this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago (4 children)

It will be litigated almost immediately. There is no current combination of model and hardware platform that a car could reasonably run that could be called "fully self driving" at any useful speed. This thing sounds like parking assist on steroids maybe, or "stalled traffic assist". They will be sued.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago

Did you read the article? There are already plenty of conditions for activating the self driving mode.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There's tons of conditions

when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on spec ific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control.

I doubt this is a mistake, they must have really high confidence in the tech as well as with the restrictions, not even Tesla had the balls to announce that you could drive distracted.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

not even Tesla had the balls to announce that you could drive distracted.

That's the difference between Level 2 and Level 3 full self driving. Teslas are Level 2.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

That's what I'm saying, they could have called this a "Ultra advanced level 2" and avoided opening themselves up to a TON of liabilities. Once you start saying this is a level 3 system and you don't need to pay attention to the road with it, well, that shuts the door to many defenses they could use of it was "just" level 2 if something happens. So that means they must be really confident in their system

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I mean I disagree with most of what the person you're responding to is saying, but they are entering into a new stage of vehicular liability. By telling the driver they don't have to pay attention there is an implied transfer of liability.

It probably says somewhere in the terms of use that Mercedes isn't at fault or that you have to carry some special kind of insurance, and frankly computers have a pretty good shot at being better than your average human driver so they'll hopefully be easier to insure, but nevertheless, people on both sides of every accident for the first few years with this tech will sue. Any chance to squeeze a few milly out of a 100 billion dollar car company.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a39481699/what-happens-if-mercedes-drivepilot-causes-a-crash/

"Mercedes will accept full legal responsibility for the vehicle whenever Drive Pilot is active."

It will only activate if all the conditions are met, but not clear on how long the driver has to take over on deactivation before they stop accepting liability...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Sure, anyone can sue for any reason. That doesn’t mean that a case will be successful. I do agree with you that there if a transfer of liability, until the car tells the driver that manual intervention is needed. But also, this can be used on only specific roads, under specific weather and traffic conditions, I really don’t think it’s much to ask of a robot to do. It actually seems like a pretty boring level of autonomy.