Tesla has just been found liable for the death of one person and the severe injury of another after one of its “self driving” cars ran over and killed a couple back in 2019. Twenty-two-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, were out watching the night sky by the side of the road when the “self-driving” Tesla ran them down, killing Leon and almost killing Angulo. A Florida jury has ordered Tesla to pay the victims $243 million in damages.
There are several interesting things about the case, the first thing being that – somehow – Tesla “lost” the video recording of the crash and also the data stream recorded by the car. A “mistake” was made, Tesla claimed. The same kind of mistake that was made the night Epstein didn’t kill himself, probably.
The more interesting thing, however, is the liability precedent that has – at last – been set. Tesla has until now wriggled out of liability for the other crashes that have happened when a “self-driving” Tesla ran into something or someone by pointing out that it has always made it clear that the driver must “pay constant attention” and “be prepared to act immediately” at all times when the self-driving system is engaged – so as to be able to apply the brakes or steer when the tech fails to recognize/react to another vehicle (or person) in the path of the vehicle.
The italics are there to point out the hypocrisy of Tesla.
One the one hand, the company touts the capability of its cars to drive themselves. It is one of the major “sells” used to persuade people to buy a Tesla. Not said – but very obviously implied – is that the driver can offload responsibility for driving the car. He can take a snooze while the car drives him to whatever destination has been entered into the system. He can text a friend, maybe get some work done.
It’s the whole point of “self driving.”
Put another way, if the driver – per Tesla – must “pay constant attention” and “be prepared to act immediately” at all times then there is no point to the thing, except as a gimmick. If you must keep your eyes on the road at all times and be ready to steer or brake to avoid running into something (or someone) then you are still effectively the driver, even if your hands aren’t actually on the wheel at the moment.
Tesla has encouraged people to believe it isn’t a gimmick.
The lawyer-ese about “be(ing) prepared to act immediately” is exactly that. Everyone knows the score. Wink, wink. Kind of like the old Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy that allowed homosexuals to serve in the military provided they weren’t openly blatant about it. The whole point of the thing was to let homosexuals openly serve in the military.
The Florida jury’s decision sets a new standard that seems to be based upon fitness for use, which is a legal term that basically means the buyer gets what the seller advertised. That it is “suitable for a specific use or need.” The specifically advertised use or need. For example, if you buy hammer, the assumption is that it can be used to hammer nails. Implicit in this assumption is that it is safe to use the hammer to hammer nails. If the hammer’s head comes off while you’re hammering nails – and maybe hits you in the face – the liable party is obvious. 
Tesla markets its “self driving” tech as being fit for use and implicit in that is that it is safe to use. Assuming -paradoxically – that the driver is “prepared to act immediately” and “paying constant attention” at all times – even though everyone understands the system encourages precisely the opposite.
The Florida jury apparently called bullshit on that.
The driver (sic) of the “self driving” Tesla was busy texting when the car ran down the young couple, Tesla’s lawyers whined. Of course. Why not? The idea that the person in the left seat of a “self-driving” Tesla ought to be “paying constant attention” and “prepared to act immediately” – i.e., not texting or sleeping – is as fatuous as the warning label on the box the catalytic converter “test pipe” came in that it is for “testing” and “off-road” use only.
Everyone who bought one of those things knew exactly what they were buying and what for. It wasn’t to “test” the converter. It was to replace it with a hollow section of pipe, which is what a “test pipe” was.
In the Tesla case, people thought they were buying a car that could drive itself. And they used it to do just that.
Astoundingly, Tesla says the jury’s judgment “only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement lifesaving technology.”
Italics added.
“Lifesaving technology” that takes life. Specifically, the lives of people who didn’t choose to avail themselves of this “technology” but rather had it forced on them. More finely, had the consequences of other people’s choices imposed upon them. The young couple that was out watching the evening stars wasn’t even driving. But they did get driven over. By a driver (sic) who was encouraged to believe he didn’t need to be driving because his car was safe to drive itself when it obviously wasn’t.
