Feds Launch Investigation Into Tesla Over a Single Fatality
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into Tesla on Thursday, reports the Associated Press. Though every preventable death is a tragedy, not every death should trigger a federal investigation and potential recall of overwhelmingly safe technology. The NHTSA’s overzealous scrutiny of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature is unwarranted and counterproductive.
The NHTSA lists a total of four crashes in its Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) report. Only one of the crashes involved an injury, which was unfortunately fatal. The November 2023 accident occurred when a Tesla Model Y using FSD collided with a Toyota 4Runner that had stopped to respond to a previous collision on Interstate 17 in Rimrock, Arizona. The accident killed a 71-year-old woman, per A.P.
The ODI report cites “reduced roadway visibility…from conditions such as sun glare, fog, or airborne dust” as contributing to all four crashes involving Tesla FSD. These conditions don’t just hinder the functioning of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) but human drivers as well. The collision that the 4Runner had stopped to assist was caused by sun glare, as was the fatal Tesla crash. Both the human drivers and the ADAS system were vulnerable to diminished visibility, but only the latter is the subject of a federal investigation.
This isn’t the first time the NHTSA has scrutinized Tesla. The agency began investigating the car manufacturer in August 2021 after 11 collisions involving Tesla’s autopilot and first responders occurred between 2018 and 2021. In 2022, NHTSA expanded its investigation, recordin
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