Tesla announces first driver killed by ‘Autopilot mode’

Joshua D. Brown, a 40-year-old from Canton, Ohio, has become the first person known to have died while being driven by an autonomous car, and now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced an investigation of both the incident and the system that was piloting the vehicle.

Brown was riding in his Tesla Model S sedan down a divided highway when a tractor trailer moved perpendicular to the path of the vehicle, the automaker said in a statement. The car company said it appears neither the car nor the truck applied the brakes before the eventual deadly collision.

The collision took place on May 7 in Florida. Tesla advised the NHTSA on the incident, which led to the opening of an investigation.

Tesla said the height of the white tractor trailer against a bright sky may and the larger vehicle’s positioning may have confused the sedan’s recognition software, what Tesla described as “extremely rare circumstances.”

The Tesla car passed below the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer colliding with the windshield of the sedan.

“Had the Model S impacted the front or rear of the trailer, even at high speed, its advanced crash safety system would likely have prevented serious injury as it has in numerous other similar incidents,” the Tesla statement said.

Changing how autonomous driving is seen

The truck driver Frank Baressi, 62, told The Associated Press the Tesla driver was “playing Harry Potter on the TV screen” and the car was moving at a high rate of speed when the collision took place.

“He went so fast through my trailer I didn’t see him,” Baressi said.

“(The movie) was still playing when he died and (the car) snapped a telephone pole a quarter mile down the road,” Baressi recounted.

Tesla Motors has said the Model S touch screen is not capable of playing videos and police reports did not make any reference to a movie playing.

Brown was a self-described tech aficionado and a former Navy SEAL, according to his obituary. He had been an enthusiastic supporter of his Tesla car and, in a video published online; he credited the car’s Autopilot system for avoiding a collision with a commercial truck.

“Hands down the best car I have ever owned and use it to its full extent,” Brown wrote.

In its statement, Tesla acknowledged Brown’s enthusiasm for both their product an electric vehicles in general.

“The customer who died in this crash had a loving family and we are beyond saddened by their loss. He was a friend to Tesla and the broader EV community, a person who spent his life focused on innovation and the promise of technology and who believed strongly in Tesla’s mission. We would like to extend our deepest sympathies to his family and friends.”

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Image credit: Tesla

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