A Tesla Model S driver who got a ticket for driving with his Autopilot on and both feet hanging out of the window has gotten the ticket dismissed. The Blast reports that Grammy-nominated producer DJ Klypso received a ticket last year when he was driving his luxury electric vehicle on Autopilot on the 101 Freeway. He was pulled over by a California Highway Patrol Officer.
According to The Blast, DJ Klypso recorded his interaction with the officer who seemed stunned that he wasn’t driving with his hands on the steering wheel. Klypso received a ticket for using his cell phone while driving and for “driving at unsafe speed for traffic conditions.”
But when he recently went to court to deal with the ticket, the judge dismissed each violation. The music producer says that he presented the judge with proof that the Tesla’s Model S Autopilot technology allows the car to drive autonomously without the driver’s input. He says he also showed that the car is also able to check the speed of the car while it’s on the road with a high degree of accuracy.
As the Tesla website claims, all the vehicles they manufacture, including their new mass-market electric sedan, the Model 3, have the tech required for autonomous driving “at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.”
But the system isn’t foolproof.
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According to The Verge , in January a Model S traveling at 65 mph crashed into the back of a fire truck on a California highway and the driver claimed that the car was on Autopilot at the time. As The Verge notes, Tesla did not try to dispute the claim that the car was using their Autopilot system before the crash.
“Autopilot is intended for use only with a fully attentive driver,” a Tesla spokesperson said in response to questions about the role of their self-driving technology in the accident.
Bloomberg reports that the federal government is collecting information about the crash but that a formal investigation has not been launched.
Luckily, there were no fatalities. That wasn’t the case in 2016 when a Model S driver died after his car crashed into a truck, The Verge reports. The car was driving on Autopilot at the time but the National Traffic Safety Board ruled that Tesla bore no responsibility for the crash.
