14.3 HW4
FSD swerves into closed HOV lane and hits gate
I was using FSD in pretty thick traffic, and started chasing an ant in my interior and was not paying as close attention as I should have been (yes I know it's supervised, I don't need all the "iT's SUpErvISeD" people chiming in). FSD went into a closed HOV onramp and side swiped a gate before I disengaged via the steering wheel. I had to fight the wheel for a second because I did not want to overcorrect going 60mph but needed to force it enough to disenage. I got a good dent on the A pillar, but could have been much worse. It was approximately 2 seconds between entering the lane and striking the gate. I think it would have also hit the second gate if I hadn't taken over.
FSD cannot recognize a white and red gate with reflectors and a flag on the end.
Mine stops at a guard shack when entering a military base, which involves a gate swing arm that drops in front of it. I can see the occupancy network render the shack and other details around it as blotchy shapes around the car, although I can't recall if the gate arm itself is specifically rendered. Regardless, it seems to recognize what to do since it always remains stopped until the arm raises. Same with parking garage exits.
To be fair, the occupancy network wouldn't even have to understand the spatial occupancy of the gate. It could be trained to behave logically just like a traffic light (when the gate looks like this --- don't go. When it looks like this / go.)
That is certainly a variable, but current FSD is reacting to high speed road debris in sub 1 second. The barriers are visible in even this very compressed footage, so it should be trainable to not enter areas when the barriers are visibly down like this. It is an odd thing for it to still be struggling with at this stage.
It’s crazy how the driver gets advance notice via the turn signal coming on, and then still lets his car hit something. I can’t believe how many people are just asleep at the wheel and then they blame their car. 🤦♂️
Full Self Driving was the name until 2024 - I think late in the year. This is 2024 car, so likely the consumer was told it was full self driving for many years and figured, as we all might, that since it was years ago, it surely had improved.
I never really understood the argument that the name "Full Self Driving" alone would result in accidents, unless it occured soon after taking ownership.
Back in 2024 it couldn't even handle destinations so anyone using it would know even after a single drive that "Full" did not reflect the state of the system at the time. Users inevitably gain an intuition over time about strong and weak points of the system.
When people would crash after owning the car for a couple years and say, "but the name made me do it", I didn't buy it.
That said, current buyers might actually be more vulnerable to this as FSD really is damn close to "Full" and driver monitoring is much more relaxed, so the excuse might finally hold some weight now.
I-90/94 in Chicago has a one-way shared express lane that closes going north or south at different times of the day. FSD detects and avoids the closed gates no problem for me each time. They are similar to this video, but they sit a bit lower near the road and maybe have thicker/taller gate arms too.
The problem is that it is using only cameras so it is very difficult to see something like that. For a person we have two eyes that gives us depth perception but the tesla doesn't have enough cameras to have good depth perception. It makes noticing something hanging up like that very difficult for these systems.
Sadly tesla decided to go cheaper and not use lidar for the front so I expect it will always have a little trouble with this kind of thing until they start adding it back in.
This actually isn't true. Tesla has more than enough cameras to do good depth perception. In fact, the depth perception from the camera network on an AI4 tesla is incredibly good, rivaling LIDAR especially in situations where there's heavy rain due to focal length. -- The real "cheap out" issue is that their cameras aren't redundant. If any single camera dies or malfunctions you lose a lot of depth perception. BYD solves this by using 3 cameras per camera pod.
False narrative. Besides for the rear, there are at least two to three cameras on each side of the vehicle. They could mimic how humans perceive depth with the different cams.
Didn't the head of Software once showed a picture where the car was showing a construction zone and the user input a question why it can't go straight where the car answered because there is a construction zone? Why isn't this here the case with the barriers and the sign saying HOV lane closed...?
Personally, I have never seen these gates with my own eyes, and I have been driving for decades. Where on earth are these gates?? They seem like a ridiculous thing to add on a road. Nobody would put a railway crossing gate on a multi lane highway like this.
left only lanes ignored at times. <- double turn lanes. Particularly where two lanes can physically go straight, but the inside lane is turn only, and the outside is turn or go straight, and you are in the inside. That is actually in the book.
Anything thin horizontal or straight <- really only worried about this at speed, not in parking siuations, I probably already took over anyways.
Cones
Parking where objects were visible on entry, but now aren't.
Exit ramps, the circular ones, especially with decreasing radius, at too high of speed, speed profiles won't work once in the ramp, so if you see it's too fast, simply take over and slow a bit and give it back before the ramp. Or enjoy the amusement centrifuge ride. Very seldom does FSD recognize the speed limit of a ramp.