Tesla’s lawyers say the driver – who clearly was not paying any attention at all and wasn’t “prepared to act immediately” – “admitted and accepted responsibility.” Good on him for having a conscience.
When will Tesla grow one?
Never, of course.
Because were it to do that, it would undermine the main “sell” it has. Take away “self driving” – as in the car actually being fit for that use and safe for the driver to go to sleep or text – and all you’re left with is another gimmick and another device and that is a harder sell.
. . .
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Some commentators here seem to think that the $243 million judgement against Tesla is ‘disproportionate’.
But is it really?
There are videos of Elon around, from about 2017, where he blatantly promises ‘your Tesla to drive fully autonomously from LA to NYC to pick you up’ – any time now.
You will, according to him, be able to have your Tesla drive passengers around as a fully autonomous robotaxi, while you’re at work, thus ‘increasing the car’s value dramatically’.
Musk has been selling outright vaporware for pretty much all of his career.
If I recall correctly, the ‘FSD’ cost has ranged between $10-15K and it has been ‘almost ready’ for a decade. Tesla fanbois have been paying up and hoping all that time, with numerous accidents, some even fatal, and zero action from the ‘regulators’.
Same with the Roadster, or the Semi.
Same with the ‘cheap flights to Mars by 2025’ etc, relating to SpaceX, where billions of taxpayer dollars have been literally vaporized, with little to show for it.
Same with the ‘Hyperloop’. And the ‘Optimus’, and his ‘AI’, and his ‘Neuralink’, where quadruplegics will soon be walking around, allegedly.
The guy is a blatant BS artist and in my opinion, the $243 million, which will not be paid anyway, is just the tip of a really big iceberg that he should be impaled on.
Be patient, Musk will one day be on an ice floe that will eventually melt into the Atlantic waters.
All of those billions won’t save Elon from those last four breaths.
Say a prayer for Elon and for the rest of us.
And I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
And you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah, you bleed just to know you’re alive – Goo Goo Dolls, Iris
Morning, Drump!
My sense of things – which may of course be off – is that Musk has jumped the shark. He’s getting old and flabby and his appeal to The Youth is fading fast.
A quick check of Monroe County property records doesn’t show George McGee (driver) as a local homeowner, but, like I said, it was a quick check.
Stargazing? Ok. Sure.
Slightly off subject, but rather interesting.
https://maritime-executive.com/article/matson-suspends-shipping-evs-citing-hazards-of-lithium-ion-batteries
Elon is going to use the *process* to reduce the judgement. He will appeal to the Florida Supreme Court then to the Federal 11Th Circuit Court which will tie up the settlement for another 5 years. All they while it will be: “are you willing to take $5MM to settle?”
Regarding high dollar court judgements…
I would take high $ court judgements over government oversight and regulation any day. It certainly is a motivator for corporate malfeasance vs we were just following the rules and blame the rules because the rules were bad.
Oh, no doubt.
But even the *possibility* f losing large amounts of money keeps these guys up at night.
Liability is basically the only reason any company gives a hoot about anyone’s safety.
This is not perfect, but it’s a good development.
Hi Publius,
A good example back in the day of money talks and rules bock was with a company I use to work for building high rise buildings. The company safety policy with the Iron Workers was *be careful* and the crane is yours; it’s your show and *good luck*. An Ironworker was killed doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Both the family and, believe or not, the *Union* sued the general contractor. The argument my company made in court was this was totally within the Iron Erectors control and not their responsibility. The Judge declared that the General Contractor had an “undeletable” responsibility to the safety of the project and therefore is liable. So, the Union got mandatory fall protection and 100% tie-off to which the Union then complained this was affecting their productivity and did not want to comply but ultimately accepted this situation.
The moral…the monetary loss (not government regulation) drove the decision to require higher safety. This isn’t always the case but often is.
