7 ms·

One dead and nine wounded after accident with self-driving car

65 points by h2000 4y ago

detaro 4y ago
The phrasing in the article is a bit confusing if it's actually established that it was running autonomously or not. (other articles suggest that's currently unclear/hasn't been announced)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- netsharc 4y ago
  The article calls it an E-test car but it also says it had the 43 year old driver and 4 passengers(aged 31, 47, 42 and a baby). Is it a test car, which I'd expect would just have 1 or 2 employees monitoring everything, or a car being used by civilians? If you zoom in the picture, the logo on the center of the car's rim is BMW's logo...
  - f1shy 4y ago
    Most likely an employee, using the car privately. It was at 17:00, with a baby on-board. Does not seem to working.
    - PinguTS 4y ago
      … and even as employee your are not allowed to share unofficial things with relatives nor to take them on a ride with you. I used to be hitchhiked in such cars to meetings, because those "colleagues" hat the same route to the same meeting. But officially, I wasn't allowed in.
- oaiey 4y ago
  It was corrected later. That is maybe the reason for the confusion.
h2000 4y ago
In a curve the self-driving lost his way and collided with two other cars, leaving the driver dead and wounded nine other persons.
- fxtentacle 4y ago
  Self-driving car crashed into old lady. Old lady crashed into another car. That other car's driver died.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    According to the articke, autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment) hit car A (old lady), car A subsequently hit car B, car B went of the road, hit a tree and caught fire. After hitting car A, the autonomous car hit car C head on (I assume that's what you see in the picture), driver of car C died (no surpise whej looking at the picture). Pretty fucked up, even more so if the autonomous car was actually driving autonomous. For what it's worth, the autonomous car in question seems to be a BMW (hard to tell with the wreackage).
    - netsharc 4y ago
      The logo on the center of the front wheel rim is unmistakably BMW's logo. Edit: Also, car B caught fire and its driver died, the BMW crashed head on into car C but the article says the BMW and car C's occupants were seriously injured.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Wasn't sure on mobile.
    - itsoktocry 4y ago
      >autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment) More evidence that testing this stuff on the public roads, backup driver or not, is dangerous.
DebianDay 4y ago
gtsop 4y ago
Can't read german. Does anyone have any input on the following question? Isn't a driver meant to constantly monitor a slef driving car and manually take over? Do we know of this person had this ability? Can a person react quick enough to prevent an accident?
- jraph 4y ago
  I can't answer, but I can't imagine myself being focused enough to be able to react really quickly to an immediate danger on the road if I'm not actively driving the car. I doubt most people would be able to do this. I don't think I'm going to use a self driving car in self driving mode as long as I am expected to watch out for danger and take over if needed. If I need to constantly monitor, I might as well drive. Self-driving is only compelling if this means I can free some time for me while the car is driving, or at least make driving safer. Otherwise, it certainly just makes driving more boring and more dangerous. Until then, I'm more a proponent of making driving easier by removing the manual gears so my focus can be better directed toward the road and less toward the gears. Engines do it better than me anyway.
  - heax 4y ago
    Exactly, if the self-driving is good enough after some time you will reduce your attention and will not be able to quickly take over if the car suddenly fails to self-drive in a corner for example.
- f1shy 4y ago
  Right now is not even clear if the car was in self driving mode. It could be well the case, it is a "normal" accident. The titles in the news are very yellow sometimes...
- michaelt 4y ago
  There are plenty of other industries - CCTV monitoring, pool lifeguards, pilots using autopilot, airport x-ray operators - and they all know it's incredibly hard for humans to remain vigilant for hours on end when there's no action. I think it's pretty well known in the self-driving car industry that safety drivers do a great job if they have to intervene several times an hour. And they're good at getting the vehicle unstuck if there's e.g. a flat tyre. But for a system that only needs an intervention once a week? The safety drivers often won't react fast enough - they're just there to take the blame.
karlkloss 4y ago
BMW says it wasn't a self-driving car: https://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/b28-im-kreis-reutlingen-schwerer-crash-mit-autonomen-testfahrzeug-ein-toter-neun-schwerverletzte_id_136568871.html https://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/b28-im-kreis-reutlingen-s...
- crishoj 4y ago
  Though censored in some news reports, the vehicle has stickers with the text www.bmw.com/autonomousdriving. Apparently an autonomous driving test vehicle, although it is unclear whether autonomous driving was active at the time. https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441 https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441
  - jabiko 4y ago
