# Model X Crash Fatality and Fire on 3/22/18



## Brokedoc (May 28, 2017)

The recent crash and fatality and fire last week in a Model X is being heavily investigated and TSLA short sellers are using it to incite a panic and worsen the price correction in stock price.

A few facts:

The crash occurred at high speed into a concrete barrier where the crash attenuator was not repaired. It's like driving into a tree at high speed. Depending on the speed, it may be impossible to survive that type of crash in any vehicle.










Despite multiple pictures of the fire that consumed the Model X afterwards, it appears from witness reports that the driver was already removed from the vehicle which was empty by the time the fire became dangerous.

It may not be possible to find out if the car was on autopilot due to the extensive damage from the crash and the fire. The logs may have been destroyed but Tesla and all of the government agencies investigating will do everything possible to recover the data.

Having worked in NYC EMS for many years, I know that drivers can become ill or incapacitated while driving thereby precipitating a crash. The driver was only 38 years old but I'm sure the full investigation will address all possibilities.

Tesla's Blog post: https://www.tesla.com/blog/what-we-know-about-last-weeks-accident


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

That unrepaired / unreset barrier was worse than hitting a tree. It was a like a hardened metal fork that jabbed at the battery pack, and appears to have let the X's crash structure not help properly in slowing the vehicle. Really horrific / sad / catastrophic crash. Caltrans should be ashamed for leaving that barrier unrepaired and unprotected. Apparently someone had run into it and "used it up" 11 days prior. Also someone else died a few years ago in the same location:
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2015/11/15/mountain-view-driver-dies-in-hwy-101-crash/
also (apparently) with the "crash cushion" left in an "already spent" and not ready configuration.
The area in front of the crash barrier is not marked well enough. It really should have plastic poles ("candelstick delineators") there to make sure people know to keep out. We have seen people try to use it as a passing lane.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

TEG said:


> Apparently someone had run into it and "used it up" 11 days prior.


Eleven days isn't really all that long. Fixing something like that on a busy road takes a good bit of planning, people, and equipment. You have to close lanes on both sides of the barrier for worker safety. You have to setup orange barrels for miles beforehand. Put up signs announcing the lane closures ahead. You need a portable barrier truck or two to help protect the work crew from people not paying attention. Not to mention a rather large semi to pick up the replacement barrier (wherever those are stored/bought) and transport it to the site.

It's a shame that somebody died, but don't be too quick to judge on this one.


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

Consider this:

#1: Once the news of this fatal crash became a big deal, they came right out and repaired it.
#2: They picked this type of barrier because it is "low maintenance", cheap and quick to repair.




( They say it can be "reset" in about 30 minutes. )
#3: They have a maintenance depot with trucks and parts basically right next to the location of the crash.
























#4: They don't lay down barrels when resetting it. They just park one of those cushion trucks behind the crew.

They work on the barrier enough that the Streetview cameras have happened upon them multiple times.
Here is one picture when they were working on it before:









I don't think they get a 'pass' on this. From what I can tell, there have been multiple fatalities against that barrier.
Resetting it seems to be a 'routine' operation that they have done repeatedly.
They used to have sand barrels there, but switched them for the "smart cushion" device, I assume because it is an area that has frequent impacts and is considered better served by a reusable device.
When they know it is inoperable, they should either reset it or leave some temporary cushion and/or major warnings there.
All of the data I have seen on impacts with that "smart cushion" device are done with a working unit in the "ready to go" position. They don't talk about what happens if you let someone run into after it was already impacted.
When it was impacted 11 days prior, someone came out and put some orange cones next to it which clearly wasn't enough to prevent another impact into the non-functional cushion.
In that 2015 fatality I mentioned above, there we indications that the "smart cushion" device may have also been left in the "already impacted" condition.


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

This thread on another forum has a bunch of pictures of it left in the impacted / damaged condition:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/2636752/

If Streetview and DashCams were seeing it in that condition so many times, I have to assume the response times to reset it have been lengthy. Some of the photos appear to have it in the same exact unsafe condition for months at a time.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Great investigation, @TEG!
Thanks for taking the time to make that post. Very eye-opening.


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

Having read through very many transportation department documents to better understand this, one thing that stands out is that total lifecycle costs of barrier components gets talked about way more than the safety of the driver. So to emphasize the problem I see here in terms that politicians and money counters should ponder:

If a smart cusion is left un-reset and then someone else rams into it, that is not an "in spec" event for the smart cushion and it can become permanently damaged and require total replacement. So their arguments to "single source" the smart cushion because it has low cost to operate due to some number of re-usability cycles becomes invalid if they don't do proper maintenance to let it be re-used the planned number of cycles.

Also, from the "taxpayers should care about the costs" standpoint, having it left in an out-of-spec configuration could lead to costly lawsuits that taxpayers will end up paying, so the purported costs savings of this device are also called into question due to that.

