Accident | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Fri, 20 Jan 2017 11:42:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Accident | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 U.S. report suggests Tesla autopilot reduces crashes by 40 per cent https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/u-s-report-suggests-tesla-autopilot-reduces-crashes-by-40-per-cent/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/u-s-report-suggests-tesla-autopilot-reduces-crashes-by-40-per-cent/#respond Fri, 20 Jan 2017 11:42:16 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=318232 A report by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has not only vindicated Tesla with regards to the first person to die while using its Autopilot software, but has backed up its safety claims. It turns out that installing Tesla Autopilot software can reduce your chance of being in a car crash by as …

The post U.S. report suggests Tesla autopilot reduces crashes by 40 per cent first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
A report by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has not only vindicated Tesla with regards to the first person to die while using its Autopilot software, but has backed up its safety claims. It turns out that installing Tesla Autopilot software can reduce your chance of being in a car crash by as much as 40 per cent.

Although the introduction of Tesla's autopilot, semi-autonomous car software saw many people excited to take their hands off of the wheel, that was dampened somewhat when a few months later a man died while using it. Purportedly neither the driver, nor the software saw a stark white tractor trailer and ploughed right into it.

That raised a lot of concerns from people, who were worried that the autopilot software may make driving more dangerous, rather than less so. With that in mind, the NHTSA launched an investigation, but the results suggest that autopilot was not only not to blame for the accident, but across the board made people far less likely to have them.

autopilot

The particular part of the Autopilot software suite that had regulators concerned, was Autosteer, which controls lane positioning and can take over and move you out of the way of potential incidents or obstacles. It was thought that it may not be smart enough to truly help drivers and could possibly cause accidents of its own. However it turns out that Autosteer is the biggest safety improvement with Autopilot and is responsible for most of the reduction in crashes seen in Tesla vehicles.

This brings to an end all regulatory investigations into the accident and goes a long way to vindicate Tesla's software. Although Bloomberg does report that independent body, the National Transportation Safety Board, is still looking into the incident, it has no power to regulate Tesla should it come to a negative conclusion.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Autonomous features have been shown to potentially be as effective at preventing fatalities as the introduction of seatbelts. The impact could be enormous and for that reason alone, it seems foolish not to consider augmenting all cars with some measure of autonomy.

The post U.S. report suggests Tesla autopilot reduces crashes by 40 per cent first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/u-s-report-suggests-tesla-autopilot-reduces-crashes-by-40-per-cent/feed/ 0
Google: people hit our driverless cars ‘surprisingly often’ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/jon-martindale/google-people-hit-our-driverless-cars-surprisingly-often/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/jon-martindale/google-people-hit-our-driverless-cars-surprisingly-often/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2015 07:54:19 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=259727 Google's quest to develop a car that can drive itself across cities and to and from people's houses, places of work and elsewhere, has been one it's been working on for years now. While not there just yet, it's helped push the boundaries of what is technologically possible with an automated vehicle, but perhaps more …

The post Google: people hit our driverless cars ‘surprisingly often’ first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
Google's quest to develop a car that can drive itself across cities and to and from people's houses, places of work and elsewhere, has been one it's been working on for years now. While not there just yet, it's helped push the boundaries of what is technologically possible with an automated vehicle, but perhaps more importantly changed  lot of people's perception of the tech. That doesn't mean they won't continue to drive into them though.

“Our self-driving cars are being hit surprisingly often by other drivers who are distracted and not paying attention to the road,” claimed Google's head of driverless car development, Chris Urmson in a blog post.

googlecar
Google has automated 3rd party vehicles, as well as its own produced pod cars

His reason for mentioning this is that recently several Google employees had to be treated for whiplash because once again there was an accident involving one of Google's automated vehicles. Much like the ones before however, it was because someone hit the car from behind.

Unlike traditional crashes though, where it can be a question of he said she said, that's not so with cars like this. Thanks to the on-board tracking and computational aspects of the Google car, we can actually see what happened in real time. So we know exactly who was at fault.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtLp2f-vM14′]

Clearly this was another case of someone not paying attention on the road, suggesting that the Google vehicle would have been hit had it been driven by a person or an AI. However, some have pointed out that there have been quite a few incidents like this one over the millions of miles Google's cars have been tested over. Urmson's response is that its vehicles detect and report even the most minor of crashes. Often with human to human collisions, if no one is hurt and the cars aren't badly damaged, it will not be reported so as to save on insurance costs.

That won't be the same with driverless cars. While they may not automatically call the emergency services, they will track any accidents to provide data for improving its algorithms and potentially to give details to police or mechanics should it be useful later.

One thing Urmson is keen to point out from data that we have already though, it's that while there have been 14 incidents involving Google cars since 2009, “not once has the self-driving car been the cause of the collision.”

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: There will be some teething issues with automated cars, but I think it's the future. It will take a few decades, but the last generation of regular car drivers may have already been born.

Image source: Wikimedia

The post Google: people hit our driverless cars ‘surprisingly often’ first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/jon-martindale/google-people-hit-our-driverless-cars-surprisingly-often/feed/ 9
Foxconn taken to court by brain damaged worker’s family https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/foxconn-taken-to-court-by-brain-damaged-workers-family/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/foxconn-taken-to-court-by-brain-damaged-workers-family/#respond Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:46:40 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=113928 The father of a man who suffered brain damage during an accident at a Foxconn facility that was making Apple products, has taken the manufacturer to court for its handling of the man's care. 26 year old Zhang Tingzhen was electrocuted in a Foxconn factory accident just over a year ago and ultimately needed to …

The post Foxconn taken to court by brain damaged worker’s family first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
The father of a man who suffered brain damage during an accident at a Foxconn facility that was making Apple products, has taken the manufacturer to court for its handling of the man's care.

26 year old Zhang Tingzhen was electrocuted in a Foxconn factory accident just over a year ago and ultimately needed to have almost half of his brain removed. His care continued after the operation for some time, but it wasn't long before Foxconn purportedly sent text messages to his father, stating that it would halt paying for his treatment if the family didn't remove him from Shenzhen city hospital and submit him for a disability assessment 43 miles away in Huizhou, where it claims he was hired.

Mr Zhang contests this, saying that he was instead hired in Shenzhen, where wages and compensation for injuries are substantially better.

The implication is clear.

Foxconn
With the amount of negative press it gets, it surprising anyone works with Foxconn at this point

“Our evidence includes hospital correspondences, notice of hospitalization, factory salary slips, colleague declarations, they all point to the time and place of his injury and his employment being in Shenzhen,” said a lawyer for Mr Zhang's father.

Labour activists (via Reuters) have said that it's not an uncommon practice for large corporations to hire workers in low income areas, having them sign poorly compensated contracts, before shipping them off to work in more affluent areas.

KitGuru Says: Apple has recently managed to avoid the level of negative press it received last year over labour practices, but this could turn that trend around. While it isn't directly involved, it will certainly be linked with the case.

The post Foxconn taken to court by brain damaged worker’s family first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/foxconn-taken-to-court-by-brain-damaged-workers-family/feed/ 0