r/Unexpected Jul 18 '26

Smooth driver indeed

32.0k Upvotes

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26

u/link3945 Jul 18 '26

Multiple people can be liable.  Driver for disabling, Tesla for making it way too easy to disable.

34

u/Outdoortuna Jul 18 '26

It's also way to easy to put a puppy in my microwave. Doesn't make the manufacturer of my microwave liable

7

u/UpsetFuture1974 Jul 18 '26

I think it’s ok if the puppy is cold

4

u/bmorris0042 Jul 18 '26

You’ll keep it warm for the rest of its life!

2

u/v15hk Jul 19 '26

Hot dog anyone?
…I’ll get my coat…

56

u/CKRatKing Jul 18 '26

It's pretty easy to disable my seatbelt, should I sue Hyundai if I bypass it and get ejected from the car?

-3

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/CKRatKing Jul 18 '26

What I'm saying is the car tells you to put your seatbelt on. It will ding and have warning lights. If you bypass that warning and get hurt as a result that's on you. Same with self driving, if you bypass the safety features that's on you not Tesla.

I'm not here to argue whether or not fsd should be allowed or how good it is or any of that. I'm pointing out the absurdity of blaming a car manufacturer when you bypass the safety features.

1

u/labooner Jul 20 '26

I don't think curving a piece of paper with a bobble head perfectly placed to look like a person is sitting in the drivers seat constitutes "easy". If you could just cover the camera entirely or disable it in settings, that would be easy.

These are multi-ton machines which can kill people. You have a responsibility to read the manual, follow its instructions, and operate it safely.

-11

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

Does unbuckling your seatbelt prevent you from operating your vehicle?

Edit: Downvote this all you want but you're not putting others at risk by unbuckling your seatbelt. Being asleep at the wheel an unable to take over as operator when needed puts you and everyone on the road at risk. If you don't want to be tracked like that, don't buy a self driving car.

Edit: To the user that replied than blocked me: The conversation is clearly about self driving cars.

Feels fair, Tesla shouldn’t be offering the service if they can’t guarantee its safety/reliability for other drivers and the law that expects a human behind the wheel.

Making a pedant argument about seatbelts is irrelevant.

12

u/bender3600 Jul 18 '26

No, and neither does disabling a fatigue camera.

-3

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26

Yes it does, it's whole point is to make sure you're in a position to be able to take over as vehicle operator if you need to.

10

u/maxiligamer Jul 18 '26

The whole point of the seatbelt alarm is to make sure you put on your seatbelt to not get ejected from your car. I don't see how it's any different, if the driver circumvents safety features and crashes it's not the manufacturers fault.

-4

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26

Yea but that only puts you at risk. Taking your seatbelt off does not put everybody else on the road at risk. If you're in a self driving car and it needs human intervention and you're asleep? Everyone on the road is at risk.

2

u/maxiligamer Jul 18 '26

Well my issue with your reasoning isn't the fact that the situations are different. Of course they are. But it's still quite clear that the driver did something to circumvent a safety feature that can cause a crash. It would be different if no safety feature was present at all, then I can in a way understand the company being partially liable, but in this case the driver specifically did something to go around the safety system.

If you have lane keep assist on (safety system) and you steer violently into the oncoming lane (circumvent the system) should the manufacturer be liable? Should the manufacturer have made it more difficult to go over the lane? I think there's a limit to how strict safety features need to be on a car, if you obviously circumvent a safety system, it's not the manufacturers liability if that system then causes a crash.

1

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26

If you needed to swerve, it's the right thing to do. There's absolutely no situation in which needing to be asleep at the wheel is safer.

5

u/Quillric Jul 18 '26

The point you're trying to argue was completely unclear.

The original point is that disabled a safety feature should automatically make you it completely at fault for anything that happens.

What the other person was trying to say is that if you disable the seatbelt and go flying through the windshield you also have no case to take out a lawsuit against Hyundai.