The old system of sand/water barrels they had before had some advantages such as:
#1: Much easier to see, so less likely for people to run into them.
#2: When they are impacted they fall apart and leave visible debris for people to notice and report and expect them to be repaired quickly.
#3: They are much wider and softer, so not so likely to cut through a bumper and skewer an EV battery pack.

The smart cushion doesn't look obviously damaged when impacted so drivers whiz by it unaware that it is in a much more dangerous state. The smart cushion is advertised as a "low maintenance" device which could be perceived to mean "you don't have to rush out and repair it as quickly as other types of crash attenuators".


I assume there are stories behind this such as staff shortages, scheduling issues, and other SNAFUs the lead to this type of sad tragedy.
I assume that there are responsible people who feel really bad about this, but feel their hands were tied, and they couldn't do any better.
I hope someone analyzes this situation to find out how to improve "the system".


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

By the way, this was that same location in 2013:


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## Frank99 (Aug 3, 2017)

To the OP's point about the driver getting out before the fire, here's a still from a video taken after the driver was removed from the vehicle, but before it caught on fire (shamelessly stolen from the video here: https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-x-catches-fire-horrific-crash-california/). Note that the driver's seat is empty and unburned; in the video you can see that a small fire has started in the battery pack:


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

https://www.kqed.org/news/11658404


> ...
> "The reason this crash was so severe is that the crash attenuator, a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had either been removed or crushed in a prior accident without being replaced," Tesla said. "... We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash."
> The National Transportation Safety Board told the Washington Post the agency is "looking at the damaged attenuator and looking at an undamaged one and looking at if it had an effect."
> Caltrans said in a statement late Wednesday afternoon that the agency is "reviewing the facts and circumstances of this incident and are cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board's ongoing investigation. Safety is our top priority and Caltrans will carefully evaluate the investigation's findings and take appropriate action."
> ...


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

I felt compelled to research what happened because I live near there, drive past there, and got stuck in the traffic for an hour behind that accident and saw it up close first hand. It feels "close to home" and "personal" and I want me and my family to be driving by an appropriately safe protective barrier cushion.


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

http://abc7news.com/automotive/excl...rrier-before-tesla-driver-died-there/3280399/


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## Maevra (Oct 24, 2017)

I live very close by and here are my observations and anecdotal info from someone who drives this road every day:

1. This stretch can be a very confusing and unclear lane change for those who are not familiar with the area. It's very common to see drivers merge left, thinking they got into the lane with no traffic, only to swing back into the 101 lane because they realized too late they were in the 85-only lane. I've also seen cars literally slow down or stop completely in the middle of the split trying to get into one lane or another because they were confused about which one to take.

2. The lane markings in the last hundred feet leading up to the barrier are poorly marked and the white lines have faded/are barely visible in places. I really wish they would paint diagonal lines across the split to clearly signal "do not cross".

3. I don't like using AP when driving right next to that stretch in the HOV lane, especially during rush hour, because there's a high chance that other drivers will cut in from the left at high speed to get back into the 101 HOV lane.

4. I never even knew that crash barrier was supposed to be stretched out. It always seemed to be crunched up every time I passed (and I've lived in the area since 2015).


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## Maevra (Oct 24, 2017)

Update: well what do you know... the crash cushion has been reset on the barrier today. Guess with more eyes watching Caltrans decided to make it a priority.


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

I wonder what % of crashes there hit the barrier that is already impacted from a previous crash. They ought to have those statistics available. At what point do they decide that % is unacceptable, and they need to find a way to shorten the response time? ...Or redesign the area to make crashes less frequent? They could look at number of fatalities at that location too.


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## Joaquin (Jan 15, 2018)

Maevra said:


> only to swing back into the 101 lane because they realized too late they were in the 85-only lane


This. Every. Single. Day.

I can't understand people that risk their lives, and others, just to not get the wrong exit and lose... 20 minutes, tops?


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## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

just for another frame of reference on speed to repair safety barricades, yesterday afternoon there was a wreck into a median barricade here (early afternoon with the crash backing up traffic thru evening). First thing this morning I'd seen a tweet from WashDOT that there would be a crew working on the shoulder to replace it during morning commuting hours. so, less than 12 hours. This wasn't an actuator, but the old school wood posts with the horizontally mounted steel bumper. 
Similarly on the Oregon side, in the last month an actuator like in the Model X crash was crushed on my work off ramp - it had sand barrels set up later that day and was replaced within 3 days.


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week's-accident

It sounds like the car was on auto-pilot driving in the same area where you see a street-view car driving here:









You aren't supposed to be there. Drivers are expected to notice the barrier warning up ahead and move across one of those white lines into a real lane.

