Investigators fault driver in fatal Tesla Autopilot crash

An inattentive driver’s over reliance on his Tesla Model S sedan’s semi-autonomous driving system and a truck driver who made a left-hand turn in front of the car are both to blame for a fatal crash last year, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.

The board also recommended automakers incorporate safeguards that limit the use of automated vehicle control systems to the conditions for which they were designed.

Tech company owner Joshua Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio, was travelling on a divided highway near Gainesville, Fla., using the Tesla’s automated driving systems when he was killed.

The collision is the first known fatal crash of a highway vehicle operating under automated control systems, says the NTSB.

Tesla had told Model S owners the automated systems should only be used on limited-access highways, which are primarily interstates. But the company didn’t incorporate protections against their use on other types of roads, the board found. Despite upgrades since the May 2016 crash, Tesla has still not incorporated such protections, NTSB chair Robert Sumwalt said.

“In this crash, Tesla’s system worked as designed, but it was designed to perform limited tasks in a limited range of environments.

“Tesla allowed the driver to use the system outside of the environment for which it was designed.”

The result, Sumwalt said, was a collision “that should never have happened.”