Self driving cars are still decades away

In My Humble Opinion
1628

Yes, I experience the same thing. It is very annoying, because the car will decide to get into the left lane without a good reason. If you pay attention to the screen, it will actually flash up a reason, which is something like “moving out of right lane.” What that tells me is that somewhere in the 300,000 lines of code is a condition that wrongly (IMHO) says, “get out of the right lane.” It wasn’t always the case, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a logic bug, and not deliberate, except that it has been in place since v11 came out.

A couple of ways to deal with this. When the car signals it wants to change lanes, press the turn signal in the opposite direction to cancel it. Sometimes, and I don’t know why it isn’t all the time, that will bring up a dialogue at the bottom of the display that has a button for “Minimize lane changes”. Press that, and it will greatly decrease the behavior. You can also access that button by moving the right side steering wheel roller control to the left or right to change the lane change aggressiveness. After hitting the “Minimize lane change” button, you might have to put the aggressiveness back to your choice.

Under many circumstances you don’t have to disengage FSD to change lanes. Just signal the lane change you want, and the car will do it. Often, usually, sometimes… Occasionally it will take a long time to change, even when it is completely safe; other times it won’t do it and will cancel the signal, so you have to try again.

So when I, and others, talk about FSD interventions, it is things like this. Cancelling lane changes, forcing lane changes, and adjusting speed. It is almost never emergency evasive action to avoid an accident. Which is why when @Dr.Strangelove talks about v12 drives with no interventions I’m very impressed. I occasionally have drives where I never have to take over from FSD, but having one where I don’t need to intervene in some way is unheard of.

This is also another place where the rules have a bit of flexibility. Passed someone, and there is another car wanting to pass you? Get over. Pass someone, there is nobody behind you, but another slower car in the right lane a ways ahead? No harm in cruising in the left lane for a bit. Passed someone and there is a slower car ahead in the left lane? Stay in the left to give them the opportunity to move right.

Good driving usually means following the spirit of the rules, if not the exact letter, in a predictable and safe manner. It is exactly this type of judgement which FSD has been very poor at. It’s freeway rule seemed to be “stay to the left, unless someone wants to pass, then get over to the right.” Lots of things wrong with that rule, and not the least of them is that it would move over to immediately be slowed by a car in the right lane, where a good driver would have made the additional pass, then gotten over to let the faster car pass.

1629

Thanks for the tips. You can also get to a minimize lane changes function in the menu before you start your drive but it will only stay in effect for the current trip.

1630

One note–almost all my drives with FSD 12 have been on local roads. I think highway driving may still be using the FSD 11 software stack, but I’m not sure about that. At any rate, non-highway use is where FSD 11 had the greatest deficiencies and where FSD 12 has the most improvement.

Thinking out loud on the topic of interventions… suppose I put them on a 1-10 scale. 1 would be a thing so minor that it’s more like a difference of opinion–like taking a speedbump a bit too slow, or not getting in the required lane early enough. 3 would be something that a good driver wouldn’t do, but isn’t an actual safety issue. For example: earlier today I merged onto a fast road, and the car had a fairly long merge lane to get up to speed, but it didn’t use the full length and merged at less than the speed limit. It didn’t affect any other cars, and I see other humans do this all the time, but an experienced driver would have used the whole lane and merged at the speed limit.

On the other end of the scale would be forced interventions for safety reasons. A 10 would be, say, heading into oncoming traffic. Never seen anything this bad on any version. But there was perhaps an 8 earlier today. Again, merging onto the same fast road, but there’s this super awkward merge “area”–not even a lane, just this unmarked asphalt area used as both an on- and off-ramp for the fast road, which itself has several lanes. You have to identify an opening from an awkward angle and then be pretty aggressive merging into the slot. Anyway, the car actually went for it, then seemingly decided against it and started slowing. I don’t think it would have caused an accident–it probably would have stopped before the merge–but it would have put itself in an awkward place (I’ve seen humans do this as well). Anyway, I took over and completed the maneuver.

So there are still areas of definite weakness. But many local drives have no cases beyond 1-2 on the scale, which is below the threshold where I feel any need to touch any controls, or even feel like I have to hover over them. And 12.3 has fixed some (but not all) of the problem spots that I noticed with 12.2.1.

