Tesla FSD drives down railroad tracks, gets hit by train

[Zoidz]

FSD is much safer than a human driver

This happened not too far from where I live. It could have been much worse. The passengers got out before the car got minimally sideswiped by a train. If the Tesla had driven on the other track a few minutes later….

SINKING SPRING BORO., Pa. - Western Berks Fire Commissioner Jared Renshaw said a Tesla was in self-driving mode when it made a left at a railroad crossing.

He said it happened on South Hull Street in Sinking Spring around 5:30 a.m. Saturday.

"Went down the tracks approximately 40-50 feet. They all exited the vehicle, got their belongings out," said Commissioner Renshaw.

He said a train came and hit the vehicle a few minutes later.

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[Joules Burn]

Glad everyone got out in time!

Something must have derailed its train of thought.

 

[cardad]

To be fair that is a HW3 vehicle that is constrained to an earlier version of FSD than HW4 vehicles. So you may wish to understand there are rather large differences in performance between v12 HW3 and v13 HW4 versions and even between v12 and v13 iterations.

You can’t even compare it to what Rivian has because they’re not even playing the same game at this stage. Driving my gen 1 Rivian feels like driving an ICE TBH. It’s quaint and interesting with no more promises of future updates forthcoming.

There are plenty of people using FSD these days with little to no drama even if it still demands regular attention. I can attest it is far safer than any other system I’ve ever used.

 

[captainjp]

To be fair that is a HW3 vehicle that is constrained to an earlier version of FSD than HW4 vehicles. So you may wish to understand there are rather large differences in performance between v12 HW3 and v13 HW4 versions and even between v12 and v13 iterations.

You can’t even compare it to what Rivian has because they’re not even playing the same game at this stage. Driving my gen 1 Rivian feels like driving an ICE TBH. It’s quaint and interesting with no more promises of future updates forthcoming.

There are plenty of people using FSD these days with little to no drama even if it still demands regular attention. I can attest it is far safer than any other system I’ve ever used.

Sure. However, I don’t think I’ve ever read about or heard of any other brand of vehicle that’s had accidents or close calls of this type. Regardless of the HW version, these vehicles (likely in the millions) are still on the road operating under these HW constraints. Ok, so if the burden is on the driver to know the limitations, how is this solved? There is no campaign to upgrade the HW on these vehicles because that would be absurdly expensive.

 

[oskeei]

Driving my gen 1 Rivian feels like driving an ICE TBH. It’s quaint and interesting with no more promises of future updates forthcoming.

Having inherited a HW4 MY with FSD earlier this year, the MY feels closer to my ICE then then my G1 S IMO in terms of ride feel and handling. If you are refering to software and technology, the MY is more refined. The FSD is cool, but I've experienced multiple instances of phantom braking (on local and highway) in the 2 months we've had it gives me no faith in FSD.

 

[DuoRivian]

Even if the FSD took the vehicle there what was the driver doing. They should not be absolved of being negligent.

 

[Egen]

There have been a number of embarrassing accidents where the driver claims to have been using FSD and it later to be debunked.

This smells fishy, how could they let the car drive 40-50 feet on a railroad track? Imagine how bumpy driving even 10 feet of railroad track would have been.

 

[Zoidz]

There have been a number of embarrassing accidents where the driver claims to have been using FSD and it later to be debunked.

This smells fishy, how could they let the car drive 40-50 feet on a railroad track? Imagine how bumpy driving even 10 feet of railroad track would have been.

Let's assume that the vehicle made the turn at 15 mph. That's 22 feet per second. If the driver was not paying attention in the turn and realized it on the first rough bump (and potentially the vehicle was accelerating at that point after the turn), 40 feet is less than 2 seconds to react and bring the car to a stop. Completely plausible.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Even if the FSD took the vehicle there what was the driver doing. They should not be absolved of being negligent.

As I mentioned in a previous thread, the primary purpose of ADAS systems is to alleviate some of the driver's workload. When using them, people will pay less attention than they would if they were driving. That fact gives us accidents like this one, where it's easy to point fingers at the driver after the fact, but it doesn't do us any good to avoid accidents like this one.

Many of these issues happened when GPS first came into the picture, and still does with GPS. Human drivers trusting the computer more than they trust their own judgement leads to scenarios like this one, which is why FDS isn't safe for driving on the roads.

To be fair that is a HW3 vehicle that is constrained to an earlier version of FSD than HW4 vehicles. So you may wish to understand there are rather large differences in performance between v12 HW3 and v13 HW4 versions and even between v12 and v13 iterations.

You can’t even compare it to what Rivian has because they’re not even playing the same game at this stage. Driving my gen 1 Rivian feels like driving an ICE TBH. It’s quaint and interesting with no more promises of future updates forthcoming.

There are plenty of people using FSD these days with little to no drama even if it still demands regular attention. I can attest it is far safer than any other system I’ve ever used.

I don't want to hear about versions or nonsense like that. The fact of the matter is the version that caused this accident is called Full Self Drive and was marketed as being a safe driving assistant on public roads. It is NOT safe, and should be recalled. The fact that it isn't makes me not trust ANY version of this software because behavior like this is seen as acceptable.

 

[Great Gatsby]

Yeah not sure I buy this. At what point do you, and your family, decide to let the car drive you onto an oncoming train? And then have time to get out, get your stuff, and watch the crash happen?

Sounds like typical anti-Tesla propaganda. They have a lot that can complained about already, we don't have to be out here making stuff up.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Yeah not sure I buy this. At what point do you, and your family, decide to let the car drive you onto an oncoming train? And then have time to get out, get your stuff, and watch the crash happen?

Sounds like typical anti-Tesla propaganda. They have a lot that can complained about already, we don't have to be out here making stuff up.

So your theory is that someone intentionally drove onto train tracks to make Tesla look bad? That is a ridiculous assertion and is far less likely to have happened than a FSD mistake.

 

[Zoidz]

Yeah not sure I buy this. At what point do you, and your family, decide to let the car drive you onto an oncoming train? And then have time to get out, get your stuff, and watch the crash happen?

Sounds like typical anti-Tesla propaganda. They have a lot that can complained about already, we don't have to be out here making stuff up.

So your theory is that someone intentionally drove onto train tracks to make Tesla look bad? That is a ridiculous assertion and is far less likely to have happened than a FSD mistake.

And that the police and fire chief were in on the anti-Tesla propaganda and made a false incident report.

Right.

 

[Great Gatsby]

So your theory is that someone intentionally drove onto train tracks to make Tesla look bad? That is a ridiculous assertion and is far less likely to have happened than a FSD mistake.

Just sounds a bit staged. Could have been what happened, but we can blame FSD all day long but also doesn't change the fact that the human behavior here doesn't seem to have an ounce of logic either.

 

[Great Gatsby]

And that the fire chief was in on the anti-Tesla propaganda and made a false incident report.

Right.

The fire chief probably just went with what they were told. Highly doubt they went into the vehicle and did the analytics to confirm it was in self driving when this happened.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Could have been what happened, but we can blame FSD all day long but also doesn't change the fact that the human behavior here doesn't seem to have an ounce of logic either.

I agree, but I think we're talking about different humans.

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