# Remote vehicle function speculation, particularly emergencies



## Frully (Aug 30, 2018)

Greetings friends

2 sub-classes of the same feature set: NOTE: I'm not asking to debate the merits of liberty versus security - just whether the feature exists and/or it seems to be absent from this highly connected vehicle.

I think it would be good if the car automatically detected emergency vehicle lights in the rear camera. With that information it could:

Mute the AV system
Alert the driver visual and audio
Potentially limit speed automatically
If on autopilot, potentially pull over automatically
If on FSD (eventually), surely pull over automatically.
This comes from people being terrible at pulling over for emergency vehicles, and in some cases being unaware of the emergency vehicle behind them. If a police pursuit, it would end pretty quickly if the car just said 'no, I won't run away'.
It does open the possibility of people using fake emergency light bars to disrupt autonomous vehicles -- but at the same time, it's already super duper illegal to have emergency lights on a non-emergency vehicle.

Had a thought about this recently and wanted to get people to weigh in: GM vehicles with On-Star...you've surely seen the commercials recently...it's been part of their tech suite for a decade that they can remote into the car, reduce its speed, then remotely disable it and unlock the doors in case of a stolen vehicle. In my app I can set a speed limit or set valet mode - but only if the vehicle is in park. If someone were to steal my vehicle - could/would roadside assistance disable the vehicle at the request of law enforcement? I know they COULD since ...there is no reason short of 'out of cel service' technologically they couldn't. I have a hunch it's probably a patent issue. I've had roadside assistance unlock a new-friend's Model S at a supercharger when he locked himself out coming over to ogle my 3.


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

Detecting emergency lights is a little harder than it may seem at first thought. Emergency lights are different colors in different states. Red is especially varying.
Last thing you want is the car to slow down for a wrecker transporting a car or a store with a beacon.


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## JML (Jul 26, 2018)

I like the idea of an on-screen notification of an approaching emergency vehicle. I think taking automatic action based on flashing lights will be extremely difficult though. For example, here in Colorado, snow plows have flashing blue lights. Pulling over to the side and stopping is absolutely the wrong thing to do if a snow plow is behind you. In many places police and possibly ambulances have flashing blue lights, so pulling over _is_ the correct thing to do.

Of course, this is just one more reason that fully self driving is such a hard problem.


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

Besides the assorted lights, can the car "hear" a siren?? Lights require line-of-sight in a direction a camera is pointed.


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Klaus-rf said:


> Besides the assorted lights, can the car "hear" a siren?? Lights require line-of-sight in a direction a camera is pointed.


my freeway route home has multiple other main thoroughfares that it crosses - and daily there is an emergency vehicle that I can hear the siren, but most times they are on the overpass streets, adjacent freeway, lanes going the other direction, etc. If the car reacted every time it heard a siren, I'd be fighting it multiple times a drive.


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## Frully (Aug 30, 2018)

Hence why I suggested it would be possible, not automatic for driving action -- but particularly to mute the AV system. The second half of 'does Tesla have remote shut down' is the interesting bit for me.

Edit: At least where I am emergency vehicles have visible (older) and infrared (newer) specific strobes to preempt the traffic lights. They flash specifically at 10Hz. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15133690/how-to-become-a-felon-without-really-trying/

Wouldn't be hard to integrate a detection algo for various emergency lights. Yes, telling a tow truck and plough from a police car is not trivial...but surely possible.

Alternately Googling the plough blue lights seems to show 2 rotary lights where police would surely have a more significant, likely LED fast flash solution.


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## Long Ranger (Jun 1, 2018)

How's the IR detection capability of the rear camera? A lot of emergency vehicles use an IR transmitter to trigger traffic lights. That's more standardized than the flashing lights themselves, but still not a universal standard by any means.

EDIT: Missed that @Frully just posted about the IR transmitters.


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

Is not an easy task as lots of humans get it wrong. If it was easy, the car(s) would already be doing it.


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## John (Apr 16, 2016)

Maybe for now it could detect and pop up a button "Emergency Vehicle Detected. Pull over?" as it mutes the audio.


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## Kizzy (Jul 25, 2016)

I once pulled over for a police officer just before an intersection. It was followed up with a “GET OFF THE ROAD!” via loudspeaker as I was the target. Following voice commands is another layer needed for emergency personnel interactions with autonomous vehicles.

(Also, this would make action movies less actiony.)


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