Apparently the BMW full self deiving is failing at these tasks too and killing people. It is absurd how quickly the country has allowed self driving...it's like beta testing
What's also scary is how irresponsible people are being with this technology.
I had someone tell me they routinely take naps on their drive into work using lane assist and adaptive cruise control! I started laughing but they didn't laugh back...
Christ. I hope they're driving on a traffic less straight line. I use both routinely and there's always moments I feel safer just taking control, some curves, odd traffic lines and other drivers merging in close make me sweat with those features.
I think "autopilot" is an accurate name. An aircraft's autopilot is not designed to allow unsupervised flight. It merely assists with the more "mundane" tasks so the pilot can focus on things that need more active human monitoring. It seems that the type of people to buy these cars for this feature are also the type of people who do not understand what an autopilot is supposed to do. I guess in that sense, I do agree with you.
My thing is that these cars have enough design problems already, and I feel like conflating an autopilot feature with how people are abusing it will pull focus away from the larger issues. Like that horrible manual door release design in another post, and other questionable safety choices.
Make the companies who put self-driving in their vehicles liable for the vehicles insurance. This would work two fold as this ensures the ability to meet the financial payout in the case of an accident because they have the financial backing of the whole company instead of an individual, and it incentivises them to improve safety to minimise insurance claims and costs.
While there are bad drivers that make terrible mistakes, I would hope they would brake for a child crossing the street if seen, rather than self driving that just didn't register it and plows through.
I'm sure a quick Google search will reveal a multitude of cases where that wasn't the case. People kill kids with cars all the time, in fact the only greater danger to a child's life in the US is being shot.