An individual killed in a fatal accident in 2016 while using the semi-autonomous driving system on his Tesla Model S sedan kept his hands off the wheel for prolonged periods of time regardless of repeated automated cautions not to do so, a U.S. government report stated.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) provided 500 pages of findings into the death of Joshua Brown, a former Navy SEAL, near Williston, Florida. Brown’s Model S hit with a truck while it was participated in the “Autopilot” mode and he was killed.
A Tesla spokeswoman Keely Sulprizio refused to comment on the NTSB report. In last year, the company said Autopilot “does not enable the driver to abdicate responsibility”.
Brown family lawyer Jack Landskroner stated in an e-mail the NTSB’s findings must put to rest previous media reports that Brown was watching a film at the time of the accident, which he called “unequivocally false.”
He added that the household has not taken any legal action versus Tesla and was still evaluating the NTSB report.
The incident raised concerns about the safety of systems that can carry out driving tasks for long stretches with little or no human intervention, however which can not totally change human motorists.
During a 37-minute duration of the trip when Brown was required to have his hands on the wheel, he obviously did so for just 25 seconds, the NTSB stated in the report.
The report stated the Autopilot mode stayed on during the most of his trip which it gave him to a visual caution seven different times that said “Hands Required Not Detected.”
In six cases, the system then sounded a chime prior it returned to “Hands Required Detected” for one to three second duration.
Tesla in September revealed improvements in Autopilot, including new limits on hands-off driving and other functions that its CEO stated likely would have avoided the crash death. The upgraded system temporarily avoids drivers from utilizing the system if they do not react to audible cautions to reclaim control of the vehicle.
