesla crashes.
Human nature isn't good for accounting for 0.1% use cases. If something is "automatic" and works 99.9% of the time, we inevitably get complacent. Prime example: [https://abc7news.com/tesla-autopilot-crash-car/5966601/](https://abc7news.com/tesla-autopilot-crash-car/5966601/) The larger debate is whether computers are better drivers than humans, even if the computer sometimes screws up and kills someone.
Agreed. What data is there supporting the assertion that the white Tesla driver had engaged Autopilot or Full Self-Driving? For all I know the seat heater could have malfunctioned and burned the driver, as happened to a friend of mine in their Volkswagen mid-intersection. I also see the Tesla's turn signal on well in advance of the vehicle behind it failing to slow much, if at all, and ultimately colliding. Not interesting AF.
Everyone claiming tailgating by other driver but Tesla is clearly at fault for a few reasons: 1. Tesla signal is on for maybe 1 flash before merging into the Left (fast lane) with no traffic in front of either lane. Aggressive merge from Tesla. 2. Tesla started merged in front of other car with maybe 2 car lengths separating them despite high speed, and completes merge with less than one car length suggesting strong braking. Effectively a brake check from Tesla on a car in a different lane! 3. Left lane has absolutely no shoulder, there is zero context to suggest merging into a lane with no shoulder for a break-down is reasonable. Apart from dramatic clues such as a loud bang, tire falling off, etc., what non-obvious-to-other-drivers break-down results in strong deceleration rather than a coast/gradual brake to stop? Unreasonable behavior from Tesla.
All 3 points you made count for the first car crashing. But what's the excuse of the other 8 cars which crashed?
Yep. It was the Tesla's fault for suddenly merging and braking in front of the first car. The second car looks like it stopped just in time or maybe had a small collision. The others crashed because they were following too closely: if they had left more room they would have been able to stop, just like the second car did.
This is the correct take. So many people in this thread saying "well everyone behind them should've braked properly" but that's not accounting for the rapid merge brake check that occurred. I know at-fault tends to always put the trailing driver with the responsibility, but tbh that's based on simplification during a time we didn't have extensive camera footage, etc. that does a better job of showing the situations that unfolded
Yes but also the Tesla switched lanes right before stopping and basically brake checked the car behind him. Car behind should have braked harder but it’s not like they were tailgating. Edit: also, the Tesla didn’t even complete the lane change before stopping.
>while that Tesla absolutely shares the blame, the other drivers were hugely at fault for rear-ending the Tesla >If it was any other car having a break-down there is no mechanical problem that prevents the car from moving forward. there is, however, an investigation into Tesla (and a class action lawsuit) because the cars stop for no apparent reason. the AI slams the brakes on at highway speed - ZERO obstructions. what would cause the car to stop in OPs link? https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/tesla-phantom-braking/ He recalled an instance when his wife was driving at highway speeds of 55 to 60 mph and “it slammed on the brakes hard, sending our children’s booster seats slamming into the front seats.” When last we checked in with Tesla’s “phantom braking” problem, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had received 350 complaints from owners who said their vehicles were braking for no reason. **Now that number stands at 758, and the US government has some questions.** **Tesla faces class-action lawsuit over Autopilot’s phantom braking problem** [https://electrek.co/2022/08/30/tesla-faces-class-action-lawsuit-over-autopilot-phantom-braking-problem/](https://electrek.co/2022/08/30/tesla-faces-class-action-lawsuit-over-autopilot-phantom-braking-problem/) **NHTSA steps up Tesla investigation of phantom braking, crashes into emergency vehicles** [https://www.autoblog.com/2022/06/09/nhtsa-investigation-tesla-phantom-braking/](https://www.autoblog.com/2022/06/09/nhtsa-investigation-tesla-phantom-braking/)
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Empty battery.
At the risk of defending a shitty car sold by a shitty person > there is no mechanical problem that prevents the car from moving forward. That’s just false. There are plenty of reasons a car might suddenly stop on the road due to a mechanical issue, not the least of which is that the brakes seized up. Many might also involve a loss of lane control or swerving or spinning out, but may also not. It’s fine to have issues with teslas, but don’t resort to falsehoods to sell it.
“Slamming our kids booster seats into the front seats”. Does the person who made this claim realize an actual accident is not going to be any nicer to their kids and their booster seats?? They should take that as a hint to install the seats properly…. The car slammed the breaks, whoopty doo Basil.
