The U.S. government’s road safety agency is again investigating Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system, this time after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents that it opened the probe on Thursday with the company reporting four crashes after Teslas entered areas of low visibility, including sun glare, fog and airborne dust.
In addition to the pedestrian’s death, another crash involved an injury, the agency said.
Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving” to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions, and if so, the contributing circumstances for these crashes.”
That’s the thing though…I think it is part of their due diligence to know what’s going on in their own business. If they can’t guarantee that it’s safe, they shouldn’t release it.
If their reports are lying to them, and not in a way that they should have detected, then I don’t think it falls on them if things go sideways. And that happens somewhat regularly, when you have a VP or something somewhere painting a much rosier picture that what is actually happening on the ground.
At that point, it comes down to a call on whether they were negligent.