I'm trying to explain to non-technical people why this feature is a major milestone for self-driving cars. On my website, I try to avoid jargon and assume my readers know nothing about the topic.
I find it very odd how people are so fixated on construction zones in that thread. Construction zones _are_ confusing and don't follow the typical rules of the road. That's why they always come with slower speed restrictions. People acting like their car is trying to kill them clearly aren't assessing if they should even be using self-driving in these circumstances. In fact, they likely don't realize that many legally-licensed drivers also struggle in these conditions. Many people, especially those with poorer reactions or eyesight, have a challenging time navigating certain construction zones.
I have an L2 and it works amazingly well when there are exactly two clearly marked lines. It's not that hard to understand when I can and can't rely on the car to drive itself.
* Less than 2 lines visibly marked, drive it yourself.
* If there are more than 2 things that look like lines, drive it yourself.
Most highway driving is not in construction zones.
If you mean Tesla you should always pay attention, you are responsible even if the road is perfect, there is a non zero chance the car can swing and kill some innocent person because you are alpha testing.
You are right to say that one should always pay attention, though. The Tesla system is capable of handling relatively sharp curves, which has the side effect of making it capable of turning quickly in the face of weird road anomolies (eg, suddenly and recently repaired/damaged patches of asphalt).
My other car has the opposite problem... it won't jerk in a situation like that, but it will gladly fly off the road with barely a warning on a shallow curve.
We are in a really weird intermediate state right now.
If others do the same shit I would say is still alpha testing, we seen recently and discussed in this and similar threads https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28566376 the car acts like a buggy piece of code, like a glitched game. You should not test your alpha code by risking innocents life , The minimum , absolute minimum, Tesla should do is to use their AI to make sure no idiot alpha tester is watching movies, texting, putting makeup or sleeping when they should pay full attention, but they are not doing that but the opposite , Tesla and Elon imply that you have to pay attention because of evil regulation.
For highway driving, nearly everyone has caught up to Tesla in most use-cases.
At first I wondered why the cars in front of me were half into my lane, then I realized that there were an abundance of poorly painted lane lines and it wasn't clear who was actually in the wrong. It was the weirdest mess of lane lines that I've ever seen, tbh.
It was also obvious that I wasn't the only one guessing, as different drivers seemed to guess differently.
Why is it that I can trust a level 3 system to not hit the car in front of me in stop and go traffic but I can't trust the level 2 system not to hit the car in front of me at 70mph? The stop and go driving certainly requires faster reaction times in my experience. Are the makers of level 3 systems legally liable when the vehicle in level-3 mode hits another car?
Currently, as how the NHTSA regulates vehicles, the driver is liable for any accident that their vehicle causes. Your car should always be at your control, and you should be the one responsible for it's actions. Not saying this is right or wrong, but that's how the government views driving.
Else there would be no benefit, would it? As long as I have full responsibility and have to be fully aware of the situation I might as well just drive myself.
Germany had to change it's law for Mercedes to be able to role out L3.
> In July 2021 in Germany, the Federal Act Amending the Road Traffic Act and the Compulsory Insurance Act (Autonomous Driving Act) came into effect. The Act allows motor vehicles with autonomous driving capabilities, meaning vehicles that can perform driving tasks independently without a person driving, in specified operating areas on public roads. Provisions about autonomous driving in appropriate operating areas correspond to Level 4. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-driving_car#Legislation_i...