A Tesla Model X driving in semi-autonomous Autopilot mode rear-ended a police motorcycle last week, according to The Arizona Republic.
The incident happened on March 21, when both vehicles stopped at a traffic light after exiting a freeway in Phoenix. The Tesla stopped “briefly” before it began to move forward again. The officer managed to bail before the Tesla bumped the bike.
No damage was reported on either vehicle, since the officer estimated the Model X was only going three miles per hour.
“It was pretty much a tap,” Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Alan Pfohl said, “It wasn’t even a reportable collision. If it wasn’t involving an officer, we would not have even investigated it.”
The accident occurred only days before a Volvo in Uber’s self driving pilot program was involved in a collision in the neighboring city of Tempe, Arizona. While there were no injuries reported in this incident, the same can’t be said about another Tesla autopilot crash that occurred last summer.
A police report has not yet been released and police haven’t released the names of the officer or Tesla driver. Following last year’s incidents, the automaker amplified its warnings to owners against leaving the driving duties entirely to Autopilot.
[Image: Tesla]
YES!!! I’ve been waiting for that time, when day after day we’ll hear about autopilot collisions. Then manufacturers will get sued or some local authorities will forbid autopilot driving, and it will be death of autopilot.
You just hate us because we have roads unlike your childhood oblast.
If they had roads, Germans would be in Moscow in 2 weeks. Lack of roads is protective measure
Worked 76 years ago and it would work today!
Keep dreaming, slav. You don’t know any more about the circumstances here than we do. The fact that it was such a low-speed bump could mean almost anything.
Filthy cybercager!
More pucker-worthy nightmares for iron horse riders.
D’oh!
It is simple, the technology is NOT mature.
How do you propose to identify when it is mature?
After beta testing?
Perhaps; when police and secret service fleets are 100% converted, and have operated problem free for a decade?
It’s mature when it can hear various euphemisms and not giggle. Duh.
It’ll be mature when it does its chores after only being asked once.
When the body count drops back down below the 2017 death rate…
Bad Otto! Careless Otto!
Surely you can’t be serious.
Jim, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?
You are Kareem! I’ve seen you play. My dad’s got season tickets.
*changing shows*
C’mere, Kamal. C’mon.
Please, let this be Oveur!
Isn’t this a little “Man Bites Dog?” It’s not like meatsack drivers have a great record of noticing motorcycles either, but the AI driver makes it “noteworthy.”
More like “Robot Dog Bites Man,” but you have a point.
The Tesla just thought the bike was cute and wanted to give it a lil lovin.
If Harley made a Fatgirl I’d do that.
Three miles an hour? That’s a dangerous speed! My old Nissan was rear ended at that speed in a parking lot by a Ford F150 with a newly installed dock bumper, backing out of his space, and it broke a tail light, scraped and deformed the bumper cover, and bent in the trunk lid! The F150 was undamaged.
The hittee always takes on more damage than the hitter, so I wouldn’t get on that motorcycle until the frame was inspected. What it all comes down to is, don’t send a robot to do a job you should do yourself, if you want it done right.
Like what kind of idiot savant rolls up to anything, let alone a cop vehicle, without having a foot ready on the brake?
I think we have a working definition here of Teslite.
Did the Tesla owner survive the encounter?
“the Model X was only going three miles per hour.”
Very possibly.
If the bike had been fitted with Autopilot, it could have made an evasive maneuver. Heh.
Some, here, forget that Tesla programmed in a setting for drivers to allow a slow-speed ‘creep’ after stopping for a traffic light. If that was turned on, it was the driver who did so as it is turned off by default at the factory.
I didn’t know that. But in any case with SAE Level 2 autonomy, the driver is responsible whether or not the ‘creep’ mode was enabled.
Well, then, that’s an interesting programming logic, to have the low-speed creep mode given a higher priority than accident avoidance.
Agreed. My point is that it may not be fully the fault of the Autopilot but a missed override over another function. People are fallible, after all. The fact that this was such a low-speed incident suggests an overlooked software on-off switch more than a fault in Autopilot itself.
A small difference, I know. But people tend to get tunnel vision and look in the wrong places when troubleshooting.
Does this self-driving “creep” mode apply to windowless candy vans or am do I have this confused with something else?
You’re thinking of “autopervert” mode –
“Autopervert” mode- it starts with tacky style and lighting add-ons from the local auto parts store and it goes downhill.
Well, Tesla will just say they analyzed the vehicle logs and it’s the driver’s fault.
Whatever. No one can verify that.
STOP PRESS
Car involved in collision.
It’s always news when a dufus hits a police vehicle. There’s no excuse possible: “the motorcycle stopped suddenly, officer!”
Yeah, but Autopilot/Tesla/Musk.
And even the police aren’t concerned.