    One BMW spokesperson said: "We are currently investigating the exact circumstances. Naturally, we are in close contact with the authorities. One thing is already clear: The BMW vehicle involved was not an autonomous driving vehicle." Maybe it was a vehicle with additional equipment for collection data/imagery that was still completely driven by a human driver. That would explain the stickers.
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    Interesting. Why would the german media censor the car brand? Arent consumers meant to know which one flopped this badly?
    - throwaway4good 4y ago
      I doubt there is any censorship wrt that as you can see in the photo that the electric car involved is obviously a black BMW i3.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      Probably for the exact reason that your comment substantiates: we have little to no reason at all to suspect the car flopped.
marcelfahle 4y ago
fun headline if it's not even clear if the driver was driving or not. > Whether the vehicle was driven by the 43-year-old driver or not is the subject of the investigation and is currently unknown, a police spokesperson said on Tuesday. The cause of the accident remains unclear.
lloeki 4y ago
> autonom fahrenden E-Testfahrzeug This was a test car (driven by a 43yo) > In einer Kurve kam das Auto aus bislang unklaren Gründen auf die Gegenfahrbahn und streifte dort ein entgegenkommendes Auto For unknown reasons the test car changed lanes in a curve, driving towards (into?) an incoming car. > Die 70 Jahre alte Fahrerin stieß in der Folge mit ihrem Wagen frontal in das Auto eines 32-Jährigen. The aforementioned incoming car (driven y a 70yo woman) hit another car frontally (driven by a 32yo) > Das Auto des Mannes kam von der Fahrbahn ab und fing Feuer. That later car went offroad and burst into flames. > Im weiteren Verlauf prallte der E-Testwagen zudem frontal in ein weiteres Auto The test car then ran into yet another car frontally.
- ashildr 4y ago
  > Anmerkung der Redaktion: In einer früheren Version dieses Artikels hieß es, an dem Unfall sei ein autonomes Fahrzeug beteiligt gewesen. No, the article has been corrected, it wasn’t a test vehicle and (irrelevant, but still wrong) the driver was male.
efitz 4y ago
Serious question: will we demand perfection from autonomous cars before we allow them out of “test” status? How many autonomous miles without an accident will be sufficient to prove safety? I am not diminishing this tragedy; I can only imagine the grief of the families involved and my heart goes out to them. I am also NOT making the “have to break a few eggs to make an omelette“ argument; clearly something went wrong and I look forward to understanding what led to this accident so we can avoid it in the future. The article left out lots of facts like whether the car was truly autonomous; whether it was in autonomous mode; whether it had been approved for that; whether the driver failed to supervise it appropriately, etc. Note that the Concorde had a perfect safety record and was the safest (statistically) commercial airframe until it’s one and only accident, after which is was the least safe airframe [1] by passenger deaths per air mile. I own a Tesla and love it but the autopilot function is not even close to ready for autonomous driving, in my opinion. I love autopilot and use it every time I drive but it has trouble with even simple problems like two lanes merging down into one and the center line disappearing. I don’t have direct experience with other autonomous cars and am aware of the criticisms of Tesla’s non LIDAR approach. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/07/30/with-one-crash-concorde-ranks-last-in-safety/39f473a9-0609-4520-adc7-6bab42cc0299/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/07/30/w...
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  As you may have unintentionally alluded too with your reference to Concorde, there is no hard number or line. It's purely a public perception thing. There is no definable threshold that is "good enough". The tech needs to stick around long enough and proliferate to a large enough cross section of society to become mundane (something Concorde failed to do). The people who are not satisfied will never be satisfied by an improvement in the numbers. What will change their minds is when it becomes clear that nobody else cares and they're just yelling at clouds. Realistically what that means is a generation has to come of age after the tech has proliferated and accept it by default and don't see it as pushing the limits of what's reasonable. From there the acceptance gets back-ported.
- manholio 4y ago
  > will we demand perfection from autonomous cars before we allow them out of “test” status? Not perfection, just no human injuries for the limited duration of the tests, that is, for a few billion km or so.
ce4 4y ago
BMW has denied that it was an autonomous / self-driving test-car [1]. The article is from Reutlinger Generalanzeiger, a regional newspaper, and they probably have better sources than Der Spiegel. The B28 is a very scenic drive, the region is also not a densely populated area. I used to live close by. [1]: https://www.gea.de/blaulicht_artikel,-schwerer-crashnahe-zainingenbmw-dementiert-meldung-der-polizei-_arid,6646528.html https://www.gea.de/blaulicht_artikel,-schwerer-crashnahe-zai...
- crishoj 4y ago
  A sticker on the vehicle clearly shows it was BMW autonomous test vehicle: https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441 https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441
  - kuschku 4y ago
    BMW also uses those stickers on vehicles that just collect data for BMWs autonomous driving program (they have the sensors, but not the software to actually self-drive)
