Backseat driver: CHP arrests man in back of Tesla

Same driver cited for reckless driving in April for similar incident

A 25-year-old man cited last month for reckless driving after he was seen in the backseat of his Tesla — with no person controlling the car from its front seat — was arrested a second time for a similar incident, authorities said.

In a statement Tuesday, the California Highway Patrol said officers responded shortly before 6:35 p.m. Monday when dispatchers received calls about a Tesla Model 3 with no one in the driver’s seat heading east on the Bay Bridge.

At the bridge toll plaza, a CHP officer saw the Tesla, with its sole occupant in the backseat. Soon after, the officer initiated a traffic stop, the person reportedly moved to the driver’s seat. The car stopped on eastbound Interstate 80 west of Powell Street, the CHP said.

Officers arrested the car’s occupant, iden

tified as Param Sharma, and booked him into Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of reckless driving and disobeying a peace officer. The car was towed from the scene as evidence, the CHP said.

According to a county records check, Sharma was listed in custody Tuesday night but was no longer in custody Wednesday.

The CHP said Sharma was cited April 27 for a

similar incident, after officers received third-hand information of a man in the backseat of the dark fourdoor sedan in West Oakland.

In a social media post Saturday, before the latest arrest, the CHP said it “has been made aware of an incident involving a man riding in the back seat of a Tesla traveling on Bay Area roadways with no other person being seated in the driver’s seat.

The CHP received a report of the incident as thirdhand information, and it is

under investigation,” the post says. It does not say when the information was received or whether the alleged incident was on the freeway or city streets.

The post includes two images: One of the apparently driverless car with Port of Oakland cranes in the background, and the other of what seems to be the same vehicle parked, with Sharma grinning in the rear seat.

The CHP had asked that anyone who sees “an unusual incident such as this one” to immediately call

91-1 with as many details as possible.

It is illegal in California for autonomous vehicles to operate without humans behind the wheel. Tesla has been heavily criticized for naming its driver assist system “Autopilot,” even as regulators have been clear that a driver must remain behind the wheel anytime the vehicle is in motion.

The company says the system is “intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment.”

Its website says the car can recognize if a driver is failing to hold the wheel and lock them out of using the system.

But Consumer Reports recently reported that its testers got a Tesla Y to drive without someone behind the wheel.

The Consumer Reports test followed the deaths last month of two Texas men in the crash of a Tesla Model S. In that incident, neither man was in the driver’s seat, investigators said.

In a Monday post to one social-media account whose biographical line claims he “left the pandemic richer than ever before,” Sharma appears to film himself sitting in the back seat of the moving Tesla with his sockclad foot against its steering wheel while displaying a backseat screen loaded to show the headline of a story about a man seen riding in the back seat of a Tesla with no driver.

The post is captioned “tell the chp I bought my license.”