As for lane changes specifically, FSD 12 is fantastic at them. It’s probably safer and better than I am. If it needs to be in a lane with a car in it, it slows gently to let the car pass and them immediately moves over once it’s at a safe following distance. Both smooth and aggressive at the same time. And unlike me, it can monitor the front, side, and rear views simultaneously, never having to worry that the car in front will slam on the brakes just as I’m looking in my blind spot.

1631

Quick drive tonight to a new place. Not so great, frankly. Using my 10-point intervention scale:

I4: For some reason, super hesitant at a stop sign that it’s never had problems with before. I think there were some spotlights on the opposing buildings that weren’t there previously (or it was daylight). Maybe confused at those somehow?
I6: Large, curved intersection with no lane markings. Ended up straddling two lanes on the other side due to not judging the path properly, eventually correcting itself once the lanes resumed. No cars nearby so I didn’t intervene, but definitely would have required an intervention otherwise. On the other hand–if there were other cars, it probably would have gotten things right in the first place (it seems to do better when other cars are around that it can compare itself against).
I7: Decided that a 45 mph road had a 25 mph limit. Weird because I’ve had no problems previously on the same road. But I came onto it from a different street this time, and there weren’t any speed limit signs in the vicinity. So I hit the accelerator. Pretty easy to figure out what was happening, so it wasn’t a panic intervention or anything, but it was something I had to do for safety reasons, so it gets a high score.

Wasn’t entirely bad. Made a nice right-turn-on-red. Passed between a car in the suicide lane and some guy on a trike in the bike lane, and the car slowed appropriately while threading the needle (just what I’d have done, in case either vehicle did something unexpected).

Looking forward to someone else on the thread getting the update so I can hear other stories :slight_smile: .

1632

I’m appreciating the reports from @Dr.Strangelove and others.

Didn’t want you to feel like you’re talking to a wall.

1633

Same.

While we just bought a Tesla, we didn’t pay for FSD but I did try it on our test drives. For our day to day and weekend trips, I don’t see FSD being too useful (we live in a small town in a rural area). However, I can see paying for it on driving vacations (you can pay for a month at a time) so this is helpful info. Plus, it’s an interesting topic for me.

1634

Thanks; good to hear that there’s interest in the writeups!

Looks like 12.3 already has quite a few more installs than 12.2.1, and that almost everyone on 12.2.1 got upgraded. But it’s still a relatively small number compared to the total install base. I’m thinking there might be another point revision before they deploy it further. There are still some definite weak spots that they might want to address before deploying it more widely.

1635

It also looks like 12.3 started to go to people outside of California, while 12.2.1 was almost exclusively in California.

1636

You’re killing me

1637

Drove again to a destination I’ve been to a few times now–zero interventions, and mostly my only complaint is that it went kinda slow.

Hard to even fault it on that, though. I was in the right lane of a multi-lane expressway. Limit was 45, the car was going 37 or so. But the lane to my self wasn’t going much faster, maybe 40ish, and my lane had cars merging and exiting. Personally, I’d probably have shot through at 45, but FSD seemingly doesn’t like passing on the right. Regardless, it wasn’t a situation where I was an impediment to others, and it was probably the optimal speed for safety.

A more interesting situation, though: I was at a very long red and slightly distracted. The light turned green and my car doesn’t move, even after the car to my left starts moving. Curious, since usually FSD beats other cars off the line. The other car then slams its brakes–some guy massively ran a red left-turn light in front of us. FSD didn’t even start to move until the light-runner had passed. It clearly noticed the other car before I or the other car to my left had.

It’s just the sort of situation that I sometimes worry about when it comes to self-driving. Even if I’m following the rules of the road perfectly, other drivers may not be. But it did the right thing in this case, even better than me or other cars.

1638

Something I’m coming to realize: the NHTSA restriction about stopping fully at stop signs is much worse than you might think at first.

The reason is that at many stop signs, there is not enough visibility at the marked stop point. A normal driver would slow almost to a stop, but creep forward until they had enough visibility to determine safety, and then go for it if possible.

But FSD comes to a complete stop at the line, and from there creeps forward until it has good visibility. The hard stop is completely unnecessary and does absolutely nothing for safety. The “real” stop is not at the marking, but at the point of good visibility. That’s the point where the driver determines if it’s safe to proceed or not.

