People say that you never really know when disaster will hit, and it appears that this applies to driving as well. Even early in the morning when the road barely has any moving vehicles, someone can still slam into your vehicle. In this case, it was an unattentive Tesla driver.
Tesla Slams Into Police Car
Early in the morning before sunrise, police responded to a traffic accident in Fullerton at the intersection of W. Orangethorpe Ave. and Courtney Ave. involving a motorcyclist, wherein emergency lights were set up to signal vehicles to stop.
While most drivers would see emergency lights from the police car as well as the flares that were placed on the road, a car in full self-driving mode may not. This was proven when a blue Tesla crashed into a cop car that was blocking traffic, as reported by Gizmodo.
Fortunately, the cop on the scene managed to avoid any injury. "Thanks to the quick reaction of the police officer, who spotted the oncoming vehicle and swiftly moved to the side of the road, along with the off-duty police dispatcher who was riding with him, a potential disaster was averted."
The driver behind the wheel of the Tesla, who still remains unnamed, was said to be preoccupied with his phone during the crash. This further proves that the full self-driving feature does not mean that the driver can fully trust the vehicle's systems to navigate the road.
This has been pointed out by the company several times over after many accidents where drivers were not paying attention while in automated driving mode. It has been overlooked so much that Tesla already renamed the feature Full Self-Driving (Supervised).
In the article listing the capabilities of the feature, Tesla clearly states by the end of it that active safety features are designed to assist drivers, " but cannot respond in every situation. It is your responsibility to stay alert, drive safely and be in control of your vehicle at all times."
The driver's hands still need to be on the steering wheel with their eyes on the road when FSD or other Autopilot features are enabled. This way, they can react accordingly when the system encounters unique situations or obstacles.
It Doesn't Bode Well for Tesla's Robotaxi Plans
While Tesla does warn drivers to alert with the FSD enabled, it begs the question of how robotaxis would fare given they will be fully driverless, and will therefore not have a human driver that can intervene when the system fails to assess the environment properly.
According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, its robotaxi fleet might be released as early as August 8th, as mentioned in Forbes. Hopefully, this will have a more advanced automated driving system, maybe even better than other popular driverless ride-hailing services like Cruise or Waymo.
This comes with the announcement that the feature, once it goes through trials, could go for the subscription fee of $100 per month instead of the current $200 per month fee. Of course, there's always the one-time payment of $12,000 for those who are sure they will always use the function.