  - ce4 4y ago
    Those stickers don't prove anything, especially if BMW themselves deny it. You can find those stickers on support-vehicles without any autonomous features as well. There will be more press coverage anyway and we'll find out soon.
    - rasz 4y ago
      Just a reminder - BMW also denied dieselgate allegations.
aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
Need a bit more regularization on the neural network.
osivertsson 4y ago
Excerpt from the article + Google Translate: A spokesman for the Munich group [BMW] said: "The vehicle has level 2 driver assistance systems, which are already installed in production vehicles and support the driver if desired. With Level 2 vehicles, the driver is always responsible." A statement which seems vague by choice. For example, there could have been development software or hardware prototype sensors installed on this vehicle that malfunctioned.
- PinguTS 4y ago
  They try to cover their ass. But still, if it would have been even fully fitted Level 5 self-driving car, it is still a test car and the test-driver is explicitly there to take over in cases when it fails. In any case, the driver here is still fully responsible.
rob_c 4y ago
We all know how this goes, we've all seen terminator
- hef19898 4y ago
  It's the internet, so Skynet, if you are listening, I hereby want to aks you to forgive my nasty behaviour towards evry computer (seriously, I never wanted to actually use that hammer!), fridge or coffee machine!
Markoff 4y ago
One dead and nine seriously injured in accident with test vehicle Four rescue helicopters and 80 firefighters were deployed: in an accident on the B28 in the Reutlingen district, a young man died and several people were seriously injured and taken to hospital. A test vehicle with modern assistance systems was involved in a serious accident with one fatality and nine seriously injured on the B28 in Baden-Württemberg. Whether or not the vehicle was driven by the 43-year-old driver is the subject of investigation and is currently unknown, a police spokesman said Tuesday. The cause of the accident is reportedly unclear. The 43-year-old was driving an autonomous e-test vehicle near Römerstein in the Reutlingen district on Monday afternoon, according to police. In a curve, the car came for as yet unclear reasons on the oncoming lane and struck there an oncoming car. The 70-year-old driver subsequently crashed his car head-on into another car. This car left the road and immediately started to burn. In addition, the test car reportedly crashed head-on into another car. The 33-year-old passenger of the car suffered fatal injuries as a result of the violent impact. Traffic police Tübingen and expert investigate In the test car of the 43-year-old were still two men aged 31 and 47 years, as well as a 42-year-old woman and a one and a half year old child, according to police. According to the report, they were seriously injured - as were other people involved in the accident - and taken to hospitals. The car manufacturer BMW contradicted on Tuesday the information of the police, according to which it was with the accident car "an autonomous E test vehicle". A spokesman for the Munich-based company said, "The vehicle has Level 2 driver assistance systems, which are already installed in production vehicles today and support the driver on request. With Level 2 vehicles, the driver always remains in charge as a matter of principle." Only in highly automated vehicles from Level 3 would the driver be allowed to delegate driving completely to the vehicle under certain conditions. A police spokesman did not comment on this when asked. The investigation into the accident has been taken over by the Tübingen traffic police together with an expert. The rescue service was on the scene with four rescue helicopters and ten ambulances, among others. In addition, 80 firefighters with 15 emergency vehicles were deployed. As a result of the accident, the federal highway 28 was fully closed for several hours. Police estimate the damage to the vehicles involved at around 180,000 euros. Editor's note: An earlier version of this article stated that the accident involved an autonomous vehicle. Following a statement from BMW, we have changed the wording. In addition, the gender of the 70-year-old has been corrected. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chaoticmass 4y ago
I think autonomous car collisions should be handled similarly to how the FAA handles aircraft accidents.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  The NTSB (not the FAA) handles the part of aircraft accident investigations that you're likely interested in. They then make recommendations to the FAA on matters of aircrew or aircraft certification or other deficiencies that were in the causal chain of the accident. They also don't travel to the vast majority of aircraft accidents, even ones with fatalities. They do travel to jet (or airline turboprop) accidents with fatalities, but small general aviation aircraft crash fairly regularly with only a small portion of those crashes getting any meaningful investigation from the NTSB.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Why, when human-driven cars don't get that treatment when they crash?
  - chaoticmass 4y ago
    I should have elaborated, but I sort of just tossed my post on here quickly. I was imagining if we get to the point that self driving cars become fully autonomous, and lets say 100% of cars on the road are self driving-- what happens if there's a crash? Theoretically that shouldn't happen right? If it did I would want an independent body to investigate.

