A Tesla Driver Has Died In The First Ever Fatal Crash For A Self-Driven Car
Tesla has revealed that a Model S driver died in an accident on 7 May while Autopilot was activated, in what’s thought to be the first fatal crash involving an autonomous vehicle. The driver - 40-year-old Joshua D. Brown - was on a divided highway in Williston, Florida, when a tractor pulled out, at which point neither Brown nor Autopilot reacted.
The Model S passed under the tractor’s trailer, with the bottom of the trailer hitting the windscreen. The car then continued down the road, before leaving the highway and hitting a fence. He died at the scene.
In a statement released on Thursday, Tesla said that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has started a “preliminary evaluation” into the performance of Autopilot during the crash. “This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated,” Tesla said, adding, “Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles.”
Brown was well known in the Tesla community, and just a month before the fatal crash had posted a video on YouTube (below) of Autopilot successfully averting an accident. The video quickly clocked a million views.
Tesla’s Autopilot is at the moment intended to be a driver assist, and more of a ‘semi-autonomous’ mode that requires the driver to be holding the steering wheel at all times. In the statement Tesla notes that “Autopilot is getting better all the time, but it is not perfect and still requires the driver to remain alert,” but that hasn’t stopped some well-documented abuses of the system. It’s been heavily criticised in some corners for lulling its users into a false sense of security. Earlier this year, a senior Volvo engineer slammed Autopilot, labelling it an “Unsupervised wannabe” that “Gives you the impression that it’s doing more than it is.”
At this early stage of the investigation, it’s not known exactly why Brown didn’t brake himself. Tesla’s statement speculates that he simply did not see “The white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky,” however in a report in the Associated Press, the 62-year-old driver of the tractor claimed to have heard one of the Harry Potter films playing from the car at the crash scene. Tesla responded to the claims, stating that it isn’t possible to watch videos on the main screen found in the Model S.
Find out more about how Autopilot works by watching our video below:
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I thought that the Tesla Model S is the safest car in the world and it’s almost impossible to die in one. That just shows that people shouldn’t trust Elon Musk and Euro NCAP.
Why is anyone defending tesla here? I am apalled that people actually think computers should replace humans in something like driving. Humans have to do thibgs themselves.
Theres a lot more to this than me liking cars. Its downright dangerous letting computers do things for people.
I’m afraid of this technology, beca
Ouch not good at all
It’s actually called autosteer, but it’s really the same thing. Ultimately it’s the drivers responsibility to use it correctly. Same thing with cruise control
Even though it’s a really cool thing to have, nah I’m just going to stick with myself to not crash into anything.
That’s such an awful thing to happen, especially to someone who put a lot(maybe too much) trust in the system
I hope humans get to remain in control in the future. Trying to automate everything suck and clearly isn’t perfect.
I live in Williston and this is the first time our town name has made it past the local tv station/ newspapers for a news story. Sad that it is for something bad like this though. The accident happened back in May but it didn’t make national news until yesterday for some reason.
First my sympathy to the family of the driver.
Although it is an autopilot,common sense must prevail and the driver should be alert to these issuses. If a pilot was to allow an aircraft to crash because it was on autopilot, everyone would up in arms blaming the pilot not the plane.
I feel like people think Tesla’s autopilot is a way to just leave the car on its own and going to sleep or whatever.
They should know that its basically just a more advanced cruise control and that they should be paying attention to the road in case an accident happens.