The US government’s road safety agency is sending a team to Detroit to investigate an accident involving a Tesla that went under a semi-trailer.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Monday night that a special accident investigation team will go to the city to investigate the “violent accident”. Two people were seriously injured in the accident last Thursday on the southwest side of the city.
The circumstances of the accident are similar to two others in Florida, in which Teslas drove under tractor trailers, causing two deaths. In both collisions, in 2016 and 2019, cars were being driven using Tesla’s Autopilot’s partially automated steering software.
Detroit Police Sgt. Nicole Kirkwood was unable to say whether the Tesla driver was using the company’s autopilot or “fully autonomous” software. “It’s still under investigation,” she said.
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A message was left on Monday night seeking Tesla’s comments. The Palo Alto, Calif.-Based company said earlier that Autopilot and “full self-driving” are driver assistance systems and that the driver must be ready to intervene at all times.
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But the company has been criticized by the National Transportation Safety Board for not properly monitoring drivers to make sure they are paying attention. The NTSB, which investigates accidents and makes recommendations, also criticized Tesla for allowing the system to work on roads it cannot handle.
In a February 1 letter to the Department of Transportation, which includes NHTSA, NTSB President Robert Sumwalt urged the agency to enact regulations governing driver assistance systems as well as testing autonomous vehicles. NHTSA relied mainly on voluntary vehicle guidelines, adopting an intervention-free approach so as not to impede the development of new safety technologies.
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He wrote that Tesla is using its owners to test “fully autonomous” software on public roads with limited supervision or reporting requirements. “Since NHTSA has imposed no requirements, manufacturers can operate and test vehicles virtually anywhere, even if the location exceeds the limitations of the AV (autonomous vehicle) control system,” wrote Sumwalt.
“Although Tesla includes a disclaimer that ‘currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous’, NHTSA’s non-intervention approach to supervising AV testing poses a potential risk for drivers and other users from the road, “he wrote.
Detroit police said in a statement that a white Tesla sedan passed an intersection at about 3:20 am on Thursday morning, crashed into the trailer and got stuck underneath it.
Both the driver and the passenger were taken to a local hospital. The woman was in critical condition on Thursday, while the condition of the driver was not immediately known. Police said the information was preliminary and subject to change after further investigations.