65 points by h2000 4y ago

The phrasing in the article is a bit confusing if it's actually established that it was running autonomously or not. (other articles suggest that's currently unclear/hasn't been announced)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
netsharc 4y ago
The article calls it an E-test car but it also says it had the 43 year old driver and 4 passengers(aged 31, 47, 42 and a baby). Is it a test car, which I'd expect would just have 1 or 2 employees monitoring everything, or a car being used by civilians? If you zoom in the picture, the logo on the center of the car's rim is BMW's logo...
- f1shy 4y ago
  Most likely an employee, using the car privately. It was at 17:00, with a baby on-board. Does not seem to working.
  - PinguTS 4y ago
    … and even as employee your are not allowed to share unofficial things with relatives nor to take them on a ride with you. I used to be hitchhiked in such cars to meetings, because those "colleagues" hat the same route to the same meeting. But officially, I wasn't allowed in.
oaiey 4y ago
It was corrected later. That is maybe the reason for the confusion.

h2000 4y ago

In a curve the self-driving lost his way and collided with two other cars, leaving the driver dead and wounded nine other persons.

fxtentacle 4y ago
Self-driving car crashed into old lady. Old lady crashed into another car. That other car's driver died.
- hef19898 4y ago
  According to the articke, autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment) hit car A (old lady), car A subsequently hit car B, car B went of the road, hit a tree and caught fire. After hitting car A, the autonomous car hit car C head on (I assume that's what you see in the picture), driver of car C died (no surpise whej looking at the picture). Pretty fucked up, even more so if the autonomous car was actually driving autonomous. For what it's worth, the autonomous car in question seems to be a BMW (hard to tell with the wreackage).
  - netsharc 4y ago
    The logo on the center of the front wheel rim is unmistakably BMW's logo. Edit: Also, car B caught fire and its driver died, the BMW crashed head on into car C but the article says the BMW and car C's occupants were seriously injured.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Wasn't sure on mobile.
  - itsoktocry 4y ago
    >autonomous car (unclear so far if manually controlled at the time of the accident or not at the moment) More evidence that testing this stuff on the public roads, backup driver or not, is dangerous.

