“Hey, Hands on the Wheel, Bud!”

I don’t think it’s a matter of what s/he or any other driver can do.

I think the twin goals of OpenPilot and other ADAS are the same as for traditional, non-adaptive cruise control:
1. Make driving easier, and
2. Let the driver concentrate upon what s/he does best.

But just “more so” than ordinary cruise control or DRCC.

In short, best of both worlds:
* Not flawlessly, but most if the time, the car takes care of the piddly stuff, like holding a constant speed and staying centered in-lane,
So that,
* The driver can concentrate more upon navigation, looking out for sources of danger, etc.

 

Even if I had OpenPilot, I’d still keep my hands on the wheel!

 

I do get that, and in that sense, what you’re saying is reasonable.

However, there are three at-least-arguable differences between keeping your foot on the pedal with cruise control and hands on the wheel with lane-centering engaged:

First, cruise control is designed to allow you to depress the accelerator past what cruise control selects. So, if you rest your foot on the pedal, it’s a near-certainty that you’ll unintentionally increase your speed past what cruise-control specifies. In contrast, lane-centering systems like OpenPilot’s, Tesla AutoPilot’s, or Nissan ProPilot’s, resist any unintentional ... drift ... in your manual-steering input. They do let you overpower them if you choose, but unlike accelerator-pedal position under cruise control, you very definitely know when you’re overriding lane-centering controls!

Second, accelerator-pedal position is a very imprecise control compared to the steering wheel. There’s only an inch or two of travel in the pedal, compared to the two-and-a-half revolutions of the steering wheel. The accelerator pedal is also not a proportional control like steering — there’s no exact accelerator-pedal position corresponding to 45MPH, for example. Also, hands are far-more-precise at controlling things than are feet. All combined, it’s much more feasible to cooperatively manage the steering wheel than the accelerator pedal, because the wheel is a far-more-precise and exacting control that you feel exactly and even see.

Third, there’s not much reason not to keep your hands on the wheel. You’ve got to put them somewhere, so why not keep them on the wheel?

 

Two things about this don’t make sense:

First, this isn’t a matter of “moving over,” which (if that law is the same as the Texas law) means leaving a clear lane between emergency vehicles parked at the side of the road. In this case, the Tesla not only didn’t leave an additional, empty lane between the emergency vehicles and its path, but it plowed into them. It moved to the left, not to the right!

Second, Tesla AutoPilot is historically very good at avoiding stopped vehicles ahead of it. I therefore suspect he’s ... “engaging in wishful thinking” (lying) ... about it being on AutoPilot. Either way though, he’s still “pilot in command”; he is still absolutely responsible for the driving of the car, regardless of how much he delegated to automation.

Nevertheless, you’re asking a good question: Do these systems know to “move over”?

 

Your life and others’...