US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg on Monday said human drivers must pay attention at all times after videos emerged of people wearing what appeared to be Apple’s recently released Vision Pro headset while driving Teslas.

Buttigieg responded on Twitter/X to a video that had more than 24m views of a Tesla driver who appeared to be gesturing with his hands to manipulate a virtual reality field.

Despite their names, Tesla’s assisted driving features – Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving – do not mean the vehicles are fully autonomous, Buttigieg said Monday on social media.

“Reminder – ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully engaged in the driving task at all times,” Buttigieg said.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        5 months ago

        That’s great if there’s a train that goes where you need to go. For most people in the US that happens approximately never.

        • Chriswild@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          If only something could be done about it but it seems for some reason the laws of physics don’t allow trains in north America

            • Chriswild@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              That’s why the first intercontinental travel was trains. Over distance trains a substantially more efficient than car because of rolling resistance and differentials.

              That’s why I say the laws of physics don’t apply because we do the objectively worse thing because the government hates building infrastructure.

              The US for instance is about the same size as China yet China has lots of rail because the government will focus on infrastructure.

              • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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                5 months ago

                Yes, trains are great for long distances. Where they suck is trying to get people from point to point in a sprawling city designed around the assumption that everyone has a car. Cities are so spread out that getting within walking distance of most destinations by train would require an unreasonably large rail system.

                • Chriswild@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Let’s be honest, cars suck at that too and that’s why we’re perpetually dealing with traffic and widening roads.

                  But let’s take Phoenix AZ, the premium suburb sprawl. The light rail is pretty damn good and with a bike it’s pretty painless evern if you need to get a mile or two from the light rail.

                  The main issue with using bikes like this is all the big ass cars and drivers who will not share the road. If we had dedicated bike infrastructure leading to rail it would work just fine even with suburban sprawl.

                  I know this because I did this on the light rail in Phoenix.

      • YoorWeb@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Last time I’ve checked Tesla’s self driving option comes with a pricy subscription paid monthly.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I always wondered were there less accidents back then? Horses probably actively try not to run into things right? But they can also get scared and go crazy so who knows

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Riding horses or in horse drawn carriages was banned in the city of Rome multiple times in antiquity, because of accidents involving two horses.

        Cars will come to a stop, eventually, on their own. Horses get spooked and run, causing a much bigger problem.

        Mary Todd Lincoln once jumped from a carriage after her driver was thrown from the seat and the horse began to speed away. The resulting injury left her with migraines for the rest of her life.

      • the_seven_sins@feddit.de
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        5 months ago

        There are stories from horses bringing home their drunk, sleeping ‘drivers’ because they knew their way home.

        I’d guess there were less alcohol related accidents…?

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          5 months ago

          Yeah but streetcleaners would get it every hour or so and transport it off to farms. You know, the giant gardens that are so depleted of nutrients they spray chemicals constantly to replenish.

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        5 months ago

        I saw a horse go crazy recently and yeah… the horse didn’t hit shit…but the ones on the carriage…10/10 wouldn’t recommend.

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          5 months ago

          Those days when clearly something wants to come out of you and you feel like shit but it takes forever to want to go up… Some people does the fingers thing… but I have never ever got it to work tbh.

          • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Nah I just had a long visit with the MIL and there were some times I wished I could have projectile vomited at her to get her to shut up. Really anything to get her to shut up. The topic of the day was how much she hates her sister.

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        5 months ago

        Cybertrucks, VR headsets, and projectile vomiting…

        Ahh the future!

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      I guess they are related no? Like it makes sense to have both.

      The issue is seeing movement but you are not physically moving…although the car you are technically moving but… I guess confused the brain as the movement is not caused by you.

      In my case I don’t get sick on car ever… And in VR the same, the only exception is on VR I might lose a little bit the orientation and lose my equilibrium for sec but very very rarely and not enough to fall thankfully.

      • cynar@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        It’s a mismatch between what the eyes see and the ears feel. In nature, this generally only happens when you’ve been poisoned (think drunk). The obvious solution to being poisoned is to empty the stomach, to limit how much more gets absorbed.

        The effect is processed at a fairly high level, mentally. This means you can influence it. E.g. if you focus on the difference, in an accepting manner, and your subconscious will stop reacting to it as badly.

      • HenryWong327@lemmy.ml
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        From what I’ve heard (back when I used Reddit) they aren’t linked, there’s apparently a bunch of people who have one but not the other.

        Someone said that it’s cause they’re almost opposite effects- car sickness is when you feel movement but don’t see it, whereas vr sickness is when you see movement but don’t feel it- but I’d take this with a grain of salt since it’s just some random person on Reddit guessing at the cause.

        Personally my experience is mostly the same as yours, I don’t get either.

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    A lot of the people that drive these things are acting like children in adult bodies. I have seen some wildly dumb shit happen. It’s like the car company created by the Darwin Awards…

    I literally once saw someone eating on a little folding table/desk of some sort in their Tesla (driver seat, of course) with the dash screen playing some sort of media.

    Another time, the person was playing a handheld gaming console of some sort, in the driver seat.

    An the automatic lane switching doesn’t adjust for people speeding up in the passing lane well. I’ve seen a couple near accidents there.

    • XTornado@lemmy.ml
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      I mean the table thing and the gaming sounds cool… The issue is them doing it while “”“driving”“”.