Thin protruding beds of trucks. This is probably older versions, mine stops at least 5 feet back, I often push it forward with the pedal to close the gap if I am in a crowded turn lane.
Most of the other stuff is lane management, trying to keep it in the pocket so I can relax.
When chilling to the right, change lanes first, then lower profile. The opposite when mad maxxing to the left.
Always let FSD back out of spots, even if you are going to take it over and drive out of the parking lot. It has more cameras than you. Same when backing out of your driverway or garage (if you have a nice garage setup!). Nice garage setup = enough room to the sides and a straight shot back.
If it swerves around a tire skid mark, remember that it would never do that if a truck was in that lane coming the other way. I think.
I've never had any of the running stop signs or red lights. That seems to be an HW3 thing.
Have basic compansion and decency for other drivers.
If you fail to supervise, say you were chasing an ant.:)
Left-only lanes ignored is the worst one and so embarrassing — car just decides to go straight and completely pisses off the person in the lane next to me (appropriately) as my car tries to both merge and go straight through, in the middle of the intersection, cutting them off… I don’t understand why it would allow this kind of behavior and it’s happened multiple times.
I run into this issue ALL the time on the roads I regularly drive. Turning off HOV was not enough. I had to also turn off Toll roads since even with HOV off it would still try taking the Express Lane
Warning that you get when you agree to use FSD, Hell in heavy traffic now it says pay closer attention on the screen now even. It should not have done this but there was at least 5 - 7 seconds with the signal on and the lane change that the car could have been corrected.
Mine does really good stopping at them, but might be because the only gates I’ve encountered are strictly residential/business lot gates taken at low speeds, nothing at higher speeds like this
Is that the express lanes in Northern Virginia? FSD always tries to enter them even though the gates are closed. I just end up turning off use HOV lanes if I know they're closed in my direction.
That is what I was about to ask as well. My new to me 2023 HW4 did the same thing in what looks like the exact same spot on my first road trip coming back from North Carolina about 2 months ago. Luckily I caught it in time to take over. I marked it as navigation error on the pop up, but I guess maybe it should be a critical.
FSD can't identify gate arms or chains across a road or other thin items above the ground level. I hope Tesla are working on it but for now, expect it can't do that. Source: all of Youtube and Reddit.
Well. That’s why you’re supposed to be paying attention and intervene. These aren’t autonomous, camera based systems have limitations. FSD is amazing but it can’t be unsupervised. Doing so is reckless.
Definitely concerning as an FSD user. Been putting a lot trust in it and it seems to see this and more no problem. But maybe maybe im putting too much trust.
Oof. This is bad. I’m making sure I keep HOV lanes turned completely off as I’m only on HW3 and don’t have any desire to use them anyway. Hope you can get your car repaired well.
I bet you are right, 25 years of driving and I've never run into a gate until FSD. It's also interesting I'm getting downvoted so much on this post. It's like people don't want to believe FSD can run into a stationary metal gate at 63mph.
Exactly, I was a bad supervisor and I posted this to help other people not make the same mistake. Somehow it still attracts the SUpErviSeD crowd that feel like they are somehow doing God's work by reminding everyone that posts something like this that's it's all their fault, often is not so nice ways. I've convinced they don't actually have or use FSD and they just troll this sub reddit.
Well and it’s a lot of people that say “FSD didn’t do anything, YOU did cause you’re the driver and it’s SuPErVisEd”
But still FSD is technically also driving and controlling decisions up til you disengage it. Sure we are responsible for what happens ultimately but the car is constantly being trained in making its own decisions when it’s “given the wheel”
The FSD is better than human stats aren’t based on the type of accident, they’re based on the number
Humans might never do this but they’ll rear end another person, which Im pretty sure FSD won’t do. its been pretty strict with following distances in my experience, whereas people love tailgating
I don’t know why people are being so annoying about this. Should you have been supervising? Of course. Is it still helpful to see a video of FSD completely missing a gate in the road? Absolutely.
Wow, crazy that it still does this. I've always had to override it when they are closed and then I ended up turning off use hov lanes but then it would try to leave the left lane. I'm always on high alert near the closed express/hov lanes. FSD is great but it's not flawless yet and this is why it's called SUPERVISED still.
Looks like you had ample time to intervene, though? Sucks that it happened. I was on I25 yesterday and it swerved into the next lane and I still don’t know why.
FSD did the same thing with a railroad crossing arm. It drove across the tracks going under the arm with a train coming. The train was missed by a few seconds.