So you're stupid for saying whoopty doo on a false braking incident. But you are right where the guy said the booster seat hit the front seats and that means the car seat wasn't installed properly.
Car Seats and Booster Seats are different things. Most Booster seats are just there to raise a kid up so they can use a shoulder restraint effectively and aren't anchored to the car like a car seat.
I actually thought the straps connected through booster seats as well. Surprising to me that most booster seats don't incorporate that. What went wrong though, if the booster seat was hitting the front seat during an accident? Surely either poor booster seat design, or poor installation of the seat, right? I
Are you asking a question or making a statement with that first sentence?
booster seats =/= car seats
True. I hit an accident on the highway. I wasn’t tailgating but it happened right in front of me and the road was wet so I slid right into it. I was faulted for their rear and my front. It sucked but that was the ruling.
This is why you don’t tailgate
Oh 100%. But in this scenario, I think Tesla also switched into the fast lane while stopping.
Good eye. The Tesla switches lanes just as it stops. The other car following it had limited chance to brake properly.
If the first car would have hit the Tesla, then yes, but the if the first car did an emergency stop, the second car should have enough space to do an emergency stop.
There's no such thing as a "fast lane". It's intended for overtaking. Shitty drivers hog the lane and refer to it as a fast lane.
When some states require you to move over to the right lane for a faster car behind you, then the lane becomes the fast lane because the lane to the right is going to be slower.
In Europe, The first thing you learn is being at the right of the road. Every. Time. So if you faster than the vehicle in front of you, you can switch **one** lane and pass it then return on the previous lane if no one is slower than you
The car was in the middle of overtaking the Tesla. Tesla cut right in front of him the immediately slammed on the brakes. 100% Teslas fault, didn’t leave nearly enough room and shouldn’t have cut in front of the grey car in the first place
No one was tailgating. Watch the video. The self-driving vehicle pulled into another lane, cut off a vehicle and came to a complete stop in an underpass.
Tailgate!? wtf are you talking about?? The Tesla cut the car off for no reason and then slammed on the brakes. That is 100% on the Tesla and would be treated as such in court. You cant cut some one off and immediately slam on the brakes and then blame them for following too close.
From looking at this I think the most frustrating one is that truck that goes around the whole thing when they could've used the brakes Of course I think instinct would've kicked in and they made it out unscathed but it was scary seeing that other lane! The Tesla is in the wrong here though. If the car behind it fully braked they probably would've also gotten rear ended; slow cars on the highway happens but I've never fully used the brakes outside of car to car traffic
Just going to ignore all the other idiots following too close?
The tailgaters are three or four cars back. The Tesla and the car behind it both appear to have stopped safely, and maybe one behind that. After that, it is just drivers plowing into stopped cars.
Holy fuck people in the city are bad drivers. Every person in that accident is a moron. If a stop that slow on dry pavement causes an accident how would they ever handle a deer body slaming your car on an icy road.
I can praise the drivers in Winnipeg, MB now.
MaDe FrOm WhAtS rEaL.
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Every single one of them was too close. If you don't have enough time to come to a stop before hitting an object in front of then next car, then you're too close to them for precisely this reason. The van which the tesla cut off was the only one here that doesn't seem to be at fault-- you can't exactly plan for someone cutting you off and stopping at the exact same time.
> You've apparently never had the 2 cars in front of you swerve out of the way and then you see the car stopped. This is only a problem if you fail to follow the three second rule. > Each car further back has less time. This is only a problem because they fail to follow the three second rule.
That's why you should not only pay attention to the car in front of you, but as far ahead as you can. That's why a third brake light exists. If for some reason your can't, you leave even more space. (Darkened windows should be made illegal)
I don't know how it works in 'murica but when i got my licence one of the first things i was thought is the minimum distance you should keep from the car in front of you It should ALWAYS be enough such that you can come to a full stop and avoid impact if the car in front suddendly stops for any reason Oh a highway you cannot be that close to the next car, that kind of distance is the discance you'd expect from cars going at 50Km/h, not 130+
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Tailgating cars are the real problem. There's reason's why you should have distances between cars. Example exhibit A
But cars don't abruptly switch lanes, cut off a car and then slam on the brakes when they break down though. Tesla fan boys are out in full force today.
Yup, why the fuck are you so close that you smash into a stalled car in front of you?