Looks like a street view car was driving in the gore area here too:


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## Maevra (Oct 24, 2017)

From the post (emphasis added):

_In the moments before the collision, which occurred at 9:27 a.m. on Friday, March 23rd, *Autopilot was engaged* with the adaptive cruise control follow-distance set to minimum. The *driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier *in the drive and the *driver's hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision*. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken._

So sounds like he was not paying attention or maybe was incapacitated in the seconds leading up to the crash? The visual and audio cues on Model S/X are pretty hard to miss IMO.


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

Here is another streetview picture showing someone drifting left into the "gore area":


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## Maevra (Oct 24, 2017)

TEG said:


> Here is another streetview picture showing someone drifting left into the "gore area":
> 
> View attachment 6825


Based on this photo I wonder how easy it would be for AP to misread the gore area as a legitimate lane? 150 meters away the lines are pretty close together and it's only towards the last 20 meters that the lanes really diverge and the space widens.

ETA:
This ABC7 video has a good view of the road leading up to the gore point (watch minute 1:58) and the difference in color on the asphalt and concrete and where it all meets the white lines.

HOWEVER, ABC7 made that video assuming the driver was in the 85-S lane to get to work (Apple HQ) but this info suggests the driver may have been in the 101-S lane. Totally changes the viewpoint depending on which lane they were in.


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## Joaquin (Jan 15, 2018)

That whole divider area is just wrong... at least the asphalt between the white lines should be rugged or something to clearly have feedback that you are NOT supposed to drive/cross there!

But anyway, no bueno if the autopilot was engaged. The news will take that out of context and blame the accident to that


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## RolfS (Oct 2, 2017)

My thoughts related to this accident and autonomous driving issues:

1. The name "Auto Pilot" is misleading. I was talking to a person at the LA auto show, looking at a Tesla Model 3. He said that his wife wanted one, because of the "Auto Pilot". She liked the self driving feature. I explained to him that is not what "Auto Pilot" is. Not even close. He was not aware of that. And this guy was an avid amateur racer, racing his Porsche. People are just not informed. Using the wrong words to name a feature can end up disastrous for someone. People don't read their manuals carefully, or don't understand what they are reading. They think the feature does more that it does. Calling it "Driver Assistant" would be a step in the right direction.

2. CalTrans was negligent in fixing the crash attenuator. There was an accident 11 days prior to this one with a Prius running into the gore point and they did not reset the crash attenuator. (the Prius has lane keeping feature option too. I don't know if this one did - hmm.) Big mistake, CalTrans said they were delayed because of rain. Not sure that is a valid excuse. They should have put an electronic sign in front of it to direct traffic around or at least a whole set of barrels along the whole divider.

3. CalTrans needs to re-stripe the no drive lines. Put chevrons and rumble strips in that whole area. In general CalTrans with the increase of self driving cars needs to rethink their road markings to make sure that the stripping is repainted everywhere when they fade and that road signs are clear and readable.

4. It was said that the radar does not detect stationary objects. Not sure that is an accurate statement. The radar might or might not. There are some pretty sophisticated radar techniques out there. Here is one example of a proposed system (date is 2003 - so I assume progress has probably been made in the mean time):

https://www.adv-radio-sci.net/1/105/2003/ars-1-105-2003.pdf

If the Tesla radar is anything like that then I would assume it's a software problem not a hardware problem. The other pure issue I have with radar and active systems is when they get many cars that all use the same active radar all running with different timing, how do they prevent interference from occurring and getting incorrect readings? Radar is based on doppler shift and pulse timing to get an accurate distance and speed differential reading. This is not going to work when everyone has them. You can't make it a packet with an encoded code, because the reflected signal is not going to be that clear and also doppler shifted. You might be able to detect collisions like on the ethernet and WIFI, but its not a data packet and you measure the return signal not the original one, it is probably frequency shifted and smeared.

The advantage with radar is that it can see in rain and snow and fog, since the wave length is way too long for it to see rain drops. LIDAR can't see in rain or fog, LIDAR and radar can't read signs. LIDAR reads the laser bounce back of its infrared laser signal. It has good resolution, but it can't read the writing on signs it can only see the shapes and the distance. It can't read traffic lights either. Radar and LIDAR always has to be backed up by passive optical means.

5. Neural networks and deep learning. I know that Elon Musk has stated that we have to be very careful with AI so that it does not get misused. Back in the 1970's as a young college student, I played around with neural networks. Wrote a Tic-Tac-Toe game using a neural network. Person against the computer. In this game two experts always end up in a draw. At first I had no problem beating the computer. But eventually the computer got better and better. It got to the point that when the game was about to end in a draw and it was the computer's turn it decided to not make the move. It got stuck in a loop. That was surprising to me. As it turned out it was because the back propagation weights on the neural paths where allowed to go to zero on all paths that ended in a draw, so it never took that path. The neuron was inhibited from firing. It was obvious once analyzed, and to change the back propagation to not allow the zero state for a draw. But it was kind of stubborn of it to not make the move at all, like a child refusing to take a bath.