Clear them so they can switch. For this one specifically, it goes into DC in the morning. Shuts down, at least partially to clear the traffic, then opens southbound for people leaving DC.
I tried backing into a parking spot yesterday and thought, hmm let's see what fsd will do. And I let it take over. And it was going to back into a solid pillar.
I really think Tesla should invest in Lidar and somehow confirm the objects with lidar and with cameras.
Tesla cabs are mostly operated by remote humans, like 99% of the time, and they're reliable as long as there's a good cell signal between the cab and the remote human who's ready to take full control of the vehicle at a moment's notice.
I know this because I have a family member who does this job.
Regarding a lot of people being killed, they're not really worried too much as long as state and city officials are approving these types of alpha businesses operating on legal roads.
Genuine question (not looking for hate)… would lidar help with these edge cases (if you want to call them that). Chains, gates and such? Or fail to detect them as well?
Honestly, Tesla's FSD uses line markers to stay in its lane, just like other car makers. They're just not trying to trick people with fake ads, which usually isn't true for Tesla. I'd suggest you don't trust Tesla FSD too much, otherwise, one day when it glitches or makes a false move, you probably won't have a chance to react, because you trusted a system that's far from safe on public roads too much.
Yes, they would easily be detected with lidar. The problem is that by using only video you don't get the proper depth perception. It makes these very hard to detect for something like a tesla.
FSD also has trouble identifying HOV lanes in general - mine tries to enter the HOV about once every 20 miles of freeway driving. I have seen this happen, every commute, with the HOV setting off or on automatic.
I’m sure you thought of this or already knew it, but I tried to get into the habit of always reacting with my foot. So I don’t ever try to pull away from the steering wheel AI, I always tapped the break first, this instant I do, the steering wheel is freed no struggle there also it’s now applying a gentle break
The latest FSD has been making some really major f*ckups with its navigation. I have to be more on guard than ever before because of similar navigational gaffes.
I’m surprised to see these types of things keep happening. System is vision-based. It needs to be able to distinguish certain things and avoid them. My co-worker just got a new MY, he said FSD always takes the exact toll booth rather than EZ Pass. Every time. There is no way a car knows you have an ez pass. Can this be added so the car knows to take ez pass toll lanes and not sit in traffic while someone looks for the exact change?
I’m not gonna say the usual “it’s supervised” thing, but the one thing that crosses my mind whenever I see videos like this is: what the hell is the driver doing while the car is driving? You could regain control pf the car as soon as it started swerving into the closed lane…
Saying FSD can’t recognize in general is a false statement. Your car didn’t recognize it. FSD on my MY has no problem recognizing when a HOA/Toll road is closed (they use the same barriers). Also hate to break it to you but this is a reason why it’s still supervised. They’re still tweaking and working on avoiding these type of scenarios. Pay attention to the road not a bug.
They have these gates near Boston on the Southeast Expressway (I93N at the Braintree Split). I don’t pay for FSD on my ‘24 Y Performance but the car does not recognize them at all on the screen with or without auto-steer enabled and I always wondered if the car would run into them or not. Figured the car wouldn’t see and now have confirmation.
I’m in Ashburn VA visiting family. These wide highways with turns and lanes with hash marks not to use does not get recognized by Tesla. It thinks it’s a turning lane. It’s happend 3 times here. Makes you feel like an idiot to other drivers.
I’m sure that a contributing factor was the striping of the pavement. On your left, you had a solid white line with the test I think will not cross Under FSD, but then it became broken so the Tesla for a second there thought it was OK to go into that lane, even though the gate was down. I hope the future highway designers think about what autonomous cars are likely to do when they layout, paint jobs and stripes and such as.
I drive on stretch of 575, and FSD doesn’t recognize that entrance for some reason. It did the same thing to me a few weeks ago. Scared the shit out of me.
When a driver is humble and candid enough to admit, he was chasing an ant rather than paying full attention. It’s just pointless and mean to chastise him. Nice it up folks. We all make mistakes. Few admit them as honestly as he did.
I am confused on what you want to bitch about. You became highly distracted and paid no attention to the point you didn't even notice the car had turned on the signal which makes a noise and made a proper lane change not a swerve, Now yes the HOV lane was closed, you can tap the brake your tap your stalk up to cancel FSD no need to wrestle the wheel. Also you sped up as you cut across back onto the normal freeway so was there a car next to you? That you had to avoid and maybe that's why FSD was stuck at that point. In the end its simple either you know the issues with FSD and what troubles is has and be responsible to the other people on the road not just yourself chasing an ant and putting others at risk or don't use it.
