Who Is To Blame When An Autonomous Vehicle Crashes?
It seems that a backup camera system is not the only to stay safe in a Tesla.
A string of recent Tesla crashes have made people think twice about the safety of autonomous vehicles, but the company claims they are not to blame for the latest Model X crash. Thankfully no one was severely injured after the brand new Model X accelerated while entering a parking spot and crashed into a building right next to a busy storefront.
The owner of the car claims that that autopilot is to blame for the accident and the company is at fault. Tesla has reviewed the vehicle’s logs and is confident that autopilot is not to blame. A Tesla spokesperson sent Electrek this statement.
“We analyzed the vehicle logs which confirm that this Model X was operating correctly under manual control and was never in Autopilot or cruise control at the time of the incident or in the minutes before. Data shows that the vehicle was traveling at 6 mph when the accelerator pedal was abruptly increased to 100%. Consistent with the driver’s actions, the vehicle applied torque and accelerated as instructed. Safety is the top priority at Tesla and we engineer and build our cars with this foremost in mind. We are pleased that the driver is ok and ask our customers to exercise safe behavior when using our vehicles.”
This is the very reason why Tesla keeps such detailed logs. Logs don’t lie. Is this a human mistake? The owner of the vehicle continues to claim they are not to blame. This rebuttal was sent to Electrek.
“My wife is a 45-year-old woman with a great driving record. Not and (sic) incapacitated driver. She has been going to that center for over 20 years and parking in the same stalls hundreds of times. She knows the difference between brake and accelerator pedal. I am waiting to hear from Tesla whether the accelerator pedal can be depressed by the car electronically similar to gas-powered cars’ pedal being depressed on their own while in cruise control.”
It will be interesting to see how this story ends. Because we were not there, we can’t be absolutely sure what happened. It seems like Tesla is prepared to defend its vehicles with detailed data, but this definitely will not be the last time autopilot is blamed for a crash.
By Tyler, Rear View Safety Contributer.
