New Tesla Crash in Fontana Sees 1 Dead, 2 Injured as EV Slams Person Helping Truck Driver: '40% Safer' Allegedly Flawed?

Urian B., Tech Times 05 May 2021, 09:05 pm

Tesla cars rarely crash but when they do, they are usually a big thing. This is because a lot of people look to Tesla as one of the safest, if not the safest EV that one could possibly drive. Just recently, however, a crash claimed the life of one man and left two others severely injured.

Tesla Crash Fontana

According to LosAngeles.CBSLocal.com, a man died while two others were left seriously injured when a particular Tesla vehicle slammed into a certain overturned semi-truck on the 210 Freeway over in Fontana. The whole chain of events started on westbound 210 Freeway somewhere near Citrus Avenue early at 2:35 AM, according to the official California Highway Patrol.

When the said semi-truck overturned on the freeway, a particular passing motorist then stopped and tried to help the driver out of the truck. As the person was trying to help extricate the driver, a Tesla suddenly slammed into him and the semi-truck! The driver of the Tesla was reportedly a 35-year-old man coming from Running Springs.

Victims of the Crash

The driver died on scene and the name was not released. The truck driver, 50-years-old, and the person helping, a 30-year-old, both came from San Bernardino and were rushed to the local hospital and had major injuries, according to the CHP. Just one lane of the westbound 210 Freeway was then shut down for hours as traffic backed up for miles. The freeway then fully reopened some time past 10 AM.

According to an article by The Drive released in February 2019, two years before the article, the growing concerns regarding Tesla's Autopilot system started to increase. In the wake of the dreaded Josh Brown crash, wherein a Tesla Model S suddenly drove directly into a certain truck at really high speed on Autopilot, there were serious questions about the design as well as the marketing of the system.

Tesla 'Safety' Data Allegedly Flawed?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration came out with a certain report saying Tesla vehicle crash rate dropped a whopping 40% after Autosteer installation. A certain Randy Whitfiled coming from Quality Control Systems had his own questions about NHTSA's Autopilot study and even submitted a FOIA request which was denied.

Whitfield then sued the agency in November 2018 to release the data and once examined, the data was reportedly "based on bad data and worse analysis." The data was requested by NHTSA from Tesla in which they were given data documenting the "Previous Mileage before Autosteer Install" and the "Next Mileage after Autosteer Install." This included data for airbag activated crashes.

Whitfield found that only 5,714 vehicles of 43,781 studied had the full, verifiable data that supported the findings. When the same analysis was performed by Whitfield, he found that there was a 59% increase in airbag deployment after the Autosteer had been installed.a Without knowing at what mileage the airbag-deployment took place, it's hard to come up with data about the system's safety.