A Canadian cop pulled over a Tesla driver who was completely asleep while his car was doing 93 miles per hour. It’s hard to wrap your head around the concept of people falling asleep at the wheel as their car is doing 93 miles per hour, but this is what happens when you put your faith (and life) in the hands of high tech.
This may sound strange, as in how can you pull over a driver that’s completely asleep at the wheel, but let’s move on. Here’s what the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told Global News in an official statement:
“The officer was able to obtain radar readings on the vehicle, confirming that it had automatically accelerated up to exactly 150 km/h [93 mph]”
The sleepy speed racer was made possible by Tesla’s autopilot feature, a state of the art technology that literally allows you to sleep while driving, which makes it a public health hazard in the hands of reckless drivers.
For example, the autopilot thing comes with lane centering technology, and even semi autonomous navigation on highways, i.e. a ton of driver assistance technologies which led to people engaging the autopilot feature and then ceasing to pay attention to what happens on the road, or even take a nap, like the hero of our story.
Other accidents involving Tesla drivers include a funny one, when the perpetrator was drinking and eating during the incident; another one was watching a movie (!) on his smartphone when he hit a few police cars, and, finally, a completely disconnected driver was playing video games.
“Although manufacturers of new vehicles have built-in safeguards to prevent drivers from taking advantage of the new safety systems in vehicles, those systems are just that — supplemental safety systems. They are not self-driving systems, they still come with the responsibility of driving.”
said RCMP Supt. Gary Graham, and he mentioned that the reckless Canadian driver had his licence suspended for 24 hours, and was charged with speeding. The driver is set to appear in court in December.
Elon Musk was criticized for using a misleading name for the Autopilot feature, the argument being that Tesla cars are not capable of autonomous driving, while people get lured into thinking that they actually can drive for themselves. Which is a fallacy, obviously.
When asked if he considers changing the name, he said: Absolutely not, it’s ridiculous. So far, Autopilot mode has been linked to a number of fatal car crashes and legal battles for Tesla.