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Another Tesla On Autopilot Hits Another Emergency Vehicle - You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Another crash by one of Tesla's six-figure supercars on Autopilot has been reported. This time the Tesla Model S hit a parked police car.

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The Laguna Beach Police Department reports the following via its public Facebook Page:
"This morning, a Tesla sedan driving northbound along Laguna Canyon Road in "autopilot" collided with a parked Laguna Beach PD unit. The LBPD officer was not in the unit at the time of the collision. The driver of the Telsa sedan sustained minor injuries as a result of the collision."

This marks the third time a Tesla on Autopilot has been reported to have hit a parked emergency vehicle. The first time we heard this it was a fire truck in Culver City California. The second was a firetruck parked in Utah. If the Teslas were only smashing into unmoving police and fire trucks we would suspect a conspiracy. However, the Teslas also crash into the side of tractor-trailers and hit rigid barriers in the middle of the highway.

The real question is why Tesla is allowed to provide a system it admits is a beta and not a fully-tested product. The NTSB outlined the reasons why these accidents are happening after the first time a Tesla occupant was killed while Autopilot was engaged.

The most amazing part of the string of Tesla Autopilot crashes is that nobody outside the Tesla has been killed thus far. We suspect that the first time a first responder is hit by a Tesla on Autopilot that does not slow down will be the last day Autopilot is on sale in America.

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Self-Driving Shuttle Vehicle Crashes In Las Vegas Immediately After Launch
Running Down Self-Driving Autonomous Cars' Biggest Crashes, SNAFUs, and Unsafe Traffic Violations

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Comments

Jordan Thompson (not verified)    May 30, 2018 - 8:23AM

I'd like to know how many accidents occured when the first cruise controls were put into cars.

Tom (not verified)    May 30, 2018 - 9:02AM

This story is just more click bait, because it’s popular to hate on Tesla. If the company is guilty of anything, it’s that it needed to use a better name for the driver assisted cruise control it offers.

Nissan started offering similar features in the new Leaf, but calls it driver assist - not autopilot.

Tesla tells people in the owners manual to only use this on highways, not regular roads where you have random parked vehicles along the sides of them. If it can’t clearly see lines on both sides of lanes, it’s not safe to use it either. If road construction is going on, on a highway? Again, turn autopilot off.

jay (not verified)    May 30, 2018 - 1:59PM

WAIT a minute, do you also suspect the first time a non-auto pilot driver hits a first responder we will all be asked to go back to horse and buggy days? WAIT- non auto pilot drivers have hurt first responders and we all still drive cars - doh nvm.

John Goreham    June 2, 2018 - 9:47AM

In reply to by jay (not verified)

No, not the first time. Maybe not the second time. How about the third time in a handful of months that a non-autopilot car of any given model hits a first responder's parked vehicle at an accident site, we stop and figure out WTF is wrong. Particularly if the car costs $80K - $160K.