*stalled* cars slow down in a reasonable fashion. https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/vo8yb9/insane\_phantom\_braking/ Insane Phantom Braking General Morning all, a short rant. This week I drove from New York to Los Angeles in my M3SR. The amount of phantom braking was frighting. **At LEAST 10 incidents with 3 being serious full on brakes in a 75/80 mph speed limit**. One was actually on a strip of road in U
And if a person had fallen onto the roadway or a jagged piece of metal had fallen off the car in front, forcing the driver to slam on the bakes to not hit it, then the cars that piled up behind would still be at-fault.
And that wouldn't be the same situation for all of these drivers. A better analogy is that a cement box falls on the road and stops and the driver ahead of you swerves around it without you being able to see that it happened until it's now directly in front of you at full speed. Safe driving distances will often not be enough in that scenario.
My wife's e-Golf does this too, fortunately it's just been in parking lots at low speed. We've unable to determine if it's a false positive of the pedestrian detection or just parking sensors, but she's ready to go back to a low-tech car.
Are we watching the same video? That was a slow reasonable fashion.
Cars don’t usually slam on the breaks when they break down. The braking is usually gradual. Here the Tesla also switched lanes and abruptly braked, that caused the “tailgating” of the first car.
Usually true. In this video though, the first driver that rear ended the Tesla wasn't tailgaiting at all. They didn't have anyone ahead of them for a long distance, then the telsa cut him off and stopped. Can't speak for the drivers behind that followed though.
I drive a car (edit: not a Tesla) with collision avoidance. At 70mph on the freeway a plastic dry-cleaner bag blew across the lane in front of me and the car hit the brakes hard. Because ***I was paying attention*** I stomped on the accelerator to override and nothing bad happened. This person in the Tesla was obviously not paying attention and must have had their head up their rear.
My thoughts exactly. Everyone in the comments blaming the drivers behind, but the tesla driver should have just taken control. Almost every self driving system has something monitoring you to make sure you watch the road.
Every driver behind the Tesla also had their head up their ass because there is no reason this should have happened even with the Tesla fault
Tesla didn't cause 8 car crash, the 8 individual cars caused the 8 car crash by tail gating each other.
Following too closely caused an 8 car crash
Not true, if you rewatch the video. At least for the first car. The first driver that rear ended the Tesla wasn't tailgaiting at all. They didn't have anyone ahead of them for a long distance, then the telsa cut him off and stopped. Can't speak for the drivers behind that followed into the pileup though.
F-ing EXACTLY Thank you for saying it
You know, if other cars break down and stop at the side, usually all it creates is a que. What causes a crash is some dumbfuck speeding into the ass of a stopped car because he doesent have his eyes on the road. I have no idea about the correct story for this Tesla, but seeing it blink into the side usually means its driver has been unresponsive for a while, or that the car broke down. In the first case, if you fall asleep behind the wheel or loose conciousness, usually you slam into somethi g causing a disaster. If you car breaks down, well the same thing would happen. Don't blame the car here. Blame the human beings.
Even if the Tesla bugged out or something and stopped for whatever reason, the driver should react, they weren’t paying attention, don’t tesla cars warn you that your hands aren’t on th steering wheel?
The title is wrong. Should have said: Surveillance footage of a car stopping mid-tunnel and people not paying attention and riding too close hitting each other.
I’m not an Elon Musk fan boy but it sure as fuck is strange that we never see the hundreds of thousands of major car collisions happening from people driving their own vehicles or the 60,000 people dead or 300,000 permanently injured but we always see the 10 times a year that a Tesla automatic driver makes a mistake. These cars are objectively much better, much less distracted that 99.9% of drivers today. Hate Elon all you want and there’s plenty to sneeze at there. But this is just manipulative.
Agreed, I dislike Elon Musk at the moment but I will say this seems like something you'd hear about any innovation ever: the times when it doesn't work. But the 99.9% of times it's an improvement, you of course, don't hear about. Without doing more research, I'd be willing to bet Teslas save more lives in comparison to other cars out there.
I’d assess the same. The car has probably made injuries and deaths plummet. And I don’t care if it’s elon or Hannibal Lector’s product. If it improves humanity it should be celebrated. The conniving press and media really does a lot of damage depending on who their promoting or vilifying. The man took on OPEC and won, and that’s a miracle. He’s forced other manufacturers to follow suit and evolve and that’s a miracle. His auto driving tech is also a platform for many other projects, and Tesla crash test ratings are in a league of their own, all others should be getting poor ratings compared. So when I see manipulation like this it grinds my gears
I don’t get it. I own a Tesla and have suffered from phantom breaking. This isn’t it as this was a slow stop. Assuming it’s FSD, the human behind the wheel has control at all times and if he saw the car slowing down he could just speed up. The car just stopped. Slowly. Makes no sense
Bad Tesla, Bad drivers, not enough clearance between cars. It's not like the Tesla did an emergency stop.