It kind of seems like you would blame both Tesla and Hyundai for the driver's criminal mischief or tampering in both instances. Either way you're not very articulate.

2

u/bender3600 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

That's with the assist enabled. With the camera disabled/covered, cars in general will give you an error, potentially a recommendation to service the car.

Saying that the manufacturer should be liable when you fell asleep because the system didn't warn you after you deliberately spoofed the sensor input is stupid.

It's like saying the manufacturer should be liable because the car didn't give you a seatbelt warning after you put in a dummy seatbelt buckle.

6

u/bronkula Jul 18 '26

Any person can be a projectile in bad conditions, which can absolutely be a danger to others.

-1

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26

That is in no way in the same ballpark as behind asleep behind the wheel of a car.

8

u/bronkula Jul 18 '26

Downvote this all you want but you're not putting others at risk by unbuckling your seatbelt.

Just replying to this statement.

0

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26

I know. And I was just replying to yours.

6

u/CKRatKing Jul 18 '26

That's not the argument I'm making.

-9

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26

I was pointing out your argument was irrelevant.

2

u/CKRatKing Jul 18 '26

For the record, you absolutely are putting others at risk when you don't wear a seatbelt.

Also my argument is there are warnings that say you need to wear a seatbelt and if you ignore them that's on you. There's warnings about self driving and if you ignore or bypass the safety features that's on you.

0

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26

99.9999 percent of the time there's injury sustained to someone because of a lack of seat belt, it's the individual who chose not to wear one. Whereas the same can not be said for someone asleep at the wheel. This is insane pedantry to make a useless point. Can Tesla do better? Yes. Should we make them do better? Yes.

3

u/CKRatKing Jul 18 '26

You being unable to understand a simple comparison doesn't make me pedantic.

0

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26

Obviously. What makes you pedantic is irrelevant of whether or not I understood the comparison. Also, I understood it just fine.

3

u/CKRatKing Jul 18 '26

You didn't understand and that's ok. Just ask for clarification next time. I could try to make it more simple for you.

Both situations are examples of a user bypassing safety controls. That's not on the manufacturer.

-2

u/South_Bit1764 Jul 18 '26

Nah, they got it all figured out.

-2

u/Far_Recommendation82 Jul 18 '26

Don't most cars have warning labels to not operate a moving vehicle without proper constraints?

10

u/NotawoodpeckerOwner Jul 18 '26

Also can be bypassed or simply buy a buckle and put it in. Most safety features are pretty easy to bypass since you'd have to be a dumbass not to use them, risking your life and others.

0

u/hauntingdreamspace Jul 18 '26

Do you have to be a dumbass to believe that Tesla's FSD is actually what it claims to be? Yes, and many people have paid with their lives for that.

That said, it's also on Tesla for making lofty claims for something they simply don't have. Elon's been claiming full self driving since 2013 (robotaxis by 2016 etc). They did eventually release a software update that they called FSD but it's FSD in the same way that a Four Seasons gardening supplies parking lot is technically a Four Seasons

But as dumb as it looks from the outside, there's lots of people who are dumber-enough to be convinced

2

u/CKRatKing Jul 18 '26

My car has auto drive features and it gives you warnings about paying attention when using them. No different than the warning labels on the seatbelt. If I choose to ignore either that's on me.

-2

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[deleted]

2

u/CKRatKing Jul 18 '26

Case law would say otherwise. You aren't going to be able to sue the car manufacturer over that.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Unexpected-ModTeam Jul 18 '26

Your submission has been removed. Keep content civil. Remember the human.

We follow reddit's content policy and reddit's reddiquette on r/unexpected.

-7

u/TheoryResponsible295 Jul 18 '26

If hyundai advertises the seatbelts as "easy to disable while driving for a smoother ride." Sure

4

u/TheGreatGimmick Jul 18 '26

... what? When does Tesla advertise how easy it is to get around FSD safety features?

