Police say a 71-year-old man was killed after being struck by a Tesla, allegedly in fully autonomous driving mode. ABC 7 News reports, in what appears to be another casualty of Elon Musk’s self-driving technology.
The fatal crash occurred early Thursday morning when the elderly pedestrian attempted to cross a section of I-80 in Vallejo, according to the California High Patrol.
Officers responded to a reported collision around 2:35 a.m. and found the man to be seriously injured when they arrived on scene. He was later pronounced dead.
The driver of the Tesla, a 26-year-old man from San Francisco, remained at the scene and told officers his car was running the FSD system, which requires constant monitoring of the driver and is not technically considered capable of driving alone, when he collided with the man.
The CHP said it reviewed dashcam footage from the crash showing the Tesla traveling about 70 miles per hour when the pedestrian was walking onto the highway from the right shoulder.
It also shows that “Tesla’s brakes were applied while the vehicle was moving to the left in an attempt to avoid the pedestrian,” he said in a statement on social media, as cited by ABC 7. “Despite these evasive actions, the right front part of the Tesla struck the individual.”
It is unclear from the wording whether these actions were performed by the driver or by the software.
The pedestrian was struck by at least one other vehicle while lying on the highway, the CHP said, but no other vehicles stopped to cooperate with authorities.
“The Solano Area CHP extends its deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased during this difficult time,” the department said.
This is not the only accident involving an autonomous Tesla to occur on the Californian section of I-80. Last week, another Tesla driven by FSD crashed into a police car that was stopped at the scene of a car crash after the driver allegedly fell asleep at the wheel, sending two officers to the hospital.
“Despite its name, fully autonomous driving is not fully autonomous,” the CHP emphasized in a statement after the accident. “Technology does not relieve drivers of their responsibility to operate their vehicle safely. »
In 2023, a Tesla using FSD struck and killed an elderly woman in Arizona who was helping direct traffic after a highway accident left her stranded. The images appear to show the car’s front cameras blinded by the sun’s glare, which may have confused the software, since Teslas rely solely on vision and no other forms of sensing like lidar to perceive their surroundings. Tesla settled the lawsuit filed by the woman’s family for an undisclosed amount last June.
Details about this latest death are still scarce. A man suddenly walking onto a highway at night would also be difficult for a human driver to avoid, but we don’t know to what extent the software – or the human who was supposed to supervise it – had reasonable warning.
Learn more about autonomous driving: We’re alarmed to hear that people are installing self-driving ‘mods’ on their cars
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