A 2022 Tesla Model S was found to have been operating with Full Self Driving functionality when it collided with, and killed a motorcyclist in Seattle, Washington in the United States, reported the Associated Press.
Washington State Patrol investigation came to the finding after retrieving data from the vehicle’s event recorder, according to the agency’s spokesperson Deion Glover.
The 56-year-old driver of the Model S reportedly told a police officer that he was using the Tesla Autopilot system, and look at his mobile phone while the Tesla was in motion. “The next thing he knew there was a bang and the vehicle lurched forward as it accelerated and collided with the motorcycle in front of him,” the officer wrote in a document, according to AP.
The 28-year-old motorcyclist that was hit was found under the car, and was pronounced dead at the scene, and the driver of the Model S was arrested for investigation of vehicular homicide “based on the admitted inattention to driving, while on Autopilot mode, and the distraction of the cell phone while moving forward, putting trust in the machine to drive for him,” according to a document sighted by the news outlet.
There is precedent for drivers of Tesla vehicles going to trial for crashes when operating under some form of self-driving that result in death, as another driver of a Model S, also in the United States, faced manslaughter charges in 2022 for the deaths of two persons in 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
In that Los Angeles case, the Model S crashed into a Honda Civic at an intersection, when the Tesla departed a freeway and ran a red light, reportedly travelling at 74 mph (119 km/h) when it crashed into the Honda Civic.
A Tesla engineer testified that this driver of the Model S had one hand on the steering wheel, however data showed there was no brake input in the six minutes before the crash, and prosecutors said that the electric vehicle’s Autosteer and Traffic Aware Cruise Control systems were active at the time.
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