A Tesla Model S crashed into a parked police vehicle while the sedan was in Autopilot mode in Laguna Beach, California on Tuesday. Thankfully, there was no one in the police’s SUV, however, the driver suffered minor injuries. The police vehicle belonged to the Laguna Beach Police Department.
“This morning a Tesla sedan driving outbound Laguna Canyon Road in “autopilot” collides with a parked Laguna Beach PD unit,” said the police department in a tweet. The tweet further reads “Officer was not in the unit at the time of the crash and minor injuries were sustained to the Tesla driver.”
Laguna Beach Sergeant Jim Cota has posted photos of the accident site showing the two damaged vehicles. The driver blamed the Autopilot feature of the EV. It is yet another headache for the Tesla CEO Elon Musk who has been going through some tough times because of all the recent Tesla crashes.
“Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn’t make the car impervious to all accidents,” said a company spokesperson in a statement. The company says that the drivers are continuously reminded of responsibility not to take their hands off the wheels and maintain control at all times. According to Tesla, drivers have to accept a dialogue box before activating the Autopilot that says “Autopilot is designed for use on highways that have a center divider and clear lane markings.”
Tesla Model S owner’s manual also instructs the owner that the Autopilot system of the vehicle can’t detect all the objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles or objects especially in cases when the speed is over 50mph. It also notes that the system doesn’t work in situations when a vehicle ahead of you moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you.
This is the latest in the series of crashes involving Tesla vehicle running in Autopilot mode.
Another Tesla accident involving Model S crashed into a fire truck stopped at the red light in South Jordan, Utah. The speed of the Tesla vehicle was 60mph (90kmph) before the collision. According to the report, the driver activated the autopilot system 80 seconds before the crash. She took her hands off the steering within 2 seconds and did not touch it for the next 80 seconds until the crash happened, said the report.
There is another accident happened in March where a Tesla Model X on Autopilot struck a highway divider. In January, another Tesla vehicle struck a parked truck while on Autopilot in California.