So the rule doesn’t turn a 90% stop into a 100% stop like you might think. It turns a 90% stop into a 190% stop.

1639

Preach! I’m normally a stickler for nearly fully stopping behind the stop line and respecting the crosswalk (a lot of people blow through both), but there are intersections where the stop line is useless. If you stop and go from that legal spot, you are taking your hands into your own life. And all the locals that use that intersection know it. I assume Tesla is learning from those folks. Not all intersections are the same and I guarantee that not all intersections meet local, state, and federal traffic codes, depending on the road they are on.

1640

To be honest, this is what I do. I’m stopping at the line, because it’s generally drawn where the pedestrians are expected to cross. Once I figure out there aren’t any pedestrians I need to worry about, then I pull forward and make sure I can go. I’ve already stopped, so I don’t need to stop again if it’s actually clear.

So, this is one of the places I generally applaud FSD’s behavior.

1641

It’s not just crosswalks, though. I don’t agree with the rule in that case either (unless pedestrians are actually present), but that would be more understandable. It does the same thing for pretty much all stops.

Frankly, I think we have too many stop signs in California in the first place. They’ve multiplied over the years, with 4-way stops being much more prevalent than they were 25 years ago. At least in the areas I frequent.

1642

Here is an example of one of our bad intersections. Stop line is way too far back. Crosswalk is back from the main road as well. Vegetation is way out in front of even the front line of the crosswalk. You can see peds easily. If you use the stop line, you are risking a smash up. It’s a shit intersection, but not unique.

1643

So how do they handle four way stops in rush hours with a line of cars waiting in each direction?

Generally, a rhythm develops where cars alternate in pairs in each direction. An individual car (may or may not) have stopped completely at some point but probably can’t fully stop right on the line without screwing up the rhythm.

1644

Couldn’t tell you about that case. Busy 4-ways get rapidly converted to stoplights around here. But I’ll keep you posted if I see one.

I did hit a case at a 3-way stop where I was turning left and arrived at the same time as a car to my right, and a car to my left arrived just a second or two later. It correctly let the car to my right go first, then went itself. The car to my left probably could have gone for it when the first car went, but didn’t do so. Not too complicated a situation, but still, good to see it doing the right thing.

1645

Meant to say “pretty much all stops with poor visibility.” It’s not a huge deal otherwise, though still more cautious than a typical human.

1646

Those are real common almost wherever I’ve lived. Once you start noticing them, they’re everywhere.

And yeah, to do a maneuver that is both legal and safe, that’s a two-stop stop sign. Once short of the first line for legality then again with your nose out past the crosswalk to take the time necessary to see cross traffic. And especially to see misbehaving cross traffic that may not be planning on stopping.

Of course no human driver actually does that. Assuming no peds, they roll right over the stop line and the crosswalk and quasi-stop just once at the point they have adequate visibility down the cross street.

One of the things any automation project exposes, even in accounting, is all the little white lies where what we officially say we do and what we really actually do don’t align. Smart managers make deliberate decisions about changing the “what we say” to match the “what we do” or vice versa. Ignoring the disconnect completely is almost always a sure path to project failure.

Given the practical impossibility of altering the behavior of the bulk of human drivers, ISTM the smart move is to alter the laws and the automation requirements. Make the current stop line legally an implicit unsigned “yield to pedestrians” line. And make the far edge of the cross walk the legal “must stop at/before here” line. Or even the extended cross-street curb line. Which IIRC is the legal stop point in the absence of a crosswalk or painted stop line.

This change would make the “what we say” come a lot closer to the “what we do”. Then we can program the self-driving cars to be both sensible and legal by following that rubric.

1647

Question for the legal and LEO types (or maybe anyone who has actually been ticketed for this): is actually stopping at the painted line a legal requirement, or is it sufficient to come to a stop somewhere at the intersection before proceeding through it? If I coast past the line and up to a point where I can see adequately, and come to a full stop there, can I be ticketed? (Assuming, of course, I didn’t run over any pedestrians in the crosswalk.)

Everyone here seems to be treating the painted line as the only legal stopping point. But is that true in all or most jurisdictions?