The First Fatal Crash In A Tesla Self-Driving Car

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THE FIRST FATALITY IN A TESLA IN AUTOPILOT MODE

A Tesla Model S with the Autopilot system activated was involved in a fatal crash, the first known fatality in a Tesla where Autopilot was active. The company revealed the crash in a blog post posted today and says it informed the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the incident, which is now investigating.

The accident occurred on a divided highway in central Florida when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither the driver — who Tesla notes is ultimately responsible for the vehicle’s actions, even with Autopilot on — nor the car noticed the big rig or the trailer "against a brightly lit sky" and brakes were not applied. In a tweet, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the vehicle's radar didn't help in this case because it "tunes out what looks like an overhead road sign to avoid false braking events."

Because of the high ride-height of the trailer, as well as its positioning across the road, the Model S passed under the trailer and the first impact was between the windshield and the trailer. Tesla writes that if the car had impacted the front or rear of the trailer, even at high speed, the car’s safety systems "would likely have prevented serious injury as it has in numerous other similar incidents."

Tesla driver killed in crash with Autopilot active, NHTSA investigating | The Verge

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By the sound of it he was either sleeping or it was unavoidable since he hit the manual brakes either. At least another news source was saying neither manual brakes weren't applied nor the auto brakes. Or maybe he was just a dumbass.

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Though reports are circling with regard to what exactly Joshua D. Brown, the driver killed in the Tesla Model S crash in May, was doing at the time of the accident, we’d like to put out a reminder that still nothing has been made clear.

The police did find a portable DVD player in the car, and there are claims that a Harry Potter movie was heard playing in the car after the crash. “Neither the laptop nor a DVD player . . . found in the vehicle was running after the crash,” Sergeant Kim Montes of the Florida Highway Patrol told Reuters. Investigators were not able to determine whether the driver was operating either at the time of the accident, however.

Which means that we can’t definitively say that Brown was or wasn’t watching a movie during the time of the crash. Just because the DVD player wasn’t running by the time the authorities showed up doesn’t mean that it was off the whole time. The impact could have shut it off or maybe it just shut off on its own. Maybe it ran out of battery. Maybe it wasn’t running to begin with.

We don’t know, and likely won’t for some time.

It will be difficult for the authorities to determine what exactly caused the crash because of the myriad of variables. We’re still in the early stages of this investigation, and any apportionment of blame for the fatal incident is way too premature.

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