A 56-year-old Snohomish man had set his Tesla Model S on Autopilot and was looking at his cellphone on Friday when he struck and killed a motorcyclist in front of him in Monroe, court records show.
A Washington State Patrol trooper arrested the Tesla driver at the crash site on Highway 522 at Fales Road shortly before 4 p.m. on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The motorcyclist, Jeffrey Nissen, 28, of Stanwood, died at the scene, records show.
The Tesla driver told a state trooper he was driving home from having lunch in Bothell and was looking at his phone when he heard a bang and felt his car lurch forward, accelerate and hit the motorcyclist, according to the affidavit.
The man told the trooper his Tesla got stuck on top of the motorcyclist and couldn’t be moved in time to save him, the affidavit states.
The trooper cited the driver’s “inattention to driving, while on autopilot mode, and the distraction of the cell phone while moving forward,” and trusting “the machine to drive for him” as probable cause for a charge of vehicular manslaughter, according to the affidavit.
The man was booked into the Snohomish County Jail and was released Sunday after posting bond on his $100,000 bail, jail records show.
But if it’s marketed to change lanes, adjust speed, avoid obstacles, stop, signal, and everything else a driver does… then it’s being marketed as far more than “advanced cruise control”, is it not?
Quite literally their website says: “Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features, and full self-driving capabilities.”
“The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat.”
“When you arrive at your destination, simply step out at the entrance and your car will enter park seek mode, automatically search for a spot and park itself. A tap on your phone summons it back to you.”
They are telling you the car will drive without someone even being in it!
Why are they even allowed to get away with this kind of marketing? Getting people killed along the way.
*May run over a Grandma just trying to walk into Trader Joe’s.
“You must agree to the TOS before driving this vehicle.”
I agree that’s is marketed as fully autonomous and it shouldn’t be. I think the states dmv should have stepped in and not allowed a vehicle to be registered as anything but having cruise control unless they OK’d it because there are idiots behind the wheel that are simply ignorant of the fact that they are moving multiple tons of mass at speeds that are faster than they can react.
I think y’all are focusing on the wrong feature in this case. Regardless of the limitations of automated driving, or whether it was human or computer doing the driving, obstacle avoidance is meant to prevent hitting things
I agree. You should see the tests of these cars slamming into pedestrians. Why they are allowed to be on public roads is beyond me.