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.
In fairness, cruise control is designed for maintaining a speed when you are just going straight for a long time, in a situation where other vehicles are going the same speed (i.e. on a highway). Cruise control isn’t designed to navigate around pedestrians, turn lanes, approach intersections, or do anything else that would put people in danger.
Of course, you still have to know when to stop, but that would be during situations where cruise control would NOT be appropriate.
Tesla wants people to use these features in cities, where you’ve got kids and people walking around. Totally different, and I think they should be held accountable for how they’ve marketed these features.
Yes, and no. The infrastructure would need to be designed for self-driving vehicles, or you get too many unpredictable variables that aren’t properly accounted for. As they are today, they shouldn’t be allowed on public roadways.
We had an autonomous bus one municipality over that ran off the road and hit a tree and critically injured the operator. God forbid this happened near a school. A human driver wouldn’t have done that unless they were impaired.
You claimed there was no point if you have to pay attention. I was responding to that and pointing out there are all kinds of things that currently assist in driving that still require paying attention. Self driving just replaced more of that, just as adaptive cruise control replaced more of that than cc itself.
Liability is a whole different question. although, I have to laugh the idea of humans not making mistakes
We’re talking about features that are intended to two very different purposes.
Cruise control is designed so that a driver doesn’t have to keep their foot pressed on a gas pedal for hours on end (causing physical discomfort or injury) if they are going a constant speed. You are still required to drive, so cruise control was never an alternative to driving.
But these marketed self-driving features are made to replace the act of driving, while still expecting that the person in the vehicle has their full attention and control over it when the car decides to break bad.
There’s a massive different, IMO.
Seems like “assisted-driving” might be a better term, even if it results in fewer sales. 😂
Again, “You claimed there was no point if you have to pay attention. I was responding to that and pointing out there are all kinds of things that currently assist in driving that still require paying attention.”
I agree with you that it should not be marketed as SD and that there is a massive difference between the two. But in the way I compared them, in response to the argument you made, those differences make no difference.