The fact that this incident took SIX YEARS to resolve tells me all I need to know.
As Elon laughs at its moronic minions.
I think this is pretty much correct.
If you are driving, you are responsible for what happens. If the car is driving, the manufacturer of either the car, the self-driving module, or whoever wrote the software is responsible — maybe they share responsibility, depending on what failed or broke.
The only unfortunate thing I see here, is is they in this case the liable party (as usual) has the deepest pockets, which fact slightly undermines the decision. In this are I think they’re liable because they’re liable and they made false/misleading claims about the actual capabilities of the product. But people will think it’s because they had the deepest pockets.
This is no reason for celebration. It is another win for the communist lawyers, where someone tries something new, or to sell something people want, and are crushed by an outrageous legal penalty. Legally, it is another awful precedent.
In what universe is a $200 million settlement reasonable? The lifetime work value of a couple of average folks would be a couple of million. A 10 or 20 million dollar judgement would be sufficiently punitive to deter negligence. It is harsh, and not nice to say, but it is also the truth.
And the driver of the Tesla is certainly the responsible party. As much because he used the “ autopilot”, as if he had used the steering wheel to turn to run over those people. This is another awful precedent and another blow against our freedoms.
Hi Ernie,
The issue you raise of proportionality is valid. It is difficult. The concept here, I think, is one of deterrence (of corporate action) rather than a case of damages based upon loss. If the judgment had been based entirely upon the latter, the sum would probably have been no more than a few million at most, a reasonable estimate of the lifetime lost earnings of two people in their 20s. But would a judgment of say $4 million have exerted any meaningful deterrent effect on Tesla?
My own take on this story is that the driver is ultimately responsible for driving; anything that offloads that is encouraging irresponsible driving. People who don’t want to drive should be passengers.
“People who don’t want to drive should be passengers.” – Eric.
Exactly! Take a taxi, Uber, Lyft, the bus, whatever. The idea that an automated vehicle can deliver you anywhere with no human oversight needs to be curb stomped for good.
More or less what I was thinking, too. I’m not interested in a car that drives itself, I mean that’s what a taxi or bus is for really. Musk is a slick showman and Tesla is obviously a gub’ment grift between EV tax breaks and carbon credits.
But the idea behind driving technology assisting you isn’t meritless. We all get distracted (seriously, who doesn’t change the radio station at least?) and can’t look in 360 degrees at once. Even the most focused driver will have blind spots. So a car that can watch for a deer or anticipate an accident would be beneficial.
But we’re in clown world with ridiculous judgements (this benefit the lawyers, Tesla will appeal, the fine reduced, no one will learn anything except to write a more robust disclaimer) and true innovation is lost in a sea of useless noise.
Hi Kyle,
I have always though the best driver is the one most actively driving. This includes maintaining situational awareness, such as watching for deer. I think that relying on technology to handle such things inevitably encourages more passive-inattentive driving. I have driven many cars made before the “modern” era – meaning, cars made before the 1960s. They require much more from the driver and I think that is inherently better than expecting less.
It’s not an attack on your abilities. I’m sure you’re an excellent driver. We all have our limits, though. There were plenty of accidents when people were expected to be more involved drivers.
I hit a deer at speed on the highway when I was looking down the pavement for an opportunity to pass. It was only maybe 5 seconds change of focus. I don’t know if a self driving car could have reacted either but maybe having IR it’s conceivable a machine could have been warned of the signature of something in the vegetation long before it came into my peripheral view. Is it so offensive to consider a simple beeping to alert to something might be a good use of technology? I’m not asking for AI to drive a car on track day.
I was able to swerve in a way that it clipped me instead of going into my windshield. I constantly anticipate it could happen, just I’m not super human driver enough to actually have equal attention on two important things at once. I was more worried about passing than watching for deer at that moment and it happened to be the wrong time to do that. Bang-bang play, as the sports ball people would say.
