2023/11/10 by Noah J. Goodall, Noah Goodall · 3 voices
Computer Science · Decision Sciences · Engineering · Psychology · #Human-Automation Interaction and Safety #Risk and Safety Analysis #Traffic and Road Safety #cs.CY
paper · pdf · doi:10.55329/llfl7748
arxiv published 2023/11/10 · arxiv updated 2024/08/08
Between June 2018 and December 2022, Tesla released quarterly safety reports citing average miles between crashes for Tesla vehicles. Prior to March 2021, crash rates were categorized as 1) with their SAE Level 2 automated driving system Autopilot engaged, 2) without Autopilot but with active safety features such as automatic emergency braking, and 3) without Autopilot and without active safety features. In January 2022, Tesla revised past reports to reflect their new categories of with and without Autopilot engaged, in addition to making small adjustments based on recently discovered double counting of reports and excluding previously recorded crashes that did not meet their thresholds of airbag or active safety restraint activation. The revisions are heavily biased towards no-active-safety-features\unicodex2014a surprising result given prior research showing that drivers predominantly keep most active safety features enabled. As Tesla's safety reports represent the only national source of Level 2 advanced driver assistance system crash rates, clarification of their methods is essential for researchers and regulators. This note describes the changes and considers possible explanations for the discrepancies.