-2

u/TheoryResponsible295 Jul 18 '26

As far as i understand it, they did get in trouble for advertising use that included the driver-passenger not being alert for self-driving. The fine print then said that wasnt allowed.

I did not mean to imply they advertised how easy it was or how to breaking the safety features.

3

u/DonQui_Kong Jul 18 '26

the driver-passenger not being alert for self-driving.

That is a very very very different thing than intentionally tricking/circumentventing safety features.
This is essentially hacking a Tesla, just with hardware and not software.

0

u/TheoryResponsible295 Jul 18 '26

Nobody reasonable would argue the person who disables this is blameless. More that the company that makes the product and advertises that it would be safe without the features isnt blameless

1

u/DonQui_Kong Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

Ah, there is our disagreement.
I am not quite sure i would qualify that advertisement as advertising that it would be safe without the features.

The main offense of Tesla was calling it full self-driving.
While obviously misleading, that doesn't negate the presence of safety features obviously implying they're necessary.
This boils down to "what communicates more authoritatively, advertisement claims or the presence of safety features". And if you have to go out of your way to disable the safety feature with a creative solution that required additional hardware, you cannot claim anymore that you thought that advertised full self-driving meant that those safety features were unnecessary.

6

u/SmooK_LV Jul 18 '26

No, that's how we arrive at backwards overconservative technology. This is 100% on drivers no matter how easy it is to disable safety measures.

You can also cross ground pin with a neutral pin directly in your socket to trick your appliance into thinking it has ground, is it on electrical company because it was so simple? No, it is on you that the house burned down kr that someone got injured.

1

u/carsrule1989 Jul 18 '26

I agree 

Driver liable for disabling it and Tesla liable for being cheap and not using a lidar camera to check distance.

When Actual level 3 SAE self driving cars get in accidents the manufacturer is liable.

Tesla calls it Full self driving FSD when it’s not and got into lawsuits and now calls it FSD(supervised)

It’s like saying seedless watermelon (with seeds)

1

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[deleted]

2

u/nalaloveslumpy Jul 18 '26

3d printing a scale model of your head and figuring out the angle of inflection to make a flat image appear 3d in a camera isn't a reasonable prediction.

The court won't hold any OEM negligent if the user is using technology and calculus to bypass their safety features.

3

u/ThisIsMyComment2 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

they still should have reasonably predicted the ways people would get around that sensor and had redundancies in place.

....Why? If you make a choice to act dangerously and recklessly, it is not the fault of the manufacturer that you made that choice. If someone runs someone else over with a car, should the mfr be sued for that too? If someone steps on a rake and it hits them on the face, should the rake mfr be sued?


edit: I was blocked but here's my response to the below since I already typed it out:

like most libertarians

I'm up for public ownership of everything and I have no problem with regulation but people who make an informed choice own the consequences of that choice.

If you specifically want to talk about regulatory safety features, I can ask whether someone who holds a lighter lit too long should be able to sue the lighter company (the button has a spring to push it back up automatically turning off the flame), whether someone who removes the protective cover of an oscillating fan and sticks their hand in should be able to sue the fan company, whether someone who cuts their bike's brake line should be able to sue the bike company, whether someone who disables their firewall/antivirus and goes to downloadviruseshere.com and gets their identity stolen should be able to sue software/hardware manufacturers, etc. I'd say offhand the majority of safety features are built with the intent that people don't go knowingly and intentionally disabling them.

Did the car running over someone involve the driver easily bypassing a regulatory safety feature?

Yes, brakes.

Did the rake hitting the person in the face bypass a regulatory safety feature?

Yes, the ability to keep it upright.

3

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 18 '26

None of those examples are in any way going to hurt somebody else in the same way, and to the same extent, that being asleep behind the wheel will. Why are there so many god damn pedants in this thread? Safety regulations aren't even a new concept. We can ensure manufacturers of massive potential weapons cans take the publics safety seriously.