Tesla with Autopilot hits cop car–driver admits he was watching a movie

arstechnica.com

14 points·redm··9 comments

Not sure if he had the cabin camera activated or not but if he had then there was no point denying it or trying to come up with a 'I swerved to avoid a dog/cat/space alien' defence.

'If you enable the Cabin Camera, a short video clip will be captured and shared with Tesla following a safety event such as a collision or an advanced emergency braking (AEB) event.'

[1] https://www.tesla.com/support/car-safety-security-features#c...

I have that disabled in my car, but not for reasons such as "hey, I'm gonna be an idiot". I just don't like cameras focused on me.

Would this be a news story if autopilot were not engaged and he was simply texting? People drive while distracted all of the time.

No it wouldn't, but that's not what happened here.

So-called "Autopilot" is not supposed to get distracted, so this is a news story because it's pretty terrible to crash into a cop car with its warning lights on.

Only the worst driver would plow into a cop car with its warning lights on, so what does that say about Autopilot?

Thank you

People hit stationary cars all the time. In the UK there are about 9,000 such accidents per year. It’s extremely common.

Someone in the US crashed into a stationary car during the time it took for me to write this up. It happens all the time. It’s not news. Not unless it was a Tesla.

Stationary cars maybe. Stationary cop cars with their warning lights on, not so much.

Personally, I'd hope a Tesla with "autopilot" would be able to avoid such an obvious obstacle.

It happens way more often than you would think. There is an even a named phenomenon about how people naturally drift toward stationary objects. It's called "target fixation."

De-fender the Police?

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