- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/55649025
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This is an interesting one. The jury actually only faulted Tesla for 33% of the total blame, but since the driver wasn’t a defendant in the suit, he doesn’t have to pay the remaining 2/3rds. I really struggled with this one because to me it felt like Tesla was being attacked, but looking at it in the full light of day it ended up being pretty fair. The driver completely ignored the road while looking for their cellphone which had dropped to the floor, and then blamed the Tesla for not alerting him of the intersection. That leans pretty hard on the driver being irresponsible to me, and the jury felt the same way, which is why they said that Tesla was only 33% to blame. So, Tesla trying to overturn this verdict is them trying to absolve themselves of all fault, which I don’t agree with, and I think the judge did the right thing. Tesla advertised a feature of a car that failed to work in the way it was described. Should the driver have been more present? Yep. Should Tesla still be partially responsible for the fault in their machinery? Yep, again.
A reasonable and nuanced take on the Internet? Is this 1999?
looks at mirror
Nope. Not 1999. I still have grey hair.
You guys still have hair?
Worth a read for a more in-depth look into what happened: https://electrek.co/2025/08/04/tesla-withheld-data-lied-misdirected-police-plaintiffs-avoid-blame-autopilot-crash/
i mean, were they joint and severally liable? often depends on the state the accident happens in. if they were they can take funds from the liable parties in any proportion regardless of how the blame is assigned.
The dude had his foot on the accelerator overriding autopilot while not looking at the road to get his phone.
If his foot hadn’t been on the accelerator the saftey features in autopilot may have actually worked.
When your foot is on the accelerator, it tells you it will not brake.
The human input should always override these features as they are not perfect and you the human need a way to override it.
The jury found that the marketing from Tesla didn’t line up with the actual abilities. Musk is on record saying that Autopilot drives better than a human. They also stated that it should only be used on highways and access roads, but even with their GPS always active, the car doesn’t differentiate between road types, and so will let you use it anywhere you like.
On top of that, Tesla triggered the car to wipe the crash data from the local copy 3 minutes after the accident so that the only copy of the crash data that remained was stored on their servers and could be tampered with.
All of that led the jury to giving 33% fault to Tesla, which, again, I think is fair.
Tesla advertised a feature of a car that failed to work in the way it was described.
So first off, this was mainly what I was replying about and I should have probably quoted it. The car 100% worked exactly as described. Any claims about how good AP may be, go 100% out the window the moment your foot is on the accelerator and it tells you the car will not brake.
Also I don’t think he’s ever said AP drives safer than a human, it’s humans using autopilot are safer than driving without it. It’s always because you are supervising it that it’s safer than without. It can’t even change lanes or stop for traffic lights, how on earth could that be safer than a human unless it’s with human supervision?
Tesla wiping/causing problems getting the data should probably be it’s own case (edit brought on by the state or sanctioned by the state or whatever is possible) and doesn’t really have to do with the actual merits of this specific case IMO and whether or not they were responsible.
The working outside of highways is really the only valid thing.
Edit: Let me try putting this another way. Cars have airbags. Airbags are advertised safety devices. If you get into an accident and your airbag doesn’t go off and it should have, you’ll probably sue. If your Airbag warning light was on though, and you ignored it, you can fuck right off on any claims around it failing to deploy or the car not working as advertised.
There’s a lot of civic owners form the late 90s and early 2k’s who would have an opinion about faulty airbags. My mother can’t even feel her bottom lip now because of this airbag shit.
….she hit the steering wheel, bit it off, had it stocked back on, but the nerves were severed.
Dang that sucks, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m not saying faulty air bags are okay, they are not. They’ve been the subject of one of (the?) largest saftey recall ever.
