CCTV News:On January 20, 2016, a rear-end collision occurred in Handan section of Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway in Hebei Province. A Tesla car directly hit an operating road sweeper, and the Tesla car was damaged on the spot, and the driver Gao Yanning died unfortunately. According to the traffic police, the driver Gao Ya Ning, who was driving Tesla in this rear-end collision, was mainly responsible. However, after half a year, Gao Yanning’s family took Tesla’s dealers to court. Why is this?
△ "Rule of Law Online": "Autopilot" is safe or not! ?
The driving recorder restores the driver’s state one minute before the accident.
Through the pictures taken by the driving recorder, we can see that the weather was fine that day, the speed of the vehicle was not fast, and the driver hummed a few songs one minute before the accident. And then hit the road sweeper in front without any defense.
After the accident, the driver of the road sweeper called the police. As the accident occurred in the section under the jurisdiction of Cixian Brigade of Handan detachment of Hebei High-speed Traffic Police Corps of Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway, the police of Cixian Brigade immediately rushed to the scene of the accident for disposal.
Scene: Tesla didn’t have any brake marks before the collision.
The police did not find any brake marks on the white car before the collision.
Combined with the on-site investigation and the video data of the driving recorder, the traffic police asked the driver of the sweeper and finally came to the conclusion of the accident:
Tesla car collided directly without taking any emergency braking and evasive measures when it encountered a road cleaning vehicle under construction in front, resulting in a rear-end traffic accident.
Doubt: Why don’t you brake and avoid when you see a car ahead?
At the time of the accident, Gao Ya-ning was just 23 years old. His father, Gao Jubin, never understood that he had already seen the road sweeper in the driving recorder, but why did his son not brake or avoid it at that time, but directly hit it?
According to Gao Jubin, Gao Ya-ning got her driver’s license as early as 2011 when she turned 18, and her driving skills were very good. Moreover, in 2013, Gao Yanning joined the army as a college student, and also served as a driver of large military vehicles in the army, and has always performed well. In September 2015, before the accident, he just retired home.
According to the police’s investigation on the scene of the accident, Gao Ya-ning’s car did not take any emergency braking or avoidance measures before the collision. The picture of the driving recorder shows that the taillight of the cleaning operation vehicle was clearly visible more than 20 seconds before the accident. Such a long time was enough for the driver to slow down and merge. Why did Gao Ya-ning not respond at that time and hit it directly?
Presumably, the vehicle is at a constant speed and the "automatic driving" function is started.
Gao Jubin thought of the "automatic driving" function that his son had mentioned many times. According to Gao Jubin, after the accident, he provided the video taken by the driving recorder to some professionals for analysis. And they all came to the conclusion that the car should be at a constant speed at that time.
Gao Jubin speculated that it was precisely because the "automatic driving" function was started during driving and the driving was completely handed over to the vehicle that his son’s attention was not focused on the observation of the road surface. At the same time, the "automatic driving" system did not successfully identify the vehicle in front, which eventually led to tragedy.
Experience: The "autopilot" system is not perfect, and it is difficult to identify small obstacles.
What kind of function is Tesla’s autonomous driving? The reporter found Mr. Zhang, the owner who bought Tesla with Gao Jubin. According to Mr. Zhang, they bought Tesla in 2014, when there was no automatic driving function in the car. In 2015, Tesla launched the autopilot system and began to publicize it. Mr. Zhang and other car owners in the same batch obtained this function through automatic software upgrade. According to Mr. Zhang, in most cases, this system can well identify the location of ground lane and other vehicles, and deal with them accordingly.
However, not all cases can be easily handled by this system. According to Mr. Zhang, this "automatic driving" system can’t recognize small obstacles such as cones and pedestrians. He once almost scraped the cones placed on the road when using automatic driving, but fortunately he found them in time and avoided them manually.
Prosecution: Is Tesla responsible for the family’s claim for compensation of 10,000 yuan?
According to Mr. Zhang, Tesla’s autopilot system is not mature. It is precisely because of this that in July 2016, Gao Jubin sued Tesla’s sales company in China to the Chaoyang District People’s Court, demanding compensation of 10,000 yuan. Gao Jubin also believes that Tesla still induces users to trust this system through publicity when the autopilot system is not perfect, and should bear corresponding legal responsibilities.
Gao Jubin’s attorney said that the amount of compensation is not the purpose. They hope to let the public know that the "autonomous driving" technology is still flawed through the case, so don’t try it easily. At the same time, it is hoped that Tesla will be more cautious in the promotion and marketing process of products, and don’t take immature "autonomous driving" as an eye-catching selling point, so as not to cause similar vicious accidents.
At present, the Chaoyang District People’s Court in Beijing has accepted Gao Jubin’s claim and the case will be heard in the near future.
Inventory: frequent accidents caused by using "automatic driving"
On May 7, 2016, a Tesla car crashed in the "autopilot" mode in Florida, USA, causing the driver to die. This is the first traffic accident involving the "autopilot" function in the United States, and four months after the traffic accident in Gaoyaning, this accident is still called the first "autopilot" death case in Tesla.
On August 2, 2016, Mr. Luo, the owner of Beijing, had a traffic accident on the way to buy his own Tesla car for two months. And the process of the accident, and elegant ning is exactly the same. It is also in the process of enabling automatic driving to follow the car that the front car evaded when it encountered obstacles, but the automatic driving system did not recognize the obstacle vehicle and directly hit it.
After that, Mr. Luo’s car still kept moving forward at the original speed, until he stepped on the brakes and the car stopped. The accident caused different degrees of damage to the two cars, but fortunately no casualties were caused. Mr. Luo said that he didn’t feel how serious the accident was at the time, and then he was a little scared when he thought about it.
Follow-up: "Autopilot" was renamed "Autopilot"
Gao Jubin said that when communicating with him recently, Tesla said that they had changed the Chinese translation of this system from "automatic driving" to "automatic assisted driving" and asked the sales staff to strictly describe this system as a driving assistance system. In addition, Tesla has also updated this system, trying to make users concentrate when using this system.
Analysis: If Tesla is judged to be misleading or face high compensation,
Wu Jingming, an associate professor at China University of Political Science and Law and director of China Consumers Association, said that in fact, Tesla is not the only automobile manufacturer that has introduced similar technology in the market, but the promotion and marketing strategies of other manufacturers are different. "Other car manufacturers clearly know that it is an auxiliary function and a function that cannot be used independently, and Tesla promotes it completely as an independent function."
Wu Jingming said that the promotion of products by manufacturers should also be done in strict accordance with the law, otherwise they may have to bear the corresponding legal consequences. In addition, Wu Jingming also believes that although Gao Jubin’s claim for compensation is only 10,000 yuan, if the court determines that Tesla manufacturers are misleading in propaganda, it is responsible for making more compensation to their families.