I agree with all of that, Kyle –
I’d only add that technology isn’t infallible because neither are the humans who create it. So it comes down to – among others things – who is responsible? I’d rather it be me than technology. Most of all, I do not want technology to be mandated or in any way imposed on people. Wheelchairs and walkers are wonderful to have if you need them; if you don’t, they’re superfluous. If they’re pushed on you, they’re obnoxious!
ADAS large animal detection is a crock of 💩.
Volvo has a system and it is no where near as capable as you envision it.
Here are Volvo’s own disclaimers:
The function is supplementary driver support, but it cannot detect all large animals in all situations and, for example, cannot see:
partially obscured large animals.
larger animals seen from the front or from behind.
large animals that run or move quickly.
large animals if the background contrast for the animals is poor.
small animals such as dogs and cats, for example.
Warnings and brake interventions could be late or not occur at all. The driver is always responsible that the vehicle is driven correctly and with a safety distance adapted to the speed.
I won’t even get into how it can’t detect Camels in Gulf Coast markets or Kangaroos in Australia.
And of course we all know here in North America those deer don’t run or move quickly – ROTFL
At night when I drive down country roads, the speed is less than 50 mph.
Too many deer running wild after sunset, twilight is the worst time to see a deer, you basically can’t.
There is a video on YouTube of kangaroos jumping on an outdoor trampoline, taking turns, even.
Yeah, I love cruise control because it eases driving fatigue and allows me to set a just right speed a little over the posted limit but not enough to get attacked by enforcers. Autopilot should be like that. If you set your cruise control on 70 in a school zone and plow through a crosswalk full of kids, is it the car maker’s fault?
If the car did exactly what you told it to do, you are responsible.
If the car did not do exactly what you told it, was it because something broke? If yes, then did it break because it was faulty, or because you failed to maintain it properly. If no, then it was a design defect. This would include self-driving, although I wild argue that there could be some grey area depending on how much time has elapsed between putting it in self-driving mode & the accident — basically I’m allowing for some level of possible driver liability if self-driving mode was engaged under conditions it clearly should not have been, and an accident resulted from that fairly immediately. Failure to intervene after having been lulled into a false sense of security, that’s a problem with the self-driving system because humans don’t work that way.
The pound of flesh will be extracted from the rate payers who buy auto insurance. You must pay to be a victim, you know.
Musk will feel no financial pain.
Who is responsible?
Didn’t dotgov give the regulatory okay?
Grant the indulgence for what? For one reason only, to make money, not to keep anyone safe.
Dotgov must pay.
Call Temple Grandin, she can figure it out.
Turn off the self-driving technology, trash it, it doesn’t work.
The problem I see with self driving is that I don’t think it can deal with all the variables that it would have to deal with to actually work as advertised. Even if it could I suspect most people couldn’t afford to own a car with it. Sure if everyone from motorists to pedestrians and cyclists obeyed every rule and regulation it might have a chance of working most of the time and then you wake up.
You could almost say it has of much chance of working as a Constitution written for a homogeneous Christian populace does for a country overrun by illegal aliens, satanists and barbarians. Either way we’re living in “fun” times.
Although if it could be made to work at an affordable price I could see a market in the elderly population that no longer can legally drive and yet is still living at home but has no desire to take taxis or buses.
If used by an intelligent person it could in fact have a place. The place where full self driving makes some sense is out where I am, with hundreds of miles of sparsely trafficked, wide open roads with under posted speed limits. Where it’s tolerably safe to motor down the road surfing the web, texting, and generally doing everything but driving.
Unfortunately the Teslarati, who smugly believe themselves a superior class, use it in cities and traffic, in places where the equation has essentially infinite variables, and there is no safe solution other than staying sharply aware with your head on a swivel.
