I think it's much more likely the teen had the autopilot feature turned on and was not paying any attention at all to traffic.
This kid was 18 years old and was given a car to drive that has an "Auto Pilot" feature. Probably hasn't ever worked on a car in his life and doesn't know anything about how that feature works or the real potential for it to fail.
His parents telling him not to use that feature would have no effect at all.
Every time one of these Tesla cars crash someone here blames the diver for using the technology, as opposed to the company that promotes and sells it.
"This car can drive itself! But you still have to drive it yourself." is bullshit.
How do you "work on" a EV? Why would being a mechanic make you a better driver?
The short answer to your 2nd question is you learn how and why cars break and people crash into stuff. I have a lot of experience with that.
I've been driving for 47 years and I've never crashed a car, or crashed into one, or had one crash into me, and I've never gotten a ticket.
That's not all luck. It's "defensive driving". To sum in up you have to drive like everyone else is trying to crash into you and the roads are always slippery, and nowadays like your autopilot sucks.
If this is indeed the case, maybe the problem goes beyond AP and extends to the safety features of the car...
Notably, you can override the accelerator while driving on Autopilot. It warns you that Autopilot will not brake when you do this. This may be a potential factor.
How would blaming Autopilot lower your culpability?