Tesla Driver Admits to Sleeping While Using FSD in Highway Patrol Crash
A Tesla driver using Full Self-Driving (FSD) crashed into a parked California Highway Patrol vehicle on I-80, seriously injuring two officers. The incident has reignited scrutiny over autonomous driving safety and regulatory oversight.
A shocking collision on Interstate 80 has once again brought the safety and limitations of autonomous driving software into the spotlight. A Tesla driver admitted to being asleep and utilizing the vehicle's "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) mode when their car slammed into parked California Highway Patrol (CHP) vehicles, according to authorities.
The Crash on Interstate 80
Video footage released by the CHP captures the Tesla speeding past emergency lights, flares, and traffic cones set up at the scene of an earlier accident. The vehicle failed to slow down or navigate around the emergency zone, ramming directly into the back of a parked patrol vehicle.
The impact resulted in serious injuries to two CHP officers who were responding to the initial incident. Both officers were transported to a hospital for medical treatment.
Regulatory Scrutiny and Industry Response
Following the accident, the California Highway Patrol issued a stern warning regarding driver-assist technologies: "Despite its name, full self-driving is not fully autonomous. Technology does not relieve drivers of their responsibility to safely operate their vehicles."
This incident adds to a long history of collisions involving Tesla vehicles and parked emergency vehicles. In response to numerous similar crashes, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched an investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot software in 2021. The investigation concluded that the driver-assist features failed to keep drivers adequately engaged, linking the software to hundreds of crashes and dozens of fatalities where neither the system nor the driver intervened in time.
Although Tesla released an Autopilot software update in 2023 introducing additional controls and alerts to ensure drivers maintain attention while Autosteer is active, the NHTSA was subsequently forced to open a secondary investigation to determine whether these modifications went far enough to address fundamental safety concerns.
