Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other

Regulation and Standards

• Some argue regulators should mandate performance (safety benchmarks, certification tests) rather than specific sensors, to avoid favoring one company or tech stack.
• Others worry about regulatory capture and point out that current US oversight lets unproven tech onto public roads with little pre‑deployment certification.
• A recurring proposal: if a car is in true self‑driving mode, the manufacturer should assume full legal liability, which would strongly incentivize safety.

Vision-Only vs Multi‑Sensor Approaches

• Big fault line: Tesla’s camera‑only approach vs. radar/LiDAR + vision used by others.
• Critics: human “vision” includes brain‑level perception and far richer sensing; current camera systems misidentify objects, lose track of motorcycles, and can be blinded by lighting/weather. Multiple independent sensor types reduce catastrophic failures.
• Defenders: radar and LiDAR are imperfect, low‑resolution, expensive, and also need heavy post‑processing; some claim Tesla’s latest vision stack (v13+) is vastly improved and LiDAR is unnecessary.
• Several roboticists and AV veterans say LiDAR was the key enabling tech in earlier autonomous milestones and that removing it was driven by cost and aesthetics, not safety.

Motorcycle Crashes and Statistics

• The article’s core claim: Teslas using driver-assist are involved in multiple fatal rear‑end motorcycle crashes, while other AV/ADAS providers report zero in the same NHTSA dataset.
• Many commenters say this is incomplete without denominators: miles or hours driven with automation active, motorcycle exposure, and proper Poisson/statistical analysis. With only ~5 incidents, results may be noise.
• Others counter that “5 vs 0” on such a specific failure mode, together with well‑documented issues (hitting large stationary objects, “cartoon wall” tests), strongly suggests a vision‑only blind spot, not just base rates.

Marketing, Liability, and User Behavior

• Repeated concern that branding like “Full Self‑Driving” and public hype cause drivers to overtrust a Level‑2 system that legally requires constant supervision.
• Some argue Tesla’s responsibility is high because it sells a system it knows will be misused; others insist ultimate responsibility lies with the human driver who presses the accelerator or looks at their phone.

Experiences, Ethics, and Acceptance

• Some owners report FSD working “flawlessly” in good conditions; others describe aggressive following, phantom braking, and alarming failures in edge cases.
• Several motorcyclists and cyclists say they already ride defensively assuming they are “invisible,” and Tesla’s specific pattern of rear‑ending makes them more anxious than other AVs.
• Broader theme: society likely won’t accept “slightly safer than humans.” Self‑driving must be significantly safer in every crash type, or each failure will trigger intense scrutiny and political backlash.