Motorist becomes first to die in driverless car crash as he watches Harry Potter film
A MAN has become the first person to be killed in a self-driving car after he ploughed into a lorry, apparently while watching a Harry Potter film.
Former Navy SEAL Joshua Brown’s luxury Tesla Model S was on autopilot when it collided with the truck that had driven in front of it.
A technology expert, Mr Brown, 40, had previously praised the safety of ‘Tessy’ and described it as the best car he had ever owned. But the vehicle’s computer system is believed to have failed to distinguish the truck’s white side from the bright sky, meaning its brakes were not activated.
Mr Brown’s death now raises concerns about a technology earmarked in the Queen’s Speech as one of the ‘transports of tomorrow’. Tests of driverless cars are under way in Britain and the Government hopes they will be a common sight by 2020, fuelling the ‘most fundamental change to transport since the invention of the internal combustion engine’.
Mr Brown, who set up a technology firm after 11 years in the special forces, is believed to have had the self-driving system on his electric car switched on as a lorry turned across his path on a clear, dry road in Florida on May 7.
After failing to spot the truck, the Tesla sped under it, smashing its windscreen and shearing off its roof. The car kept going, leaving the road, hitting two fences, crossing a field and snapping a telegraph pole hundreds of feet away.
Lorry driver Frank Baressi, who was unhurt, claimed Mr Brown had been
‘Best car I ever owned’
watching a Harry Potter film. He said that Mr Brown ‘went so fast through my trailer that I didn’t see him’.
Tesla Motors said it is not possible to play videos on the car’s screen when it is moving. But police have confirmed that the remains of a personal DVD player were found in the wreckage.
Mr Brown, who lived in Ohio, had had a near-miss a month earlier – and publicly praised the Tesla’s safety features.
He said: ‘Hands down the best car I have ever owned and use it to its full extent.’ But insurance experts last night said the tragedy will compound public fears over their safety – and warned that such accidents are inevitable with any new technology.
Some Tesla Model S vehicles are already on Britain’s roads and the Department for Transport is liaising with the US authorities investigating the circumstances of the crash.
Billed as ‘the safest, most exhilarating sedan on the road’, the Model S starts from £55,600. Although not fully autonomous, it boasts a state-of-the-art autopilot system which lets it automatically change lanes, steer, adjust speed and parallel park.
Tesla’s founder, the billionaire technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, described Mr Brown’s death as tragic.
The California-based electric car company said he was ‘a friend to Tesla and the broader electric vehicle community, a person who has spent his life focused on innovation and the promise of technology.’
It also stressed that autopilot isn’t perfect and drivers must remain alert and prepared to take over at any time.
The crash is the first in more than 130million miles driven using the autopilot system, it said. Mike Harley of automotive research firm Kelley Blue Book said systems like Tesla’s, which rely heavily on cameras, ‘aren’t sophisticated enough to overcome blindness from bright or low contrast light’. He warned more deaths can be expected as autonomous technology is refined.
AA president Edmund King said the accident is a reminder that ‘driverless cars aren’t foolproof in the real world’.
He acknowledged that the technology ‘can and will enhance safety’, but went on: ‘We need more research into the interactions between driverless cars and driver-driven vehicles before we allow all drivers to take their hands off the wheel.’
Jim Holder, editorial director of Autocar and What Car? magazines, said: ‘Autopilot is a driver aid, not a fully autonomous function. The driver is still supposed to be in charge of the vehicle.’
Professor Alan Winfield, a robotics experts at the University of the West of England, said: ‘I believe it is irresponsible to make unregulated autopilot software available for drivers to try out on public roads.’