According to reports, a newly released dashcam video showed a doctor driving a Tesla after turning on the Autopilot function, then hitting a police car parked on the side of the road, and was then killed. The rammed police car struck another deputy sheriff. And when all this happened, the doctor was in the driver’s seat watching a movie with his phone in his hands.
The accident happened in the summer of 2020, but the full incident wasn’t really revealed until the North Carolina Highway Patrol released a live video on Wednesday.
The video came from a dashcam on a police car parked on the side of the road. In the video, two law enforcement officers, one from the North Carolina Highway Patrol and the other from the Nash County Sheriff’s Office, are standing next to U.S. Route 64.
At this moment, a highway patrol car that had just been hit by a Tesla came into view, leaned towards the two officers and hit the deputy sheriff. When he was hit, officers from the Patrol Force pulled him to safety. The car then rolled into a roadside ditch. Photos taken after the accident showed the vehicle was badly damaged.
Law enforcement officials then pointed out that without the help of patrol officers, the Deputy Sheriff’s situation could have been much worse than it really was.
“Fortunately, when the State Patrol heard the tire squeal, they pushed our Deputy Sheriff out, otherwise he would have died on the spot,” Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone said after the accident “The consequences are unimaginable,” he said.
After the crash, the driver of the vehicle, North Carolina doctor Devainder Goli, was charged with watching a movie on his phone while driving a Tesla with Autopilot.
Gawley was arrested and charged with driving in violation of the law and “viewing a television device while driving.” An internet search revealed that his doctor’s license had been “permanently revoked”.
Similar accidents are becoming more common among Tesla Autopilot users. The U.S. Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has identified at least 12 major crashes involving Tesla Autopilot. The agency has since launched a federal investigation into the electric car giant and ordered Tesla to submit Autopilot data.
The investigation is still ongoing.
While NHTSA has only confirmed 12 Autopilot-related crashes, other Tesla Autopilot-related crashes have resulted in at least 17 injuries and one death, according to CNN.
In addition, there are many studies that argue that Tesla’s Autopilot technology is not as safe as the company claims. Some of these reports come from NHTSA and MIT.
A California family sued Tesla last July after losing their 15-year-old son, and it was widely reported in the media. At that time, a Tesla controlled by the Autopilot function failed to slow down in time but crashed directly into the pickup truck the boy was in, throwing him out of the car and taking his life.
The family believes that Tesla’s technology should be partly responsible for the accident. But Tesla and its billionaire CEO Elon Musk have denied that their Autopilot is not safe enough. The company’s website also states that “many factors can affect the performance of Autopilot components, preventing them from functioning as intended.”