How ironic. An engineer, from Apple, who is probably involved in aspects of automation, including possibly the automobile, acting like an automaton, playing video games as his “self driving” auto slams him into a cement barricade, without ever braking. Wow!
auto = self/same
Hard Hit Into BarricadeMarketWatch
The National Transportation Safety Board says the driver of a Tesla SUV who died in a Silicon Valley crash two years ago was playing a videogame on his smartphone at the time.Chairman Robert Sumwalt said at the start of a hearing Tuesday that partially automated driving systems like Tesla’s Autopilot cannot drive themselves. Yet he says drivers continue to use them without paying attention. He says the board made recommendations to six automobile makers in 2017 to stop the problem and only Tesla TSLA, -1.11% has failed to respond.“If you own a car with partial automation, you do not own a self-driving car,” Sumwalt said in opening statements. “This means that when driving in the supposed ‘self-driving’ mode, you can’t read a book, you can’t watch a movie or TV show, you can’t text and you can’t play video games.”
Surely the Apple engineer should have understood that!
The March 2018 crash involving a Tesla Model X SUV killed Apple AAPL, -0.04% engineer Walter Huang when it swerved and slammed into a concrete barrier dividing freeway and exit lanes. Just before the crash, the Tesla steered to the left into a paved area between the freeway travel lanes and an exit ramp, the NTSB said. It crashed into the end of the concrete barrier. The car’s forward collision didn’t alert Huang, and its automatic emergency braking did not activate, the NTSB said.Huang did not brake, and there was no steering movement detected to avoid the crash, the board’s staff said.
Apple engineer Huang did not brake and made no effort to steer the car. None at all.
NTSB investigators previously found that Tesla’s system became confused at a freeway exit and was a factor in the crash. Documents released earlier this month quoted Huang’s relatives as saying Huang had previously complained about Autopilot malfunctioning and swerving in the area near where crash occurred.
So Huang had knowledge that there were issues with the car, in this specific area and yet the automaton sits there playing a game on his smart phone? Clearly “smart phones” and dumb people go hand in hand.
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