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    People have always been idiots behind the wheel. I started driving before personal electronics and touchscreens were a thing. You still saw people bracing books or newspapers against the steering wheel with their thumbs so they could read as they drove down the highway. Now it’s watching movies, texting or other social media, video conversations, reading…

    Just seems that there are way more people doing it. The social contract gets more broken every day.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      It was amazing what I saw people doing when commuting in L.A. traffic. Yes, it was very slow. You still could hit the person in front of you!

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      Or fiddling with the radio / tape player / CD player, or putting on makeup / shaving. People have always done this.

      This is one of the top reasons wfh is better. You don’t need to hurry to get ready.

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    “Reminder – ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully engaged in the driving task at all times,” Buttigieg said.

    This is not entirely true anymore. If you’re in a 2024 Mercedes EQS Sedan driving in Nevada (Edit: or California) at less than 40 mph, you are allowed to take your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road.

      • KISSmyOS@feddit.de
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        No, Mercedes is the first one to market with a level 3 (fully self driving) system, which is available with their top of the line sedan.
        They applied for certification and got it from the state of Nevada. (Edit: And California)

        The system itself is limited to 40mph.

        • navi@lemmy.tespia.org
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          If I recall correctly the big difference being that Mercedes is the first manufacturer to take legal liability for an accident while their software is driving (under the specific circumstances), which is pretty big IMO.

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        It’s actually more specific than that. It also only works if there’s a car directly in front of you.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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      Wow, is Mercedes advertising that at all?

      Engadget tried it in LA in September ‘23. (Piped)

      Interestingly, still can’t use your phone due to CA law - but can watch videos, browse the web, as long as you stay <=40 MPH (65 km/h).

      And it’s Mercedes’ fault if it crashes!

    • dovah@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Same for the Waymo cars. You can actually sit in the back seat and let it take you to your destination.

  • Mahonia@lemmy.world
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    This is one of the things about assisted driving tech that’s always confused me. It seems unlikely that we will have fully self-driving cars soon, but the illusion of being able to be absent while driving seems really dangerous. It doesn’t seem like an improvement to me to remove the human element from most of the driving tasks while also requiring that human to spring into action seemingly at random.

    Like don’t get me wrong, people do dumb shit on the road with or without assistance, but having a system that requires human involvement at a zero-to-hero level seems like a bad system.

    Then again, based on this actual content, maybe people just shouldn’t be allowed to own vehicles full stop.

    • anivia@lemmy.ml
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      It seems unlikely that we will have fully self-driving cars soon

      Maybe not from Tesla, but Mercedes already sells 2 cars which have limited Level 3 self driving functionality. Up to 50 mph you are legally allowed to divert your attention from the road and do something else, you just need to be ready to take back control within 10 seconds of the car telling you to do so. Mercedes is so confident in that system that they are taking legal liability for any crashes caused while the car is in self driving mode. And Mercedes is already planning to get the car certified for speeds up to 75mph soon, so it will be usable at regular highway speeds

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          Well, so far these cars have driven a lot of miles without crashes. They don’t need to be perfect, they just need to be better than a human driver, which is not a very high bar to set

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      You are of course correct but the problem is that Tesla are irresponsible, shocking I know.

      All the other car companies are holding back their self-driving tech until it actually 100% works, but Tesla are like, nah we’re going to use our customers as bata testers. So what if they die they’ve already bought the car.

    • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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      Realization might only last for about a millisecond or two.

      At some point, doctors are gonna tell a guy, “your face is already irreparably damaged by these AR devices in your sniff… just as an experiment, why not improve the enhancements surgically?” And that’s how cyberpunk 2077 gets on the rails.

    • geekworking@lemmy.world
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      I am more concerned about the innocent people who will pay for the assholes “bad idea” will their lives.

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      After seeing some people having their face branded with their car logo from the wheel the the airbag fired… actually this might be better protection…

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    5 months ago

    The complete disregard for road safety and personal well-being (not to mention the well-being of others) never ceases to amaze me.

    I see several videos every day on social media of people taking videos while driving.

    Saw another guy doing a (very unimportant) delivery with a trailer across state in a clapped-out old van on the 1 day of the year there was ice on the road, and predictably crashed badly.

    • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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      And it looks fake, honestly. If you see videos of YouTube reviewers using the device, they do way less poking and tapping and like, weird throwing of the hands that the person in the OP video is doing.

      Same with some of the other videos of people walking across streets and through traffic.

    • Mahonia@lemmy.world
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      Well, the actual causes of pedestrian deaths (big dumb vehicles, infrastructure that more or less necessitates personal vehicle ownership) are the same things that the auto industry lobbies hard for.

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      I really don’t think these are staged. All its doing is making Vision Pro users look like assholes

      Edit: misread the OP comment. Thought they were saying Apple was staging these videos. I do believe that this video is probably staged by someone

      • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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        The thing doesn’t work when you’re moving and the cameras detect that your surroundings are moving. It is 100% staged.

          • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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            As long as your environment appears to be fixed to the cameras, it is fine, but in a car your surroundings are moving by. On a plane, you usually can’t see much more than the seats around you.

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        The movements in the video definitely look exaggerated especially the wavy hands at the end

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          I don’t deny that it’s probably staged. Imo it’s more likely just rage bait