A motorcyclist was killed in Draper, Utah, early Sunday morning when a Tesla driver using autopilot crashed into the back of his motorcycle. It’s the latest incident involving Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system to attract a new vote of federal investigators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The accident occurred just after 1 a.m. Sunday on southbound Interstate 15, according to local reports. The rider, who has not been identified, was traveling south near the Salt Lake and Utah County lines when Tesla approached from the rear. The Utah Department of Public Safety said the Tesla driver collided with the rear end of the motorcycle, causing the rider to fall to the ground and kill him instantly.
The Tesla driver, who remained at the scene, reported to local authorities that he was unable to see the motorcyclist. Authorities said the driver was using autopilot at the time of the accident.
The Utah accident is the latest to be added to NHTSA’s list of Special Accident Investigations (SCI) as the agency collects data beyond what local authorities and insurance companies usually collect on the spot. The agency is also studying accidents involving advanced driver assistance systems, such as Tesla’s autopilot, and automated driving systems.
As of July 26, there were 48 accidents on the agency’s SCI list, 39 of which involved Tesla vehicles. Nineteen people, including drivers, passengers, pedestrians, other drivers and motorcyclists, died in these Tesla accidents.
From July 20, 2021 to May 21, 2022, there were 273 accidents involving Tesla vehicles using autopilot, according to NHTSA. Accidents from electric car companies made up most of the list out of a total of 392 accidents reported during that period.
It’s true that hundreds of car accidents happen every day, many of them as we know are fatal, but the NHTSA estimates that 42,915 people died in traffic accidents in 2021, a 10.5% increase from 38,824 deaths in 2020.
When a particular technology is involved in a fatal accident in this particular case, the autopilot, it deserves close examination to determine which decisions were made that led to that specific failure.
source: transcriber
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