Why Do Teslas Keep Smashing Emergency Vehicles? (Warning: Graphic images in article)

[Dids]

If the measure of system working is 100% safety, it does not but if it is +1% Safer it MAY be working ( I don’t know how to measure that). The idea with emergency lights is to replace a highly unexpected situation with a somewhat unexpected situation. Chances are regardless of what level of incapacitated a driver is at, they would recognize a flashing light as something unexpected faster than seeing the bottom of a semi in middle of the road one time and a car pile up the next. It is entirely possible in a specific situation emergency responders make the situation less safe but if a study shows that is in fact the case for all incidents and you were running the show, would you shut down their operation and stop taking calls? Or keep running it and wait until someone figures out how to improve the system?

Now that our cars are quipped with incapacitometers and watching us all the time, can we trust them not to blame us for their own screwup?

I don't know but I suspect that common sense is the problem.
I imagine no one other than the sellers of flashing lights has ever done a study to determine if flashing lights actually help prevent people from driving into something.
I imagine that deference is given to the longtime police chief or fire chief on what they think is effective and that common sense says adding more lights makes it better. The typical person attracted to public service and advanced to leadership is probably not a scientist making them not likely the best choice for design of a safety system.
It is likely that less lights / less bright lights / less confusing lights would be more effective.
Some portion of humans have seizures induced by flashing / strobing lights. Instead of thinking of those people as aberrant it is likely that all humans are affected by strobing, maybe not to the point of seizure but they are affected.
Many animals / insects and birds are confused by light. It is likely humans are also but can brain process out of that confusion. If that brain processing is slowed in any way or they have long distance visibility of the target they can get surprised by the distance.
Anything over 200ft away is far away and it is not until it is within that range that distance judgement can begin.
Your best bet for avoiding something is it entering visibility at 200ft anything further out tells you it is far away. By the time you realize it's closing you have to slam on brakes.
FSD is going to be very helpful here!

 

[Diehard]

I don't know but I suspect that common sense is the problem.
I imagine no one other than the sellers of flashing lights has ever done a study to determine if flashing lights actually help prevent people from driving into something.
I imagine that deference is given to the longtime police chief or fire chief on what they think is effective and that common sense says adding more lights makes it better. The typical person attracted to public service and advanced to leadership is probably not a scientist making them not likely the best choice for design of a safety system.
It is likely that less lights / less bright lights / less confusing lights would be more effective.
Some portion of humans have seizures induced by flashing / strobing lights. Instead of thinking of those people as aberrant it is likely that all humans are affected by strobing, maybe not to the point of seizure but they are affected.
Many animals / insects and birds are confused by light. It is likely humans are also but can brain process out of that confusion. If that brain processing is slowed in any way or they have long distance visibility of the target they can get surprised by the distance.
Anything over 200ft away is far away and it is not until it is within that range that distance judgement can begin.
Your best bet for avoiding something is it entering visibility at 200ft anything further out tells you it is far away. By the time you realize it's closing you have to slam on brakes.
FSD is going to be very helpful here!

If I was conducting a study, I would place a VMS (variable message sign) quarter of a mile ahead with a message like “caution, half naked supermodels flashing ahead” and try to see how it compares to flashing lights in alerting the drivers.

I take suggestions for the VMS message for my study.

 

[SwampNut]

I imagine no one other than the sellers of flashing lights has ever done a study to determine if flashing lights actually help prevent people from driving into something.

You are completely wrong on that, so now I imagine that everything else you've said is founded on equally incorrect assumptions?

Source: I ran a company that worked in DOT safety for a few years, and worked directly with safety engineers.

 

[Dids]

You are completely wrong on that, so now I imagine that everything else you've said is founded on equally incorrect assumptions?

Source: I ran a company that worked in DOT safety for a few years, and worked directly with safety engineers.

I believe DOT only uses blinking lights.... Some red lights have imbedded strobe.... Are you saying your DOT performed a study that showed things with flashing lights were hit less often than things without flashing lights?
What was the optimal amount of flashing lights?
Did they do it in a driving simulator so that the reaction time and eye tracking could be measured?
Did you sell flashing lights?

 

[SwampNut]

It wasn't "my DOT" I was working with multiple DOTs across the country. I don't know the specific results of the testing, just that I was there for presentations on the testing by various DOTs and third party industry organizations. I was involved in video systems for traffic management, nothing to do with lights. That's why I didn't bother to memorize their findings.

My only point is that it's been viewed by many agencies and third parties.

I have no idea what "DOT uses only blinking lights" means, this is in reference to what emergency vehicle lights should look like and do.

 

[Dids]

It wasn't "my DOT" I was working with multiple DOTs across the country. I don't know the specific results of the testing, just that I was there for presentations on the testing by various DOTs and third party industry organizations. I was involved in video systems for traffic management, nothing to do with lights. That's why I didn't bother to memorize their findings.

My only point is that it's been viewed by many agencies and third parties.

I have no idea what "DOT uses only blinking lights" means, this is in reference to what emergency vehicle lights should look like and do.

This is the source I used for my info. They claim no standard exists for emergency vehicles. And they argue a standard would help.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...8QFnoECBsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2oivwpqRU3uAwDufQeH8td

 

[SwampNut]

I had no idea that your claim that nobody has done a study actually meant that there's not a national standard.

 

[Dids]

I had no idea that your claim that nobody has done a study actually meant that there's not a national standard.

I didn't actually say no one has done a study... I said probably no one outside the people that sell things have.... Indeed the report I linked isn't a study at all.. it just reports on what other people have done.
The air force and the army have done human factors studies on cognitive load on heads up displays and discovered that too much information quickly slows down reaction time and that was in healthy subjects that were in their 20s. Add in impairedment such as slow thinkers or aged slow thinkers, drugs, malnutrition etc and it is pretty easy to overload cognitive ability.

 

[Ogre]

I havent assumed anything. Ive already acknowledged that there was a chance ap/ fsd was not engaged.

My reply was to a big fat assumption on your part. I quoted it right there so there was no doubt what assumption I was referring to.

 

[JCERRN]

My reply was to a big fat assumption on your part. I quoted it right there so there was no doubt what assumption I was referring to.

Im not sure what you are referring to.

 

[Ogre]

Im not sure what you are referring to.

Every post you’ve made assumes there is something that actually needs to be fixed.

“Well it doesn’t matter how many… there should be none”.

The obvious assumption there is that there are more than 1 which isn’t actually clear.

 

[JCERRN]

Every post you’ve made assumes there is something that actually needs to be fixed.

“Well it doesn’t matter how many… there should be none”.

The obvious assumption there is that there are more than 1 which isn’t actually clear.

Got ya.

 

[Zabhawkin]

An update.

 

[SwampNut]

They repeated everything was still unknown. No update, just another blathering hit piece.

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

AP screwed up on me today, and took me off guard. In its defense, it was a weird intersection where the lanes on the far side do not match the lanes on the side I was coming from. It has to do a jog inside the intersection, with no curve or warning in the lines. It tried to go from originating in the right lane to ending in the left. I caught it, but it really startled me.

In my defense, or in my admission of being a complete idiot, there was a really attractive and barely clothed woman crossing in the crosswalk and I was not looking straight ahead.

This was a predictable unpredictable, meaning if I knew about the jog I would have taken over to begin with. I had not been to that intersection before.

AP is not designed for city street use.