Tesla On Autopilot Crashes Into Parked Laguna Beach Police Car
It seems that the evidence against self-driving technology are slowly piling up. Coincidentally, the biggest number of them are coming from the car company that isn't actually pushing for self-driving cars that much. Tesla's cars have recently been involved in a few crashes, including a fatal one, that have been attributed to its Autopilot mode. And it seems it's not yet over as another incident has been blamed on the car's Autopilot mode. Almost ironically, the car in question crashed into a police cruiser but, fortunately, the story doesn't have a tragic ending.
The new, unsurprisingly, came from the Laguna Beach PD information office itself. Of course they withheld most of the specifics other than mentioning that a Tesla sedan collided with a parked police car. They did show pictures of how much destruction was involved but, fortunately, no one was fatally wounded.
This morning a Tesla sedan driving outbound Laguna Canyon Road in "autopilot" collides with a parked @LagunaBeachPD unit. Officer was not in the unit at the time of the crash and minor injuries were sustained to the Tesla driver. #lagunabeach #police #tesla pic.twitter.com/7sAs8VgVQ3
— Laguna Beach PD PIO (@LBPD_PIO_45) May 29, 2018
Tesla has still to make an official statement regarding this latest incident, the second this year. Tesla's position, however, has always been opposite of what most autonomous driving car makers have been pushing for: don't rely completely on Autopilot.
Tesla's Autopilot feature is marketed more as a driver assistance technology rather than one that would fully automate driving. The company reminds drivers to always keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road even with the mode activated. It still remains to be seen whether those warnings and disclaimers will be enough to keep lawsuits at bay.