[kibitzor]

Related video "Tesla Autopilot Crashes into Motorcycle Riders - Why?"[0], summarized to: vision used by Tesla seems to process motorcycles differently, and may be incorrectly "assuming" the closer spaced brake lights on a motorcycle is actually a far away car.

More details on the homicide here[1], which shows the crash happened during daylight hours and the bike resembles a sport bike. This is a different condition than my referenced video (night collisions with cruiser-style motorcycles), but I suspect similar incorrect assumptions by Tesla vision happened.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRdzIs4FJJg

[1] https://www.king5.com/article/traffic/traffic-news/tesla-on-...

[bryanlarsen]

Another theory I've heard is that the driver was holding down the accelerator to prevent phantom braking. If this is true Tesla will likely respond fairly quickly to prove it wasn't them. So the longer they don't the less likely this theory is.

[AlexandrB]

> Another theory I've heard is that the driver was holding down the accelerator to prevent phantom braking.

Would be interesting to know how commonly this workaround is applied by Tesla owners. If this is common enough it seems like a case where a feature that's merely unreliable becomes a safety issue due to second-order effects. Echoes of Therac 25[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

[lamontcg]

Keep in mind that so far we only have the driver's assertion that they were using Autopilot at the time. The driver may be attempting to shift blame.