The U.S. government’s road safety agency is again investigating Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system, this time after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents that it opened the probe on Thursday with the company reporting four crashes after Teslas entered areas of low visibility, including sun glare, fog and airborne dust.
In addition to the pedestrian’s death, another crash involved an injury, the agency said.
Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving” to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions, and if so, the contributing circumstances for these crashes.”
It’s bit reductive to put it in terms of a binary choice between an average human driver and full AI driver. I’d argue it has to hit less pedestrians than a human driver with the full suite of driver assists currently available to be viable.
Self-driving is purely a convenience factor for personal vehicles and purely an economic factor for taxis and other commercial use. If a human driver assisted by all of the sensing and AI tools available is the safest option, that should be the de facto standard.