this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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This is purely my anecdotal experience, but Tesla drivers appear to be some of the worst drivers on the road. There are stereotypes of drivers. BMW's never signal their turns, Jeeps think they can drive basically however they want including on shoulders, and Tesla drivers are oblivious to any kind of spatial understanding of the road around them.
I blame the design that forces you to keep your eyes off the road. Making a left turn? Don't look left, take your eyes off the road and look down at the screen on your right to see the left lane warning. Wipers need adjustment? Take your eyes off the road and look at the touch screen because there are no buttons.
Now that there is data, maybe the highway administration can force Tesla to put driver safety ahead of esthetics.
I'm sure that's one contributing factor, but I'd bet that the biggest issue is that the car is made to go fast. People who drive faster end up in more accidents. Hence why Audi / BMW drivers are also stereotypically bad drivers - they are both brands with a high-acceleration profile.
The “faster=more accidents” thing is actually kind of up in the air. Like with many things, it’s a bell curve, but driving a few MPH over the limit appears to be safest. Supposedly because people who drive a little bit faster tend to pay more attention. Sure, there are the outliers like the people who weave through traffic at 100MPH, but only a few over the limit appears safest.
Some of the highest accident rates actually come from people who regularly go under the limit. Because those are the people who are geriatric, distracted, texting, drunk, high, etc. and are going slower because they want the extra stopping distance or don’t want to be pulled over for speeding. Plus there’s all the hazards associated with going slow on the highway, when you’re only doing 45 MPH and traffic is flying past you in the next lane at 75. At that point, you’re practically a moving road hazard.
As far as I can tell that's not at all the case in Sweden where I live, in fact geriatric or slow drivers are very rarely involved in accidents. Intoxicated drivers are extremely rare compared to most other countries. See e.g. https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/sweden-road-safety.pdf which says "Inappropriate speed is one of the leading causes of road crashes". You can find more research saying similar things on Google, e.g. that for every 10 km/h increase, the risk of an accident increases by 33 percent.
But it's not just a matter of having a high overall speed. It's also how quickly you accelerate / break. BMW/Audio/Tesla drivers have a high capacity for acceleration and they use it e.g. to overtake in situations when others wouldn't. I suspect the cause/effect is the other way around though: if you're a reckless driver who doesn't care about safety, you're more likely to choose a car that has a lot of power.
I posit that the amount of potential acceleration may be more correlated than the raw speed. Accelerating quickly makes you less predictable to the drivers around you and reduces the control you have over your own car.
Could it be the that nervous and less confident drivers are the ones that drive at or slightly below the speed limit?
Maybe it's not that driving faster is safer but worse drivers drive slower to attempt to compensate.
That's the reason why my friend wants to get one even though he dislikes Elon. One of the faster ev cars out there.
The wiper thing used to be an issue for sure, thankfully now you can use the wheel buttons to do it. Also for turning you really don't need to look at anything. I'm not saying people don't but you don't need to. There are still a few things that are somewhat annoying mainly the defrost/defog but I feel like I look the same amount as I did in my other car to push those buttons as well
The voice commands work as well as anything. It's much easier to push the roller button on the steering wheel and say "turn on defroster" than to manipulate controls (either on a touch screen or non-touch screen interface)
Voice controls are great, unless you have a strong accent it doesn’t understand, a speech impediment, or mute. Which are all things that normally wouldn’t disqualify you from driving a car. Which I feel like should disqualify them from the discussion of physical vs tablets myself.
Fair enough, mate.
The number of times I shout "your car is supposed to be smarter than that!" As a Tesla does something like, without signaling, whips around me and into oncoming traffic to pass a stopped city bus is staggering.
Fun fact, the Lending Tree analysis listed in the article showed that Ram drivers have the "highest incident rate," which looks at accidents, DUIs, speeding, and other traffic citations. This makes them the statistically worst drivers. BMWs have honorable mention as the having the highest DUI rate.
Fixed based on experience. I really do feel like these are scarlet letters to being thundering assholes, and they communicate with their king like wifi routers.
It's reflective of their larger view/"understanding" (or lack of understanding) of the world/how it all works.
I came here to say exactly that. You can blame Musk for many things, but the cars are only as good as their drivers, and they are some of the worst I've seen indeed.
The design of the car isn't that great. No physical buttons so you have to constantly look away from the road to interact with any car feature. Wipers, mirrors, climate control, music, etc... the blind spot and side views are on the display. Need to merge left but have to look right to see if it's clear.
Using the touch screen as a pain, for sure. However, nearly all commands on the touch screen can be accessed via voice commands from a button on the steering wheel. In practice, the need to use the touch screen while driving (other than to monitor your speed and cruise control settings) is practically zero.