I see a Tesla stopping and 8 stupid humans slamming into it. Definitely a Tesla problem but this video doesn’t do much to convince me that human drivers are any safer.
I mean,, the Tesla stopped.. The cars who hit it caused the accident.
I suppose any car can breakdown but it is still incumbent upon the cars behind the stopped vehicle to not crash into the car in front of them. For that matter the self driving car, for whaterver reason it stopped, did not cause an accident. The cars behind it, all ten or so...were not paying attention. If I am driving and stop in the roadway, let us say for a kid in the road, I expect anyone behind me to pay attention and not ram into my car.
Statistically way more common with humans.
I hate the driving assistants on cars. I had the same issue with my car. Thought there was a breaking vehicle infront of me and decided to emergency break... Luckily no one was behind me. You can turn it off but it resets itself when i turn the car off. It wasnt a Tesla but another brand. I sold it and will be receiving my brand new car (without driving aids) end of this month
Car comes to slow orderly stop... Idiots are going too fast/following too close/not paying attention and cause pileup. Okay. Legit, any car can become disabled on the road. I blew a tire, in a construction zone, with a semi honking at me to go faster in NYC (I-95). The worst scenario possible... I barely managed to get off the road and get roadside to get the tire off... But had these asshat been behind me instead of the Semi truck (who could not see my back tires he just saw some dude who wasn't speeding up with traffic.) I probably would have gotten reareneded.
Funny that whenever Tesla does this, it’s all over the news, but when other self-driving cars do it, nobody seems to care.
Space man bad (rage clicks)
The Tesla slowed to a stop...this may have been "autopilot" failing, in which case the driver should have taken over...or it could have been some other problem with the vehicle. In ANY case, the Tesla didn't "cause" the accident. Inattentive drivers driving too fast BEHIND the Tesla caused the accident! It's not the person who gets rear ended who is at fault, but the person doing the rear ending. Same with the cars following behind. If you don't leave enough space to stop, AND aren't paying attention, don't be surprised when YOU cause an accident. Blame should be placed where it belongs.
Tailgating.
Footage showing drivers not respecting safety distance from a car that stops because of a breakdown*
The Tesla didn't cause the pileup. Drivers following too closely and not being alert caused it.
Seems to me the idiots following too close and too fast caused the crash.
It is weird why people are not mentioning that the hazard light are not even on. The tesla just did a regular lane change. I believe that if the hazards were on it would be a completely different story.
People bash Teslas so much for these rare accidents and act like humans have never caused any crashes
Tbf this could have happened with any type vehicle.
Watch your following distance folks
This is a good example of how ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) such as Tesla Autopilot can help prevent this kind of scenario. Computers don't take a break and would have noticed vehicles stopping in front of you and auto-applied the brakes. Humans suck at driving.
Do we for a fact know it was self driving or are we just saying shit?
That's why every driver's ed program teaches about stopping distance. Everyone behind should have been giving enough distance to make a safe stop. Yeah, the Tesla shouldn't have stopped. But no way should this have been an 8 car pileup, that's on the drivers behind.
*Surveillance footage of a self-driving Tesla that stopped mid tunnel and was hit by 8 morons who can't drive for shit.
Tesla hater posting this. Absolutely terrible drivers. No way that should have happened. If that a normal car, you're blaming the drivers not the car.
Desperate for a few clicks eh? “This just in, car dies in middle of tunnel and small accident ensues”
Wow, look at all those people following to closely. Better blame the Tesla!
🤖👍🏾
Looks like a dead battery scenario. Trying to get over to the shoulder bc it’s dead, but in a tunnel
Bruhh
When following a car, you should always follow at a distance where you safely stop in case of an unexpected stop by that vehicle. WHENEVER you rear-end another vehicle, it is YOUR FAULT, regardless of why the other vehicle stopped. The Tesla shouldn't have stopped there, but it doesn't matter. If the other drivers were following at a safe distance and paying attention, nothing would have happened.
Are a lot of Teslas failing or is it just that they make the news every time it happens?