Tesla driver Walter Huang, who died in fatal autopilot crash, was playing smartphone game, safety board says
- The Apple engineer was killed in March 2018 when his Tesla Model X swerved and slammed into a concrete barrier in California
- The SUV’s collision avoidance system did not alert Huang, and its automatic emergency braking did not activate
The National Transportation Safety Board says the driver of a Tesla SUV who died in a Silicon Valley crash two years ago was playing a video game on his smartphone while his vehicle was being controlled by a partially automated driving system.
Chairman Robert Sumwalt said at the start of a hearing Tuesday that systems like Tesla’s Autopilot cannot drive themselves, yet drivers continue to use them without paying attention.
“If you own a car with partial automation, you do not own a self-driving car,” Sumwalt said in opening statements. “This means that when driving in the supposed ‘self-driving’ mode, you cannot read a book, you cannot watch a movie or TV show, you cannot text and you cannot play video games.”
The board will determine a cause of the crash at the hearing and make recommendations to prevent it from happening again. Sumwalt says government regulators have ignored the board’s previous recommendations for measures to prevent these crashes.
The March 2018 crash involving a Tesla Model X SUV killed Apple engineer Walter Huang when it swerved and slammed into a concrete barrier dividing freeway and exit lanes in Mountain View, California.