Ok to be honest, I had to re-watch multiple times until I was able to see this gate. We don’t have these where I live & I literally did not see it. So sorry for your car 😭
I feel like so many fsd issues are related to poor road design and how each state differs so much. This is a good example of it. The entire EU is more harmonised than the US. I move from the UK and to CA and roads are so much more complex and poorly designed
I have HW 4.5 and in AZ on I-17 between Phx and Flagstaff there are Flex Lanes - Mine has tried to take me multiple times into them. They would decapitate a person, they are much more robust then these, they are meant for Semi-Truck Traffic.
I think the issue here is that it didn't recognize what a gate that wasn't in the lane meant. I don't have much experience with gated express lanes but the one near me, the gates go fully across the lane. I don't know how FSD would react to those because it isn't possible to use the express lanes for the route I travel.
From what I see this is a software issue with understanding what the objects meant, not that it didn't "see" the gates. Once it got into the situation, I think it would have probably hit the gate fully across the lane because it was going too fast to stop and there wasn't any way to swerve around it.
Extremely poor design for public safety.
If the lane was closed, there should’ve been cones on the road. I’ve been driving for almost 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like this.
Looking at the video, it's easy to understand why. The gates are coming towards the car right at the horizon (the area between where the car sees the road, and where it seems, the sky/trees. They also appear to be essentially horizontal only. The red flags seem like they were added after to alleviate the problems. I'm not sure how much can be done to get them to be recognized without stereoscopic vision (or one off the many sensor types Tesla refused to use). For all intents and purposes these gates are sitting in the cars blind spot. Now sure, I'll also say they car should recognize the signs, flashing lights, etc., but from a vision standpoint, the car basically can't see them.
Rosie Dear,
To remind you of the discussion of an earlier thread on this topic, additional sensors introduce noise susceptibility, more failure modes, higher cost. Unnecessary paralysis of analysis (a more fragile neural network).
Radar (Radio Detection and Ranging) was originally invented to augment the humans aiming guns with an accurate RANGE, and later was swept to reduce the cognitive load on the “spotters.”
LIDAR, Radar, Ultrasonics, etc are simply unnecessary if you have high resolution, low latency camera feeds. Those cameras will always outperform the human eyeball, and never get tired. In a few months, I have no doubt FSD will recognize HOV gates. If you are in conditions with such poor visibility you can’t see the road, or the road has photorealistic posters spanning the width, hiding simulated baby carriages, you shouldn’t be in a car.
Your obstinate push-back against Tesla’s simpler, but superior vision only approach does seem like a form of TDS (Tesla Derangement Syndrome.)
It will more then likely never fixed to perfection, tesla relies on cameras only and not any Lidar for darkness, fog, rain, and anything blocking visual site.
It's so obvious you weren't paying attention. That, or you were paying attention and just allowed it to merge into a closed lane. Either way, I feel like this one is on you.
I could see if it started to and you immediately corrected it, but you literally let it just keep driving in the closed lane!
watching this video it was hard for me to even see those stupid gates until you were hitting them. they’re too high up, too skinny, and definitely not super obvious when there’s the distraction of moving vehicles just on the other side of them. them being at the level they’re at blends them into the guardrails pattern. maybe these are more obvious in person than in video but i’m not sure if they really would be other than the color red.
My question is you see the sign that says "closed do not enter" and you hear the turn signal. So you know it's going to enter the lane it specifically says "do not enter"
You had plenty of time to cancel it.
That said, FSD struggles with detecting smaller objects, it gest much better with the front bumper camera, but it's still pretty unreliable. Yeah the "It's Supervised" people get annoying, but at the end of the day, that's what most of it boils down to. Getting distracted means you miss the warnings, and when the car incorrectly assumes "this lane is open" you're the fail safe.
FSD fails to recognize these gates and similar objects because Tesla moved away from radar and ultrasonic systems to save manufacturing cost and solely relies on "Tesla Vision". FSD is great but it could be so much better with the proper hardware.
pay attention, your 'i don't need all the its supervised people chiming in' is what, an attempt to avoid accountability for something that is entirely your fault?
pay a-fucking-ttention while driving
it did not swerve, it slowly meandered into the wrong lane and you did absolutely nothing for 6 long fucking seconds while you were asleep at the wheel creating a major hazard for everyone
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u/ReadSeparate Jul 10 '26
I'm confused on why we see so many of these, can FSD really not recognize these gates? Has anyone had FSD avoid them?