The model is aircraft auto pilot. These started out like car cruise controls, just hold the controls in place so you can let go for a while. They have morphed into assisting devices that make suggestions, watch for traffic and can follow fairly complex navigational patterns. They can’t do things that require human decision making since our brains don’t work like a digital computer. We’re not actually doing a million calculations instantly, it’s a decision tree of hormones and amino acids based on previous experiences and you still need two meat bags to fly a commercial airliner. It’s also why only hours in a seat or flight simulator can make good pilots and the auto pilot can’t be used for takeoff or landing. Just too much feeling out the situation for it to work smoothly and no amount of computing power can do in real time. If something fundamental changes a human can shift to a different decision flow chart based on similarity or experience. You can’t predict every possibility. You eventually run out of nines to the left of the decimal point and blue screen your algorithm, fall into your error routine. That’s when real people die instead of a human who intuits much quicker to pull the rip cord on the situation. It’s the humanity of understanding a value of life. You will be subconsciously looking for a least bad way out. A self driving car will necessarily reduce it to either-or. It can’t find a solution for an indefinite situational and emotional maybe.
This post and the 2 replies by Ernie and CaptJack are thus far the most level headed and thorough responses. No emotional spin because you have Elon, no giving him a pass either because he is “innovating”. Which he is BTW, but -we- the public should not be in danger during this innovation phase w/o signing up for it.
Unlike I think every other poster here I have driven hundreds of -actual- miles with both “Enhanced Autopilot” and “Full Self Driving” engaged. These 3 posts capture the problem in technicolor.
On open highways with light traffic it 100% works as what is on the label for all the reasons stated. Small amount of variables, large open spaces, etc. In a congested city it is like putting a super anxious twitchy rookie teenage driver behind the wheel.
It is actually such a scary experience I cannot understand how someone who isn’t a borderline retard themselves could EVER trust these systems. I have witnessed FSD in particular do absolutely bonkers stuff including cutting across 3 lanes of traffic. STOPPING for no good reason in flowing traffic, mercifully, at low speed. And other assorted f-ckery that you’d see the most nervous teen driver doing in a panic.
You’d have to be insane to trust these systems with your life, they make a LOT of mistakes, and during driving those mistakes can bring severe injury or death. The newer hardware Tesla uses and latest system is exponentially better than the ones from even 5 years ago but again.
This stuff should be tested in limited rollout or on private roads NOT unleashed on the unsuspecting public as millions of Tesla drivers are the unpaid ‘beta testers’ and you, the public, are the test subjects who may receive the brunt of an “unscheduled spontaneous rapid disassembly” as Elon himself likes to joke about when his rockets like to explode every now and then…
This is a lawyers wet dream akin to the tobacco settlement, asbestos settlement, etc.
The question is which lobby has more purchasing power over local, state, and federal politicians?
Aviation autopilots have been around for about 70 years (much longer if you count gyro stabilization systems). The established “pilot in command” protocols mean that ultimately the pilot (captain) is responsible for safe operation of the aircraft. Autopilots aren’t responsible and the pilots must be ready to take control at any sign of trouble. In practice, at cruising altitude and speed it is highly unlikely a pilot could keep a level and steady flight manually. At most they will enter course corrections into the autopilot which will gently and smoothly execute the maneuver.
Of course there’s very little to hit in the stratosphere.
It takes years of training to be a commercial pilot. The washout rate is very high, with good reason. There’s a temperament requirement that borders on OCD and hypervigilance, maintaining a very high level of situational awareness which most people would find mentally challenging. A few minutes spent with the salesman “demonstrating” Tesla’s autopilot to a virtue signaling mask wearer is nothing compared to training a pilot.
Of course the operation of a commercial airliner still has plenty of tasks to fill the crew’s time while the autopilot is engaged. Driving a car? Not really. And while the degree of difficulty is much lower, on streets and highways the number of random occurrences is off the charts compared to the highly controlled airspace.
So basically if you want self-driving cars, you need better drivers first.
Hi Ready.
For a similar reason I see flying cars as a very remote possibility based on the rolling piles of scrap metal I see navigating the roads. Just imagine them flying overhead with parts falling off on a windy day!
