Autopilot implicated in crash with police vehicle
Tesla’s controversial Autopilot driver-assistance system has been implicated in another crash with a parked emergency vehicle, this time a police SUV in southern California.
“This morning a Tesla sedan driving outbound Laguna Canyon Road in ‘autopilot’ collides with a parked @LagunaBeachPD unit,” Laguna Beach police tweeted Tuesday.
The police vehicle was unoccupied at the time, and the Tesla driver received minor injuries, police said, adding that the crash was reported to the department around 11 a.m.
The Tesla in photos posted by police appears to be a Model S.
Tesla, asked about the accident, noted that drivers are not supposed to rely exclusively on Autopilot.
“When using Autopilot, drivers are continuously reminded of their responsibility to keep their hands on the wheel and maintain control of the vehicle at all times,” a spokesperson for the Palo Alto electric car maker said.
“Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn’t make the car impervious to all accidents,
and before a driver can use Autopilot, they must accept a dialogue box which states that ‘Autopilot is designed for use on highways that have a center divider and clear lane markings.’”
The crash represents at least the third time this year that a Tesla reported to be on Autopilot has hit a parked emergency vehicle. In January, a Model S slammed into the back of a fire truck parked on a freeway in Culver City at an accident scene. The local firefighters union tweeted that the driver said the car was on Autopilot at the time of the collision.
Earlier this month in Utah, a Model S on Autopilot hit a parked fire truck after reportedly speeding up before the impact. Tesla said the driver in the Utah accident had her hands off the wheel repeatedly during her trip, and hadn’t touched the wheel for more than a minute before the crash. Police said she’d admitted that she was looking at her phone. The Utah driver received a broken foot.
In two other crashes involving Autopilot, drivers of the vehicles have
died. Walter Huang died in March on Highway 101 in Mountain View when his Model X on Autopilot veered into a barrier. His family has claimed he had taken the SUV into a dealer several times, complaining about Autopilot and saying it kept veering toward the same barrier. Tesla has said Huang had received a number of warnings from the car to keep his hands on the wheel, and that they were off the wheel for six seconds before the collision.
In 2016, a Model S driver was killed in Florida when the car crashed into a semi-truck. Federal officials blamed the
truck’s driver for failing to yield, on the driver for relying too heavily on Autopilot, and on Elon Muskled Tesla: Autopilot contributed to the crash by allowing lengthy disengagement from the driving process, on a roadway unsuitable for the semiautonomous-driving system, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Also, the Autopilot technology that monitors whether a driver has hands on the steering wheel isn’t a good way to tell if the driver is paying attention, the board said.