Woman gets in fight with boyfriend's dad on drive home; says, 'Let me the f**k out.'

AITA for yelling to be let out of the car when my boyfriend's dad turned on the one feature I asked him not to?

I spent last night with my boyfriend's family, we'd gone out to dinner and his dad was gonna drive. So my boyfriend, me, his parents, and his brother all squeezed into his dad's car and we went to the restaurant. I had a few drinks and his dad had two, since he was gonna drive.

But on the way back his dad started asking me 'you work on self driving cars, yeah?' (I do, I'm a systems engineer and have job hopped between a handful of autonomy companies.)

He started asking me how I liked his Tesla and I joked 'just fine as long as you're the one driving it!' And he asked me what I thought about FSD [autopilot] which he'd just bought. He asked if he should turn it on. I said 'not with me in the car' and he then laughed and asked how I was still so scared when I work with this stuff everyday.

I was like 'Uhh it's because I...' But stopped when he pulled over and literally started turning it on. I was like 'I'm not kidding, let me out of the car if you're gonna do this' and my boyfriend's dad and brother started laughing at me, and my boyfriend still wasn't saying anything.

His dad was like 'It'll be fine' and I reached over my boyfriend's little brother and tried the door handle which was locked. I was getting mad, and probably more so because I was tipsy, and I yelled at him 'Let me the f**k out'

My boyfriend started trying to tell me to calm down because I was drunk and I told him that it didn't f**king matter, I'd be outta here sober or drunk. He told me to stop cussing in front of his little brother, and I told him to tell his dad to cut his sh*t out and I wouldn't have anything to cuss over.

His dad was like 'fine, I didn't realize it'd be suuuch a big deal' and drove home normally, but things have been tense as hell.

We got back to his house and he was mad at me for 'overreacting' the first time I met his family all together. I got angry and was like 'I'm not the one who decided to do the ONE THING that I said I'm not comfortable with in the car, just after I asked him not to, to laugh at me'

He said that his dad used the car a lot, and it was fine, and I asked him (since we're both rock climbers) would he ever get on a route with his carabiner that doesn't lock? What if someone says they do it all the time and it's fine?

He was like 'absolutely not, but that's different' and I was like 'it's literally not, just like we don't know any climbers who'd do that sh*t, nobody in my field that I know would stay in that car.

He got mad and told me to go to sleep, I was drunk. But honestly today I woke up sober and I stand by what I did, like I wasn't comfortable with what was happening and my boyfriend's family all laughed and started trying to do the one f**king thing I said no to? Like whatever that thing is, it's f**ked up.

AITA for yelling at my boyfriend's dad to let me out of the car?

Edit - I'm not trying to get into fights about who my favorite billionaire is or isn't. Take that somewhere else if you want fanboy arguments. (Tho for the record my answer is none of them).

Here's what people had to say:

BranchLatter4294 writes:

YTA. The driver is still in full control even with FSD on. You overreacted. There are so many cars with level 2 driver assist systems. If they were really dangerous we would see them crashing all around us all the time. You are confusing the L2 system in the Tesla with level 4 or 5 systems being tested by GM, Google, and others that are designed to not have a driver at all.

denisennp OP:

Hint hint. We are. Go read the news. Or the NTSB reports here: https://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/search.aspx?k=Tesla&s=All%20Sites

hilly_tits writes:

NTA. They crossed a boundary you very respectfully put in place. That’s not okay no matter what your boundary was. Also, unrelated but what is going on with the self driving feature that nobody who works on it will be in the car with it on?

Double-Watercress-85 writes:

So an incident came up involving your specific field of expertise, and a group of men with no knowledge of that field, except for what they were told by a car salesman (who also has no specialized knowledge of that field) accused you of being hysterical when you voiced your concerns.

denisennp OP:

Yepp. Someone asked if I'd compared the failure rates of AVs to the same statistics from people driving 😂 Like nahh buddy I've obviously never stopped to consider the primary indicator regarding the most pressing unsolved problem of my industry, after working in it for 8 years! Ngl I'm used to this shit as a tech girlie

Dark-All-Day writes:

I'm not experienced with the specific field, but considering human beings are such shitty drivers, constantly get into wrecks, make decisions based on emotions, etc. Why should I trust people to drive the car over software?

EDIT: lmao looks like I've annoyed humans for saying humans are bad drivers. you can't downvote the truth into nonexistence, humans

denisennp OP:

Because as bad as humans are, software is still years away from hitting the benchmark that humans set.

Click_To_Sign_In writes:

Interesting one. On one hand, you have the right to be allowed out of the car any time you like and you don't even have to give a reason if you don't like. But does this count as a kind of back seat driving? And you were drunk.

This sounds to me like a situation that neither of you handled very well, and I can see how what you said could be taken as a joke. i.e. you work with self-driving cars, but won't allow yourself to be in a self-driving car? That's fine, but it's easy to see how someone could think you are joking. I'm going ESH.

denisennp OP:

'does this count as a kind of back seat driving?' Better backseat driving then nobody driving ngl. I was being dead serious, I don't think anyone thought I was joking

-Dee-Dee- writes:

YTA bc you don’t understand how FSD works.

denisennp OP:

Please explain it to me :). And please tailor your explanation to a technical audience rather than a media audience, as I am more interested in system design details then marketing promises :)

BranchLatter4294 writes:

Yes, there is the occasional incident. But driver assist systems increase safety in general.

denisennp OP:

You're right! I strongly believe in ADAS features like lane keeping, assistive braking, etc. They're life saving. What Tesla is doing is not that.