The “flying car” is going to be piloted by someone on the ground. It will be more like a flying taxi, or in the case of the military (the real customers for the things), a flying ambulance.
From the linked article:
‘The decision ends a four-year long case remarkable not just in its outcome but that it even made it to trial. Many similar cases against Tesla have been dismissed and, when that didn’t happen, settled by the company to avoid the spotlight of a trial.
“This will open the floodgates,” said Miguel Custodio, a car crash lawyer not involved in the Tesla case. “It will embolden a lot of people to come to court.”
What are we reminded of here? Another bit of history that few people under 50 know about — Big Tobacco’s amazing track record in the mid-20th century of preventing lung cancer lawsuits from reaching trial, while keeping government regulators off their backs.
The first crack in Big Tobacco’s armor came in 1964, when US Surgeon General Luther Terry released a landmark report that definitively linked cigarette smoking to lung cancer and other serious health problems. But the final debacle didn’t come until 1998, when the Clinton Justice Department’s antitrust lawyer ‘Joel Klein’ presided over a Master Settlement Agreement that compensated the states as alleged victims, when they had been willing partners in the tobacco biz all along as they taxed it.
‘Klein’ spoke sanctimoniously of ‘helping sick smokers,’ when everyone knew that the states would [and did] use the tobacco settlement funds for everything but helping wheezing victims. They were regarded as social lepers who should stand outside in the rain to indulge in their filthy, now uncool habit.
Circling back to Big Tech, though, a future surgeon general may find that social media is injurious to health. This is already well substantiated with data on increased suicides among social media-using teens, and some adult cohorts too.
Imagine a new Master Settlement Agreement that cripples Big Tech oligopolies such as Facebook and Google with crushing taxes, while restricting the spread of their electronic poison. An annex to the agreement certainly should cover fake, gay and dangerous ‘self-driving’ tech as well.
Beware, tech lords: we are legion. And we are coming for you.
“But the final debacle didn’t come until 1998, when the Clinton Justice Department’s antitrust lawyer ‘Joel Klein’ presided over a Master Settlement Agreement that compensated the states as alleged victims, .when they had been willing partners in the tobacco biz all along as they taxed it.”
((Joel Klein)) Noticing is so tiresome. .
Off topic, but the big tobacco settlement stands out for another reason: The states decided to not wait for the payments to come and instead borrowed against future payouts to get all the money at once. Since the payments were based on tobacco sales, when smoking fell out of favor they (taxpayers) were on the hook for the bonds. And only about 3% (Wikipedia) of the funds were actually used for smoking prevention programs.
I remember Rush Limbaugh being the only media coverage of how the states were spending the money. No one in the mainstream, not even the “national treasure” NPR, reported how the states’ creative financing managed to blow up when people quit smoking (which was the goal of the settlement to begin with). I had to find out from bloggers like Mish Shedlock. The whole story taught me a lot about the collective intelligence of your average government.
[Baney Fife voice} Where did it all begin?
I’d say with automatic transmissions. And every “feature” since, cruise control, abs, and on and on, have taken away driver attention and focus. Were it not for automatic trans none of the other would exist.
To be contrarian, it could be the electric starter. At the time it was claimed that the lady of the house could now drive a car without the dangers of hand cranking the infernal machine.
No fault divorce handed over control of the “patriarchy” to feminist divorce lawyers, most of whom are Jewish.
Jews in occupied Palestine are using AI to select which entire multigenerational families to murder first because then the Jews claim that “AI made me do it”.
Now we are headed towards “no fault” auto accident insurance where the AI driving the car you just had an accident with will end up blameless.
As with all these other scams and schemes to milk society, we can be certain the Jew lawyers, Jew law firms and Jew insurance companies will end up sucking even more blood out of the goy slave state that they control and operate for their own benefit.
You forgot to mention that the Alpha-Jew Elon Musk is responsible for building the JEW-I driven cars, which are razing every American city into a Gaza strip