A future with high powered infrared lasers on top of every car will probably lead to a mysterious rise in people slowly losing their vision. Someone should do a study of the eyes and vision of people who work with LIDAR.
Why not instead use multiple radars (we already put 1-2 radars in cars with adaptive cruise control) to augment Tesla's vision based approach?
"If a lidar system ever uses a laser with a higher safety class, then it could pose a serious hazard for your eyes. However, as it stands, according to current information and practices, lidar manufacturers use class 1 eye-safe (near) infrared laser diodes."
You’re right that it needs further studying, to not end as asbestos.
On a side note, you eyes are hit with more powerful and full-spectrum radiation (from IR to UV) from a burning star every day for hours (or at least they are designed to).
The math makes this quite implausible for a random scenario. Perhaps a toll collector could introduce the right systematics to make the scenario not ridiculous on it's face.
Imagine pointing a laser at something more than five feet distant the size of an eyeball and then getting another laser to point at the same spot at the same time. And then another five. And those lasers are all attached to cars moving and the eyeball is moving too...
You sound like the kind of internet commenter who whinges about how dangerous bicycles are on the road because someone in a car might swerve to avoid them and head-on collide with a tractor trailer.
Why not instead use multiple radars (we already put 1-2 radars in cars with adaptive cruise control) to augment Tesla's vision based approach?