Here I was, thinking that fully self driving cars are not going to be bad because they would back off a decent distance and not tailgate. Nope. It seems that these things are happy to sit up behind another car, probably too close.

www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/tesla-fully-selfdriving-supervised-finally-arrives-in-australia/news-story/168f300b144596373e3461ac3a18daf8

What are we going to see now? Teslas tailgating and then stopping so well that the next sucker behind them hits them? Time to start a business selling Tesla rear bumpers.

I guess it makes sense. Tailgating is across all car brands so why should Tesla discourage it and annoy their owners too. Rangers can't be the only cars to do it.

I don't see the point. Unless it can drive me home drunk, i'd rather control the vehicle my self. Probably clever marketing though, a lot of people will go for it, and you're there in the drivers seat to take the blame in case it does duck up.

yep, self driving...........supervised

You must still keep both hands on the wheel at all times.

Try doing that with a steering wheel which moves on it's own.

Self driving where you have to be ready to take over at a moment's notice is probably more dangerous than normal driving. You won't be performing all those habitual actions, so it will require a conscious effort to keep your eyes on the road just in case something goes wrong.
You're being your own backseat driver.

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elmo said..
yep, self driving...........supervised

You must still keep both hands on the wheel at all times.

Try doing that with a steering wheel which moves on it's own.

Velcro?

Seriously though it sounds stupid but I am sure plenty of people will opt for it and mindlessly hold their hands on the wheel.
I suspect it's just a legal liability thing and the car will out drive most people most of the time.

I suppose law suit wise it gives an out for the manufacturer if the system fails as the driver is ultimately responsible

Had an interesting experience in a rental Tesla about a year ago
The driver was trying the self drive system and all was going well until we got to one of the overtaking lane that are quite common here is Australia, it tracked well following the white line on the left hand side, when it saw the broken white lines in front of us it swerved aggressively to the right and kept us in right overtaking lane.

You would think they would program in the,3 and 4 second rule for driving distance between vehicles, apart the one meter between vehicles law should also be there.
My handbrake broke the other week and if the car behind had been within a meter and struck at the traffic lights , they would be unable to claim insurance!
Anyhow, I only rolled back 30 cm.
The one meter law applies because of stop start on hills, automatics can sometimes roll back on steep hills, not merely manual vehicles.
So don't forget, if you are within a meter behind the car in front, if it rolls back, it must use the whole meter to indemnify the vehicle behind!
Of Tesla, the industrial garbage bin at the Ricketty st repair shop in Mascot is full of Tesla bumpers. What did it , I don't know.
NB the other reason for the meter law is because manuals can stall at green lights, so the car behind needs to leave itself space to understand to stop itself.
Just another point on that, Martin Bryant's IQ is on the border line level of test as a retard, take it or leave it he could lived in an institution, but he was aka able to drive properly for most of the point.
Makes you wonder!
Small trucks are something to stay back from, e.g. 3 or 4 tonne GVM with a compartment on the back, you cannot see a damn thing beyond them, same with mini bus , they require a six second gap because of weight and if fully loaded their ABS effect is slow when they need to brake suddenly for an accident in front of them. I've seen at least one accident of a car travelling behind such a truck where truck slammed on its brakes to halt for an accident occurred in front of it, because the effect is slow, the driver behind thought the truck just wanted to stop, went around the truck and slammed into the accident vehicles!

On your final point nicephotog in most States of Australia a dementia diagnosis is an instant loss of license. Not in WA they can keep their license.
My father had to to a PDA for other reasons and got through it even though he made several error, when I asked the instructor why, he said they only drive to shops and back so it was ok. Little did he know that my Dads other car was a high powered sports car.
It was a great battle to eventually convince my Dad to give up his license

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FormulaNova said..
Here I was, thinking that fully self driving cars are not going to be bad because they would back off a decent distance and not tailgate. Nope. It seems that these things are happy to sit up behind another car, probably too close.

www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/tesla-fully-selfdriving-supervised-finally-arrives-in-australia/news-story/168f300b144596373e3461ac3a18daf8

What are we going to see now? Teslas tailgating and then stopping so well that the next sucker behind them hits them? Time to start a business selling Tesla rear bumpers.

