A man is facing charges for negligent driving after his Tesla slammed into a police car parked by the roadside in Massachusetts.
According to the police, the man "must not have been paying attention" as the car's Autopilot was turned on. Ars Technica identified the man as Nicholas Ciarlone who was only recently charged in the incident although the crash happened in December 2019.
Tesla Model 3 interior with Autopilot Technology
As Boston's NBC Channel 10 reported, the police car was stationary on the left-hand side of the highway in Route 24's West Bridgewater town, which is about an hour's drive from Boston. The police car just pulled over college student Maria Smith to ask for her registration paperwork when the Tesla slammed into the state trooper.
Tesla crashes into parked police car
The police car crashed into the student's vehicle due to the impact of the crash, which caused a build-up in traffic. Fortunately, the trooper was not seriously injured as he hit the concrete barrier on the side of the road while Smith got glass shards in her hair after the back window shattered.
"If my car had pushed forward any more, he probably would've ended up getting crushed by it," Smith told NBC 10 adding that the police officer could have sustained more serious injuries.
As with other auto brands, crashing into stationary vehicles has been the major concern with Tesla's Autopilot technology. Numerous accidents have been reported involving this technology since 2016. In 2018, at least two incidents of cars on Autopilot crashed into parked fire trucks, which luckily did not lead to any deaths.
Tesla Driver Blames Autopilot for Crashing into Parked Police Car
Last year, a Tesla Model 3 crashed into a police car that was parked on a Connecticut highway. The driver was "checking on his dog in the back seat" when the accident happened, the police reported.
In 2016 and 2019, two incidents involved Teslas crashing into tractor-trailers that were crossing the road in which both cars slid under the trailers and instantly killed the drivers.
Unfortunately, this is a relatively common behavior for cruise control systems that match the speed of other moving vehicles using radar, which directly measures another vehicle's velocity. However, these systems may completely ignore non-moving vehicles. This is because radar has poor angular resolution and tends to overlook still objects like a concrete barrier in the vehicle's travel lane.
While the autopilot works most of the time, the car may bump into a parked vehicle in the travel lane if the driver is not focused on the road.
Auto safety
Sean Kane, an auto safety watchdog, said Tesla seems to be testing out its Autopilot technology on public roads. "We are all involved in a clinical trial that we didn't sign up for," Kane told NBC 10.
While Tesla did not respond to questions about the crash, it recently launched a more sophisticated self-driving system to ensure its vehicle's Autopilot detects stop signs and traffic lights. However, the car manufacturer advised drivers to remain focused even when the vehicle is in Autopilot.
Kane dismissed Tesla's message saying, "You can't call something 'Autopilot' and then have the driver fully engaged. That doesn't make any sense at all," he said adding that regulators "are allowing it to happen."
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