A motorist says that their Tesla car was in autopilot mode when it crashed into a police SUV in Washington on Saturday.
The accident happened on May 15th in Arlington, Washington.
According to Herald Net News, the deputy was responding to a separate crash in the 25200 block of 103rd Avenue NE and the patrol SUV was parked on the shoulder with its lights on when the Tesla struck the SUV.
The crash caused significant damage to the patrol car, but luckily the officer was outside of the vehicle.
Although the driver assist mode is called “Autopilot,” Tesla states that Before enabling Autopilot, the driver first needs to agree to ‘keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times’ and to always ‘maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle.’”
The Washington State Patrol also pointed out that even when the car is on autopilot, the motorist is “still required to be paying attention to the road and ready for hazards.”
“They’re crashing into stopped vehicles on the road we’re seeing it with police vehicles, we’re seeing it with fire trucks, ambulances there was a turned over semi-truck the other day in California that resulted in a death,” said Jason Levine, the Executive Director of the Center for the Auto Safety in Washington, D.C.
“When Tesla calls it autopilot, when Tesla calls it full self-driving, that convinces people that it’s something that it isn’t.”
Currently, the Department of Motor Vehicles in California is currently reviewing whether Tesla is violating California state regulations by advertising its vehicles as “fully autonomous” without actually meeting the legal definition of self-driving.