I've found that one of the more subtle cons to thinking in public is that you become more attached to the opinion you have expressed. I'm not sure if that's because you are forced to defend it more vigorously or just because it's "written down". But I do find that I'm less likely to change my mind on a particular topic after blogging about it.
I get what you're trying to say, but if anything, you're just making the case for Tesla software.
Consider that there is a range of drivers, from "good" to "bad". If most drivers go decades with zero collisions, that's great, and it probably puts me closer to the "bad" end of the spectrum. By your own admission drivers like me should explore avenues to reduce our risk. Why is Tesla software not a valid avenue?
If you're a "good" driver, you don't need it, and that's fine, you can get some other car or drive with autopilot off or whatever. But for us "bad" drivers, the software makes us safer (both personal risk and to others on the road) so why not use it? What other avenues would you suggest exploring?
> So if something appears in your path, the right course of action is to accelerate into it?
You mis-parsed what I said here. My sentence was probably too long. Let me try using shorter ones. Say you are driving. Suddenly a squirrel appears on the road 50m away. You apply brakes "hard" to avoid hitting it. This amount of braking is what the car does. You can still press the accelerator. The accelerator works as expected, cancelling the software's braking.
> if you have 1/4 second time to respond.
Under what circumstances would you have this short amount of time? IMO only if somebody is following you too closely. Again, remove the software from the equation and insert the aforementioned squirrel. You brake hard for it. The person behind rear-ends you because they were following too closely. Who is at fault?
There's been a number of occasions where I would have been in an accident had it not been for the software saving me. Obviously it is possible that one day the software will result in an accident that would not have happened had I been driving alone, but thus far that has not happened, and so, thus far, I can conclude that the combination is better than me alone.
Self-reply to add: despite (occasionally) experiencing phantom braking and my wife once experiencing the "loss of power" scenario due to a defective drive unit, I'm still very happy with the Tesla overall. In my experience it is the best car I've owned despite the flaws that seem to disproportionately make the headlines.
To reply to your first question: if the car decides to emergency brake, you can still override it by pressing the accelerator. In my experience, the braking that happens is "hard" but no more hard than you would do yourself if something suddenly appeared in your drive path, and if you are paying attention you can press the accelerator within a second or so. If the person behind you has adequate following distance it shouldn't be a problem.
If the car loses power entirely then it gives you a few seconds warning in which you may or may not be able to cross to the shoulder before the car coasts to a stop. In this scenario the braking is not "hard", but obviously there is no real way to recover and you'll need to get towed.
I have not experienced any scenario where the car does not respond to steering or acceleration commands when it was physically able to do so.
Try looking at about:support to see if there are any third-party modules (antivirus etc. loaded). That has been a cause of problems like this in the past. More likely on Windows and I saw you're running macOS, but worth a shot.
This is awesome! I just wrote a blog post along the same lines (https://staktrace.com/spout/entry.php?id=883) and I would like to join forces with you. Let me know if there's anything concrete I can do at the moment, otherwise I'll just keep an eye on your work and help where I can.
First tip: don't ask for advice from people who know nothing about you. The less context people have about your specific situation, the more generic and less useful their advice is going to be.