Teslas’ habit of running on train tracks, has senators who demand an investigation, as if that is bad or something – Jalopnik

If you haven’t heard it yet, Teslas have the habit of running on train tracks while using their so -called “self -driving” software. That is also what those in the company call ‘a bad thing’. You know, because trains run on those traces, and when a train hits a car, it usually ends terribly. Of course Tesla’s “full self-driving” software is only a level 2 system and is unable to really drive self, but if you call something “completely self-driving”, people will believe the name. Now two senators are calling for an investigation, NBC News report.

Monday, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey and Senator Richard Blumenthal sent a letter On the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says:

Today we are writing to express a deep concern about the failure of the full self -driving (FSD) system from Tesla to safely detect and respond to the railway crossings. Despite earlier investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the Tesla system, FSD reportedly continues to pose a continuous threat to our public roads. Because collisions between trains and cars often cause significant fatalities and injuries, the failure of FSD creates a serious risk of a catastrophic crash. At NHTSA we urge to immediately start a formal investigation into this disturbing safety risk and to take all the necessary action to protect the public.

NHTSA has still not responded NBC News‘Request for a comment, but a few weeks ago, then the outlet published his research In Teslas that does not stop at railway crossings, the agency said: “We are aware of the incidents and have been in communication with the manufacturer.” And if that no longer gives you confidence that they are planning to do something about it, I don’t know what that will do.

For some reason, Nhtsa’s response was not enough for Markey or Blumenthal, which the NBC News Investigate in their letter, saying:

In the past year, a growing number of Tesla drivers have reported incidents in which vehicles equipped with FSD did not recognize or responded correctly to railway crossings. According to a study in September by NBC News, at least six Tesla owners almost experienced collections or crashes, while FSD was involved in or near train tracks.
Several of these incidents were documented with video certificate that the vehicle drove past warning signals, ignored active intersections or otherwise needed a sudden human intervention to prevent a disaster. … there is clearly something wrong with the functioning of Tesla’s FSD near train tracks.

The senators then went out directly Nhtsa and wrote:

The potential consequences of this type of failure in a railway crossing cannot be overestimated and require urgent action by NHTSA. … Unfortunately, NHTSA’s answer to the reports about railway crossings has been very insufficient so far, whereby the agency does nothing but acknowledge that it is aware of the incidents and that it is in contact with the manufacturer. The seriousness of these incidents justifies an immediately official investigation. The traveling public desperately needs a road safety agency that is aggressively investigating vehicle safety, not an agency on the steering machine.

Get it? Autopilot? Such as Tesla’s other software for drivers? Will Nhtsa really do something? That can still be seen.

When NBC News Speaked with experts in the industry, Tesla said that Tesla uses a “Black-Box AI model in which errors cannot even be explained easily, even by his makers” and explained that the electric automaker would probably not have spent enough time on training his model at railway crossings. Other evidence suggests that this is not the only serious safety problem that Tesla would not be important enough to train his software. Completely self -driving does not stop for school buses either.

In May, independent safety lawyer tests Dan O’Dowd’s Dawn project showed that not only the latest version of Tesla’s so-called “full self-driving” software did not stop for a school bus in every test that was going on, it was also about the KinderMannequin they used to simulate a child to simulate the street in the bus stop. The school bus had started his stopboard and flashes its lights, but the Tesla did not stop. Even worse, the system detected the child, but just didn’t think a child was worth stopping. From a legal point of view, you should stop for the bus in that situation, and you absolutely don’t have to run about children.

And it is not like Tesla only learned about this problem a few months ago. It has been a problem that the Dawn project has fueled for almost three years, starting with an advertisement on full pages in the New York Times, And in 2023 it even ran a super bowl advertisement. When I spoke with Dan O’Dowd a few months ago, he told me:

We saw that happen. We have repoded it again and again to ensure that it was real and it was real. And then we thought this would be a huge scandal, and we started publishing it. So we published it as one New York Times Full page advertisement and said: “This is going to create a huge scandal, and then they will have to repair it, right? Or they will have to pull it off the road, or they will do something about it.” But they didn’t. I mean … they didn’t do anything. And the government did not remember. The government did not test it.

Musk has still not learned his cars to stop for school buses. “He doesn’t care,” O’Dowd told me. “Empathy is not in his playbook. If it kills other people, it doesn’t matter. We are there.”