DebianDay 4y ago

gtsop 4y ago

Can't read german. Does anyone have any input on the following question? Isn't a driver meant to constantly monitor a slef driving car and manually take over? Do we know of this person had this ability? Can a person react quick enough to prevent an accident?

jraph 4y ago
I can't answer, but I can't imagine myself being focused enough to be able to react really quickly to an immediate danger on the road if I'm not actively driving the car. I doubt most people would be able to do this. I don't think I'm going to use a self driving car in self driving mode as long as I am expected to watch out for danger and take over if needed. If I need to constantly monitor, I might as well drive. Self-driving is only compelling if this means I can free some time for me while the car is driving, or at least make driving safer. Otherwise, it certainly just makes driving more boring and more dangerous. Until then, I'm more a proponent of making driving easier by removing the manual gears so my focus can be better directed toward the road and less toward the gears. Engines do it better than me anyway.
- heax 4y ago
  Exactly, if the self-driving is good enough after some time you will reduce your attention and will not be able to quickly take over if the car suddenly fails to self-drive in a corner for example.
f1shy 4y ago
Right now is not even clear if the car was in self driving mode. It could be well the case, it is a "normal" accident. The titles in the news are very yellow sometimes...
michaelt 4y ago
There are plenty of other industries - CCTV monitoring, pool lifeguards, pilots using autopilot, airport x-ray operators - and they all know it's incredibly hard for humans to remain vigilant for hours on end when there's no action. I think it's pretty well known in the self-driving car industry that safety drivers do a great job if they have to intervene several times an hour. And they're good at getting the vehicle unstuck if there's e.g. a flat tyre. But for a system that only needs an intervention once a week? The safety drivers often won't react fast enough - they're just there to take the blame.

karlkloss 4y ago

BMW says it wasn't a self-driving car: https://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/b28-im-kreis-reutlingen-schwerer-crash-mit-autonomen-testfahrzeug-ein-toter-neun-schwerverletzte_id_136568871.html https://www.focus.de/panorama/welt/b28-im-kreis-reutlingen-s...

crishoj 4y ago
Though censored in some news reports, the vehicle has stickers with the text www.bmw.com/autonomousdriving. Apparently an autonomous driving test vehicle, although it is unclear whether autonomous driving was active at the time. https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441 https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441
- jabiko 4y ago
  One BMW spokesperson said: "We are currently investigating the exact circumstances. Naturally, we are in close contact with the authorities. One thing is already clear: The BMW vehicle involved was not an autonomous driving vehicle." Maybe it was a vehicle with additional equipment for collection data/imagery that was still completely driven by a human driver. That would explain the stickers.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  Interesting. Why would the german media censor the car brand? Arent consumers meant to know which one flopped this badly?
  - throwaway4good 4y ago
    I doubt there is any censorship wrt that as you can see in the photo that the electric car involved is obviously a black BMW i3.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Probably for the exact reason that your comment substantiates: we have little to no reason at all to suspect the car flopped.

marcelfahle 4y ago

fun headline if it's not even clear if the driver was driving or not. > Whether the vehicle was driven by the 43-year-old driver or not is the subject of the investigation and is currently unknown, a police spokesperson said on Tuesday. The cause of the accident remains unclear.

lloeki 4y ago

> autonom fahrenden E-Testfahrzeug This was a test car (driven by a 43yo) > In einer Kurve kam das Auto aus bislang unklaren Gründen auf die Gegenfahrbahn und streifte dort ein entgegenkommendes Auto For unknown reasons the test car changed lanes in a curve, driving towards (into?) an incoming car. > Die 70 Jahre alte Fahrerin stieß in der Folge mit ihrem Wagen frontal in das Auto eines 32-Jährigen. The aforementioned incoming car (driven y a 70yo woman) hit another car frontally (driven by a 32yo) > Das Auto des Mannes kam von der Fahrbahn ab und fing Feuer. That later car went offroad and burst into flames. > Im weiteren Verlauf prallte der E-Testwagen zudem frontal in ein weiteres Auto The test car then ran into yet another car frontally.