Anyway, back then the computer power to process any extensive neural networks was pretty lacking. I assume today we have the processing power. The process is still in its infancy IMO, but I have not kept up in the technology so I could be wrong. I think it still has a long way to go. I'm not worried about AI taking over the world yet. These systems take millions of trials to get the neural networks to make the right decision on roads, signs, rules of the roads etc. It does not take humans that long to figure things out. If you are shown an object that you have never seen before and then are asked to identify that object in pictures, I bet you could get it right away. You might miss some but that is just because of being careless not that you don't recognize the shape. But show that to a neural network, and it would have to be trained to learn to recognize that object with many trials. Same thing with a road, something new comes up that it has never seen before it might get flummoxed (well just not know what to make of it), and probably just ignore it. But it could be something real important, which a human can figure out right away and avoid, if necessary. There is still something very important missing in how our brains recognize things and they way these neural networks operate. Something really important!

It needs to be possible to train neural networks faster. They need an language interface (maybe they have) that goes something like this:

a. this is a picture of a new sign.
b. when you see this sign it means such and such, these are the rules - incorporate.

The neural network needs to incorporate this sign into its structure by making new paths, without any new training taking place. That is what humans do they read the drivers handbook (or should) and know what to do - well most do assuming they learned to drive in the first place.

6. Maps can help the neural network. For example: road splits, look for gore point, and make sure you're not traveling on it. How many lanes, which ones split off. Okay, I hope you get the idea. You can add more on your own.

EDIT: fixed some typos. They always show up after I post.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Great post. I agree with most of it, but would like to point out the bits I disagree with. 


RolfS said:


> 1. The name "Auto Pilot" is misleading... Calling it "Driver Assistant" would be a step in the right direction.


I disagree with both parts of this statement. I think "AutoPilot" is quite descriptive - it does operate similarly to an airplane autopilot system. I disagree that renaming it to "driver assistant" would prevent people from believing it is self-driving. There are too many reviews of Tesla cars were people turn it on and then exclaim that "the car then drives itself". It's just not a problem easily solved by re-naming.


> If the Tesla radar is anything like that then I would assume it's a software problem not a hardware problem.


I agree. I think the problem is "false-negatives". A close-up coke can is hard to distinguish from a far-away barrier to radar. You don't want the car to panic-stop for a coke can on the highway. They need to incorporate the cameras and some image recognition to help augment what the radar sees.


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

http://www.dot.ca.gov/research/rese...reliminary_investigation_12-12-13_revised.pdf


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/97135/rec2.cfm


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## RolfS (Oct 2, 2017)

garsh said:


> I disagree with both parts of this statement. I think "AutoPilot" is quite descriptive - it does operate similarly to an airplane autopilot system. I disagree that renaming it to "driver assistant" would prevent people from believing it is self-driving.


I agree with you that Autopilot is very descriptive. Too much so. When I first started learning about Tesla, was before they had Autopilot. When they first announced it I thought, wow, that's amazing, the car can drive itself. And many comments and articles attributed more to it than what was there.

It's not even close to an aircraft autopilot, but the average layman does not know that. In todays aircraft autopilot you have incorporated the "Flight Director" (it might be called something else today - I don't always keep up with everything.) It's sort of like a route planner equivalent to mapping software is in cars. It can help you plan your whole route, including waypoints to avoid mountains and other obstacles particularly near landing and takeoff zones near airports where you might be at a low altitude. So they do a lot more than the Tesla Autopilot.

I'm not married to calling it "driver assistant" either, I just threw that out there as an example. The ordinary autopilot for aircraft is more like a fancy cruise control. I think maybe calling it "Teslapilot" would of made people less inclined to jump to the wrong conclusions and actually make them read about it. But, it's too late now the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. I think we are stuck with the term as is.

EDIT: Typos.


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## RolfS (Oct 2, 2017)

@TEG, very informative posts, I have been following you posts on telsamotorsclub.com on this subject. I am not a member and did not want to join at the last minute and be called a troll.

How do we get the various highway departments to incorporate these measures? They are needed for safer driving and for the future of autonomous cars, that aren't as smart as we are, but more vigilant if done correctly.

Thanks for your great posts here and there!


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## TEG (Apr 2, 2016)

I wish I had a good answer to that. Write your congress-person? Keep the dialog going in public forums?

It feels to me like we have grown more lax on upkeep of safety features on our highways.

Does it boil down to lack of funds? Management issues? Just too much traffic to keep up?

I don't know the answers, but felt compelled to point out what looks like improperly maintained equipment, poor road markings and other disappointing things like that. The local news has been making a fuss about this situation, and I bet we will get some extra attention on our local interchanges due to that. But does that mean they will cut corners somewhere else?


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