They do have mirrors, you know… The lack of physical buttons isn’t that bad either. You shouldn’t be fucking with things while driving whether there are buttons or not.
You pull over to adjust the AC?
I don’t adjust anything unless I’m stopped. Red light, stop sign, etc. Also, at this point, I can reference all that stuff without looking at the screen so, even if I needed to, I don’t have to take my eyes off the road.
It’s nonsense that Tesla drivers are somehow less safe because of the screens considering every other driver is staring at their phones.
Oh yeah, and this definitely doesn't cause problems. There's not a single law that forbids this. And yet, looking and messing with a larger version is supposed to be ok? I am not talking out of my ass. I have driven Teslas and it is distracting whether you agree or not. It was the first reason i decided i wouldn't buy one unless there were buttons. In fact, some people are starting to mod them to put physical buttons back in.
I never said it doesn’t cause problems. The issue is the inattention whatever the device.
And I own one and it’s not distracting if you don’t let it distract you. You are talking out of your ass.
You might be able to adjust things without taking your eyes off the road fairly safely if you had some sort of tactile feedback. Like a knob to adjust the volume of the radio or another knob or lever to adjust the heat/AC. I doubt you could do so just as reliably and without accidentally hitting a different button with a touch screen without looking at all, but even if you can, most drivers couldn't.
There's also a learning curve to contend with. Put me in a car with a standard stereo that has a volume knob, and I'll be able to use it without looking pretty quickly and without error. Put me in a car that has only a touch screen with a UI that is different from every other manufacturer's UI, now I have to memorize where buttons are. And until I have it memorized, I have to look.
It isn't at all reasonable or feasible to suggest you shouldn't adjust any control unless you're stopped. That completely ignores the fact that the US is comprised of many highways and interstates that won't have any stops for hours under the right conditions. You're telling me that you exit the freeway just to adjust the AC? That's a lie and you know it. And again, even if that's the case for you, it isn't the case for most drivers.
Cars marketed to the masses should be designed for use by the masses and should be designed with safety in mind. These are 80 mph tin cans that can do a ton of damage and need to be treated as such. Especially modern EVs with batteries that burn with the light and temperature of 1000 suns when damaged.
Also "every other driver is staring at their phone" sounds like a disingenuous way to suggest that taking your eyes off the road is okay because everyone else does it too. Yes, lots of people do, but lots of people do not, and just because some do, that doesn't mean we should design our cars in a way that requires the same level of inattention.
If you’re driving, you shouldn’t be doing anything that distracts you from driving. Period.
Right. Which is exactly why removing tactile knobs and buttons is stupid.
Messing with knobs is still a distraction. You’re simply arguing for lesser distractions when the point is that, if you’re driving, you should be focused on driving and not on buttons, knobs, screens, or phones. It’s literally the first lesson of driving and yet you’re pretending like there’s some safer way to be distracted. It’s a load of bollocks.
No, you keep your eyes on the road, and use you're sense of touch to adjust the radio, temperature, etc. Hence the benefit of tactile knobs. Boy you really are somethin lol.
Oh, it’s you. First off, it’s “your”. You’re not to be taken seriously.
Second, using your “sense of touch” is still a distraction. You’re not focusing on the road if you’re trying to feel your way around your car. As mentioned before, you’re moving the goalposts attempting to argue a degree of distraction. I’m arguing that any distraction is a negative.
Yeah that's stupid, you need to be able to change your heat controls due to weather conditions, that's the reasons tactile knobs work.
Yeah, because the weather conditions change suddenly while driving. You adjust everything before you start driving and you focus on driving while you’re driving.
.. Yes? Are you a real person or a child lol?
I’m an imaginary straw man that you made up in your head. It doesn’t go from being 72 degrees out to being freezing where you need to change your “heat controls” suddenly. Stop being disingenuous.
Your can see the blind spot in the physical mirrors?
Properly positioned mirrors don’t have blind spots.
Edit: Any modern vehicle with functioning mirrors should not have blind spots: https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gdguo/driving/BlindSpot.htm
And yet pretty much every car has a blind spot detector of some sort. Pretty weird for something that's never needed.
People don’t set up their mirrors properly. If you’re turning your head to make a lane change, you’re doing it wrong. Also, the visibility in a Tesla is much, much better than it is in most cars. Not having an engine in the front of the car allows for more angle in the pillars that would normally cause blind spots.
Yeah all the priest drivers switched to tesla's, I've seen them so many times getting in the highway going to slow and merging across all lanes just to cause traffic