this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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The car came to rest more than 70 metres away, on the opposite side of the road, leaving a trail of wreckage. According to witnesses, the Model S burst into flames while still airborne. Several passersby tried to open the doors and rescue the driver, but they couldn’t unlock the car. When they heard explosions and saw flames through the windows, they retreated. Even the firefighters, who arrived 20 minutes later, could do nothing but watch the Tesla burn.

At that moment, Rita Meier was unaware of the crash. She tried calling her husband, but he didn’t pick up. When he still hadn’t returned her call hours later – highly unusual for this devoted father – she attempted to track his car using Tesla’s app. It no longer worked. By the time police officers rang her doorbell late that night, Meier was already bracing for the worst.

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[–] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca 159 points 1 day ago (5 children)

If we lived in any sort of reasonable or responsible world then these cars would be banned from public roads all over the globe.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 69 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And Tesla would be fined and sued into oblivion.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 49 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And the people who knowingly put profits before lives would be individually serve time for manslaughter.

[–] leftist_lawyer@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago

Not to mention obstructing criminal investigations.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Every study ever done on the subject has concluded that vehicle fires happen far less in electric vehicles than ICE ones. If you want to talk about responsibility we would ban them all.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 4 points 1 day ago (5 children)

100 fires that you can actually put out is better than 1 you can't.

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[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Call me a Luddite but I won't ride in a "self driving" car. I don't even trust lane assist although I've never had a car with that feature.

I think my sweet spot is 2014 for vehicles. It's about 50/50 with the tracking garbage and the "advanced features" on those models but anything past 2015 seems to be fully fly-by-wire and that doesn't sit right with me.

I'm old though and honestly if I bought a 2014 right now and babied it as my non commuter car I could probably keep it until I should give up my keys. You younger people are going to have to work around all this crap.

I liked lane assist. It's kind of like the Playstation triggers haptic feedback. It just makes the wheel slightly stiff as you near a line, but it's very passive.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I have a Sprinter van with lane assist for cross country travel. As obnoxious as it is 99% of the time, it has come in clutch a few times when I started to get drowsy and drifted off my lane.

[–] Atropos@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I hear you, but a 99% chance of being obnoxious isn't a great review.

I think I'll just stick to not driving when tired.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That's easier said than done. You can't judge your own behavior when impaired because you are impaired. By the time you are aware you are that tired, you've already been impaired for a long time.

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[–] danekrae@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

it has come in clutch a few times when I started to get drowsy and drifted off my lane.

Respect for sharing your mistakes.

[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

it has come in clutch a few times

Massive disrespect for not learning a thing.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago

Yikes. Chew gum, pinch the lobe of your ear, take a nap.

Your anecdote terrifies me that people may be relying on this shit when they are overtired.

[–] watson387@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My 2023 Subaru has lane assist. It was absolutely obnoxious so I turned it off.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

It turns itself back on every time you restart the van.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Driving when tired enough to drift out of your lane multiple times?

You shouldn't have a license.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I suddenly got very tired today when driving, and noticed my car drifting out of lane as I was unfocused, I was far from home, didn't have any snacks or anything.

Luckily I found a place to park soon after, pulled over, and rested for 20 min or so.

Tiredness can come sudden, it doesn't mean you should loose your license as long as you can deal with it in a safe manner.

[–] Zirconium@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

I've had tiredness come around everytime I try to drive West around 3:30-5:00 when the sun is around setting is the perfect time where it just hits me and the traffic slows to a crawl were the last 10 miles are just hitting myself until I get to class and then Im suddenly fully awake.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If it happens to someone multiple times and they treat lane assist as a crutch then they are not safe to drive on the road.

The best part is they followed up with this gem so I know they didn't pull over like you did:

For sure, but when you are driving cross-country you sometimes do not have a choice because there is nowhere to stop.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago
[–] invertedspear@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago

I think Ford does a good job of offering the features and tech, but not making them required. Even their EVs have settings that can mimic a gas driving experience. Be a Luddite trust what you trust. But don’t pigeon hole your acceptable years of manufacture.

[–] vithigar@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 day ago (15 children)

I've never had any issue with the lane assist in my Mitsubishi. It's absolutely built as an "assist" and not something that will actually try to take control from you. It's trivial to "overpower" it manually and turn out of your lane without signaling if that's what you want to do, but does a perfectly reasonable job of steering on its own when left to its own devices.

That said, I wouldn't be driving a vehicle new enough to have the feature yet either if I hadn't been rear ended a couple of years ago and had my 2012 Lancer written off. :(

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I quite like lane assist in the 2019 Honda I drive, even though it gets it wrong occasionally. It will not function unless it detects that you're providing some steering input of your own, and it's easy to override just by steering the way you want to go. That and cruise control are handy on the highway and have worked well for 6 years with no problems. But it's very far from either functioning or being advertised as "full self driving."

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[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've got a 2008 manual. It doesn't even have cruise control. It's perfect. I'm keeping it as long as I possibly can.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

'96 and '05 pickup trucks I keep flogging along for work, '05 SUV that's owned by my wife. They aren't going to last forever but I'm going to try.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm helping by using it as little as possible.

I like electric cars well enough for their simplicity and acceleration. It's all the other computerised gubbins they hang off them that I dislike, and Teslas are the worst for that.

I saw an old VW Beetle that had been converted to electric on the road recently. I wonder how hard/expensive it would be to do that with my 2 when the engine dies.

[–] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

My wife had a rental for a trip she and my daughter were going on for a gymnastics event and I got to drive it back from the rental place and it had lane assist.

Every time another car passed in the opposite lane the damn thing would try and jerk in the opposite direction of that car, sometimes almost running itself off the road into the ditch in the process.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

That's horrible

[–] absquatulate@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Drove a few cars with "lane hold" and it's infuriating to have to suddenly correct the car's trajectory at every curve because it misjudges the road line. Some cars are worse than others but it was literally the first thing I disabled every time. I wonder how truck drivers feel about it. Do modern trucks even have this?

[–] gnu@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

Closest I've come in a truck is an annoyingly loud alert for everything the computer reckoned was an issue and that was painful enough. Every time I'd drive it it'd be blaring the alarm for some reason or another and if it had been a long term company truck instead of a rental I probably would have ended up removing the speaker.

For example the lane departure warning would fire off every time you moved over to not run into someone parked on the side of the road, the close distance warning would fire off regularly when people merged in front of you, and if it was windy it'd set off an alarm to let you know the truck was being blown around when driving. Could be useful if you're mentally challenged or blind but that sort of thing is just going to annoy anyone who isn't. You couldn't even turn the alarms off properly - you could go through the deliberately prolonged procedure to turn them off temporarily but then they come back again every time you start the truck.

I've driven an SUV with lane keep assist and it would pull at the wheel trying to follow lane markings that were outdated or ones it just made up, I hope that particular bit of 'safety' tech doesn't make it to any truck I have to drive.

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

I don't know what professional truckers have for "assist" but I'm sure they resist it. "I'm a professional fucking driver! I don't want this shit."

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