A minor teenager who drove a Tesla without a driver’s license or permission from the owner was creative when the car was stopped by the police: she decided to jump in the back seat and claim that Tesla was driving alone.
The incident happened near Daytona Beach, Florida, where an assistant to the Flagler County sheriff stopped a Tesla Model Y that was driving on the wrong side of the road.
After the vehicle stopped, he slowly backed up in the police car.
When the policeman went to the driver’s window to see what the problem was, he found no one in the driver’s seat.
Instead, the policeman found a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl, one in the back seat and the other in the front passenger seat.
The two girls claimed that no one was driving the vehicle and that the Tesla was self-employed.
While Tesla actually sells a “Full Self-Driving package”, the full version of the package is being tested only in the “Beta version” with a few thousand cars, and requires someone in the driver’s seat. The responsibility always lies with the driver.
The policeman quickly determined that the teenagers were lying to hide the fact that they shouldn’t be driving the electric car.
The teenagers apparently drove from Charleston, South Carolina, more than 300 miles away, and the driver’s mother thought they were at her grandmother’s house.
Sheriff Rick Staly commented on the situation [via the Daytona Beach News-Journal]:
These children are very lucky that no one was hurt and their actions had no more serious consequences. It doesn’t matter if you are driving a ‘smart car’, driving without a license is still against the law. I hope these children have learned a valuable lesson and I am grateful that no one was hurt and that only minor damage to the vehicle occurred.
The “driver” ended up getting a ticket for driving without a license, and the teenagers were left in the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Family overnight because their parents were unable to get there immediately.
It is not the first time that drivers have tried to blame Tesla’s autopilot for bad or illegal driving.
In 2018, a drunk driver tried to get out of a DUI claiming that his Tesla was driving alone.
Tesla’s driver assistance features in its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving packages are still considered “level 2” on the self-driving scale and should always be used with full attention from the driver and the driver being ready to take control o all the time.
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