this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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Deer on the road is an edge case that humans cannot handle well. In general every option other than hitting the deer is overall worse - which is why most insurance companies won't increase your rates if you hit a deer and file a claim for repairs.
The only way to not hit/kill hundreds of deer (thousands? I don't know the number) every year is to reduce rural speed limits to unreasonably slow speeds. Deer jump out of dark places right in front of cars all the time - the only option to avoid it that might work is either drive in the other lanes (which sometimes means into an oncoming car), or into the ditch (you have no clue what might be there - if you are lucky the car just rolls, but there could be large rocks or strong fence posts and the car stops instantly. Note that this all happens fast, you can't think you only get to react. Drivers in rural areas are taught to hit the brakes and maintain their lane.
Which the Tesla didn't do. It plowed full speed into the deer, which arguably made the collision much much worse than it could have been. I doubt the thing was programmed to maintain speed into a deer. The more likely alternative is that the FSD couldn't tell there was a deer there in the first place.
Braking dips the hood making it easier for the deer to go into the windshield. You should actually speed up right before hitting to make your hood go up and make it hopefully go under or better stay in the grill.
Maybe, but it's still the case that slowing down will impart less energy to the collision. Let up on the brake before impact if you want, but you should have been braking once you first saw the deer in the road.
Sometimes those fuckers just jump out at you at the last minute. They're not smart. But if you click the link, this one was right in the middle of the road, with that "Deer in the headlights" look. There was plenty of time to slow down before impact.
Conditions matter and your reaction should always be for the worst possible scenario (moose and snow), braking removes your ability to maneuver as well, and locking the brakes up which will almost always happen when you panic break, would be the worst scenario. If there’s snow or rain, braking again is right out.
If it jumps out and you can’t do anything but brake, you shouldn’t do that, you grip the wheel and maintain speed, and if you can punch the gas for the hood raise. But people panic and can’t think. So maintain speed, don’t panic and lock your brakes up.
You should know how to brake without causing maneuver problems (including not locking up the wheels). It is a basic skill needed for many situations. Just keep slowing down, the accelerate just before impact is something that can only be done in movies - any real world attempt will be worse - remember if you keep braking you lose momentum, so the acceleration needs to be perfectly timed or it is worse.
In this case, the deer just stood there in the road.
Any driver and any AI should be able to stop before the obstacle in that case.
Cause it could be a human, or a fallen tree instead of a deer.
You know cars have had ABS for a long time, right?
Speeding up instead of braking is fucking stupid, you're just increasing the impact force (F=(m*v)/t), and increasing the likelihood of the deer going through your windscreen and killing people.