ashildr 4y ago
> Anmerkung der Redaktion: In einer früheren Version dieses Artikels hieß es, an dem Unfall sei ein autonomes Fahrzeug beteiligt gewesen. No, the article has been corrected, it wasn’t a test vehicle and (irrelevant, but still wrong) the driver was male.

efitz 4y ago

Serious question: will we demand perfection from autonomous cars before we allow them out of “test” status? How many autonomous miles without an accident will be sufficient to prove safety? I am not diminishing this tragedy; I can only imagine the grief of the families involved and my heart goes out to them. I am also NOT making the “have to break a few eggs to make an omelette“ argument; clearly something went wrong and I look forward to understanding what led to this accident so we can avoid it in the future. The article left out lots of facts like whether the car was truly autonomous; whether it was in autonomous mode; whether it had been approved for that; whether the driver failed to supervise it appropriately, etc. Note that the Concorde had a perfect safety record and was the safest (statistically) commercial airframe until it’s one and only accident, after which is was the least safe airframe [1] by passenger deaths per air mile. I own a Tesla and love it but the autopilot function is not even close to ready for autonomous driving, in my opinion. I love autopilot and use it every time I drive but it has trouble with even simple problems like two lanes merging down into one and the center line disappearing. I don’t have direct experience with other autonomous cars and am aware of the criticisms of Tesla’s non LIDAR approach. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/07/30/with-one-crash-concorde-ranks-last-in-safety/39f473a9-0609-4520-adc7-6bab42cc0299/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/07/30/w...

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
As you may have unintentionally alluded too with your reference to Concorde, there is no hard number or line. It's purely a public perception thing. There is no definable threshold that is "good enough". The tech needs to stick around long enough and proliferate to a large enough cross section of society to become mundane (something Concorde failed to do). The people who are not satisfied will never be satisfied by an improvement in the numbers. What will change their minds is when it becomes clear that nobody else cares and they're just yelling at clouds. Realistically what that means is a generation has to come of age after the tech has proliferated and accept it by default and don't see it as pushing the limits of what's reasonable. From there the acceptance gets back-ported.
manholio 4y ago
> will we demand perfection from autonomous cars before we allow them out of “test” status? Not perfection, just no human injuries for the limited duration of the tests, that is, for a few billion km or so.

ce4 4y ago

BMW has denied that it was an autonomous / self-driving test-car [1]. The article is from Reutlinger Generalanzeiger, a regional newspaper, and they probably have better sources than Der Spiegel. The B28 is a very scenic drive, the region is also not a densely populated area. I used to live close by. [1]: https://www.gea.de/blaulicht_artikel,-schwerer-crashnahe-zainingenbmw-dementiert-meldung-der-polizei-_arid,6646528.html https://www.gea.de/blaulicht_artikel,-schwerer-crashnahe-zai...

crishoj 4y ago
A sticker on the vehicle clearly shows it was BMW autonomous test vehicle: https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441 https://twitter.com/AEONde/status/1559477911446589441
- kuschku 4y ago
  BMW also uses those stickers on vehicles that just collect data for BMWs autonomous driving program (they have the sensors, but not the software to actually self-drive)
- ce4 4y ago
  Those stickers don't prove anything, especially if BMW themselves deny it. You can find those stickers on support-vehicles without any autonomous features as well. There will be more press coverage anyway and we'll find out soon.
  - rasz 4y ago
    Just a reminder - BMW also denied dieselgate allegations.

aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago

Need a bit more regularization on the neural network.

osivertsson 4y ago

Excerpt from the article + Google Translate: A spokesman for the Munich group [BMW] said: "The vehicle has level 2 driver assistance systems, which are already installed in production vehicles and support the driver if desired. With Level 2 vehicles, the driver is always responsible." A statement which seems vague by choice. For example, there could have been development software or hardware prototype sensors installed on this vehicle that malfunctioned.