I guess it makes sense. Tailgating is across all car brands so why should Tesla discourage it and annoy their owners too. Rangers can't be the only cars to do it.

There is a YT video of a fella who takes a Tesla for a self driving test through Brisbane and out to a Bunnings carpark. The Tesla at times was confused, late with required lane changes, attempted to do an illegal turn across an intersection, did not recognise some speed limit signs, and nicely chopped up a motorbike at a roundabout. Seemed to me the Tesla drove just like a human already.

As for Rangers and their reputation, I had thought it was just a confirmation bias thing because there are so many of them. But I am really starting to wonder now whether it's the driver's seating position, sight-lines or something technical that makes it hard for the driver to see a smaller car.

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Mr Milk said..
Self driving where you have to be ready to take over at a moment's notice is probably more dangerous than normal driving. You won't be performing all those habitual actions, so it will require a conscious effort to keep your eyes on the road just in case something goes wrong.
You're being your own backseat driver.

Agree.

Even if you're fully attentive, you'll be hesitating on taking action waiting for it to stop itself. There goes those split seconds you need to stop in time.

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IanR said..
On your final point nicephotog in most States of Australia a dementia diagnosis is an instant loss of license. Not in WA they can keep their license.
My father had to to a PDA for other reasons and got through it even though he made several error, when I asked the instructor why, he said they only drive to shops and back so it was ok. Little did he know that my Dads other car was a high powered sports car.
It was a great battle to eventually convince my Dad to give up his license

Its Interesting, mums gone, dad hasn't driven for around five years, his nickname was "Mr McGoo" because he wore extremely thick specs. Around 15 years back he had an eye operation to replace the lenses in both eyes and always wore special spectacle goggles to drive, he must been 93 or 94 when he stopped driving, I think he just didn't pass anymore on the outright medical, the last time he drove me to the railway station to go back to Sydney it took him around two minutes to be able to get into the car, I it's a little manual hatchback, he only quite handled it and I suggested he might want to get carers to drive him. It was still a year or so before he said he doesn't drive now.
Over around 70 the law now requires in NSW a full medical and driver test to continue, "something like that". Much tighter law.

Which brings me to a funny story on how useless aged care can get.
There was an old woman lived in thin terrace houses on a steep hill in the industrial streets of Sydney CBD I met when I was a teen in the 1980s, she was simply old at that time, couldn't move easily but could walk to the shops and carry her shopping bag. Quite some time I came back to Sydney and after twenty years l was walking up the hill in that street an noticed the terrace houses and remembered her and that was her house and she probably would be dead now by this time. The.paint was peeling on the windows, and the next door neighbour just walked out the door and noticed me staring at the house and said, "are you here to see her?" And I told her I had once met the old woman and asked who owns the house now. The neighbours answer was they had never met her , it was supposed to be an old woman lived there but they never met her and wondered if I was a relative.
The neighbour rented the next door (I don't think the other premises were occupied or related probably by strata title) and knew an old woman lived there and when enquiring the aged care said all her bank details including paying rates for the year were up to date.
There was no real garden at the front, just a front door and some small room windows.
The front door had a mailing slot for letters.
One day years later again I heard some people had gone to see about her front windows being in awful repair, it was in the mid late 2000s after both the droughts and recession had lifted and people began to paint and repair buildings.
They decided from the Tennant's next door to get a welfare check and with police broke open the front door and found a hallway full of letters piled up to the door mail slot hatch.
Inside everything was as it should be and upstairs they found the old woman's skeleton in the bed she may been dead for around ten or twenty years while her bank had auto pay ticking over on all the essentials to not be bothered.
It's like having a pay as you go grave!
Never mind senator Pyne and students paying after death, that all seems like another government debt perversion!
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Not sure if this is part of that story (back story of it) but, charity would collect the parcels for old people as volunteers, put them on a shelf like a pigeon hole or warehouse shelf, and would come in , look at the list, pick up the parcels , go round, nowhere to leave the parcels and the person is obviously not in, re shelf them, next day or next week, new volunteer workers, knows nothing much , just samaratin, same thing, another parcel article collected from the post office once or twice a year, onto the shelf to be delivered, new volunteers again, look on the list ....
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