safety

The crashed Tesla that collided with a truck while in Autopilot mode, killing the driver, had a portable DVD player reportedly still playing "Harry Potter" inside when witnesses rushed to the scene. Investigators of the May accident, in which the electric car's systems apparently failed to see a tractor-trailer crossing the highway ahead due to lighting conditions and the truck's color, are still examining data extracted from the Model S' "black box" but questions had already been raised about what might have distracted the driver.

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Tesla's Autopilot is in safety regulators' crosshairs after one driver died using the system, but the NHTSA's own research suggests unrealistic expectations and human nature may be the biggest risk to semi-automated cars. The crash, in May 2016, saw Joshua D. Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio die after his 2015 Model S struck a tractor-trailer crossing the divided highway he was using Autopilot on.

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In a statement released today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that some older Honda and Acura vehicles need to have their airbags replaced as soon as possible and should not be driven until that replacement is made. The warning follows new test data that reveals “a particular subset” of Takata’s faulty air bag inflators have a much higher risk of exploding when the air bag is deployed. The vehicles covered by the warning are from the 2001 to 2003 model years.

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Tesla's Autopilot system in the Model S is the subject of a preliminary investigation by US safety regulators, after a fatal crash by a driver using the semi-autonomous technology. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) confirmed today that it will be making "an examination of the design and performance of any driving aids in use at the time of the crash" in which a driver of a 2015 Model S struck a tractor trailer and was killed.

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Texting while driving is outlawed in several places because of the life-threatening consequences of such actions, both for the driver and others around him. Texting while walking, on the other hand, is now almost just as dangerous and, in fact, is starting to become illegal in certain places. While South Korea isn't yet taking such extreme measures, the country's capital will be installing new traffic signs that inform, warn, and hopefully admonish pedestrians not to use their smartphones while walking, or, worse, crossing the street.

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Your self-driving car is running a smooth 50 mph when a kid chases its ball into the road. Swerve, and the kid is safe but your car will crash; keep going, and there's a good chance of running them over. With a split-second to react - not enough to push responsibility back over to whoever is inside the vehicle - what should the AI in charge do?

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On the heels of a recent proposed $350,000 fine against Amazon over the alleged improper shipment of hazardous materials comes another two notices from the FAA: a proposed fine of $78,000 and a proposed fine of $52,000, both likewise over the claimed violations of hazardous materials shipment regulations. The shipping instances took place in 2014, and are said to have involved a total of three cardboard boxes.

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On June 8, the Office of the Inspector General sent the FDA an ‘early alert’ letter advising it that an ongoing audit has found the Food and Drug Administration’s food recall program to be inadequate on a couple of levels, particularly when it comes to prodding companies to get a move with their voluntary food recalls. Now the FDA has fired back with its own statement, justifying its processes and saying that it expediting changes it already had in the pipeline.

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Tesla has come out fighting against reports that the automaker is trying to cover up car safety issues, and prevent owners from discussing them with federal safety agencies. The accusations came following a report of a broken suspension system in an out-of-warranty Model S, which Tesla offered to help pay for repairs on as part of what the company says now was a "goodwill gesture" to the owner.

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The largest automotive recall in the United States has just gotten bigger, with eight car manufacturers tacking yet another 12 million cars onto the recall list. Each vehicle is fitted with a Takata air bag inflator, the same kind that can potentially deploy with deadly amounts of force if exposed to high humidity levels for long periods of time. The affected auto makers include Nissan, Honda, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, Mazda, Ferrari, Subaru, and Mitsubishi, according to the NHTSA.

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NASA’s Orion spacecraft will eventually make a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean with living astronauts inside — those astronauts will experience “some of the greatest forces on the human body,” according to the space agency. Before that time comes, though, NASA is fitting Orion with crash test dummies and sending them through this rapid deceleration first to see what happens.

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Nearly half a million Jeep Wranglers are being recalled over potential loss of airbag functionality in vehicles that have been exposed to a lot of dirt and dust (eg, used off-roading). Fiat Chrysler America announced the recall following an internal investigation that surfaced the issue; of the units being recalled, 498,985 of them are located in the United States.

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