PinguTS 4y ago
They try to cover their ass. But still, if it would have been even fully fitted Level 5 self-driving car, it is still a test car and the test-driver is explicitly there to take over in cases when it fails. In any case, the driver here is still fully responsible.

rob_c 4y ago

We all know how this goes, we've all seen terminator

hef19898 4y ago
It's the internet, so Skynet, if you are listening, I hereby want to aks you to forgive my nasty behaviour towards evry computer (seriously, I never wanted to actually use that hammer!), fridge or coffee machine!

Markoff 4y ago

One dead and nine seriously injured in accident with test vehicle Four rescue helicopters and 80 firefighters were deployed: in an accident on the B28 in the Reutlingen district, a young man died and several people were seriously injured and taken to hospital. A test vehicle with modern assistance systems was involved in a serious accident with one fatality and nine seriously injured on the B28 in Baden-Württemberg. Whether or not the vehicle was driven by the 43-year-old driver is the subject of investigation and is currently unknown, a police spokesman said Tuesday. The cause of the accident is reportedly unclear. The 43-year-old was driving an autonomous e-test vehicle near Römerstein in the Reutlingen district on Monday afternoon, according to police. In a curve, the car came for as yet unclear reasons on the oncoming lane and struck there an oncoming car. The 70-year-old driver subsequently crashed his car head-on into another car. This car left the road and immediately started to burn. In addition, the test car reportedly crashed head-on into another car. The 33-year-old passenger of the car suffered fatal injuries as a result of the violent impact. Traffic police Tübingen and expert investigate In the test car of the 43-year-old were still two men aged 31 and 47 years, as well as a 42-year-old woman and a one and a half year old child, according to police. According to the report, they were seriously injured - as were other people involved in the accident - and taken to hospitals. The car manufacturer BMW contradicted on Tuesday the information of the police, according to which it was with the accident car "an autonomous E test vehicle". A spokesman for the Munich-based company said, "The vehicle has Level 2 driver assistance systems, which are already installed in production vehicles today and support the driver on request. With Level 2 vehicles, the driver always remains in charge as a matter of principle." Only in highly automated vehicles from Level 3 would the driver be allowed to delegate driving completely to the vehicle under certain conditions. A police spokesman did not comment on this when asked. The investigation into the accident has been taken over by the Tübingen traffic police together with an expert. The rescue service was on the scene with four rescue helicopters and ten ambulances, among others. In addition, 80 firefighters with 15 emergency vehicles were deployed. As a result of the accident, the federal highway 28 was fully closed for several hours. Police estimate the damage to the vehicles involved at around 180,000 euros. Editor's note: An earlier version of this article stated that the accident involved an autonomous vehicle. Following a statement from BMW, we have changed the wording. In addition, the gender of the 70-year-old has been corrected. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

chaoticmass 4y ago

I think autonomous car collisions should be handled similarly to how the FAA handles aircraft accidents.

sokoloff 4y ago
The NTSB (not the FAA) handles the part of aircraft accident investigations that you're likely interested in. They then make recommendations to the FAA on matters of aircrew or aircraft certification or other deficiencies that were in the causal chain of the accident. They also don't travel to the vast majority of aircraft accidents, even ones with fatalities. They do travel to jet (or airline turboprop) accidents with fatalities, but small general aviation aircraft crash fairly regularly with only a small portion of those crashes getting any meaningful investigation from the NTSB.
josephcsible 4y ago
Why, when human-driven cars don't get that treatment when they crash?
- chaoticmass 4y ago
  I should have elaborated, but I sort of just tossed my post on here quickly. I was imagining if we get to the point that self driving cars become fully autonomous, and lets say 100% of cars on the road are self driving-- what happens if there's a crash? Theoretically that shouldn't happen right? If it did I would want an independent body to investigate.