Further to the news that analysis [1] from The Washington Post has
uncovered a far higher number of crashes and deaths involving Tesla’s
self-driving products, I hope you will be interested in the below
comments from secure software expert and Founder of The Dawn Project,
Dan O’Dowd.
It was recently revealed that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving and Autopilot
software has been involved in 736 crashes since 2019, according to
analysis of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, far
exceeding the number of crashes in previous reported statistics.
A crash involving a Tesla Model Y on North Carolina Highway 561 and
seventeen-year-old Tillman Mitchell in March 2023 is one of the crashes
revealed in the new analysis, highlighting a concerning array of safety
defects in Tesla’s self-driving software. Tesla’s self-driving software
failed to stop for the school bus with its stop sign extended and lights
flashing which Mitchell was disembarking, leaving Mitchell hospitalised.
This follows public safety group The Dawn Project publishing a full-page
advertisement in The New York Times in November 2022 [2] highlighting
the dangers of Tesla Full Self-Driving after safety tests revealed that
it will drive around a stopped school bus with its stop sign extended
and lights flashing, and fails to obey school zone speed limits.
Please feel free to publish Dan’s comments below, and if you would like
to speak with Dan in greater detail re this, I would be happy to arrange
this for you.
Best wishes, James
Dan O’Dowd, Founder of The Dawn Project commented: _”Seven months ago, I
took out a full page ad in the New York Times pointing out to Tesla that
it could kill a child getting on or off a school bus. But Elon did
nothing and now Tillman Mitchell is badly injured and hospitalised. I
also showed them tests where Full Self-Driving would run over a child
crossing the road. I offered them any assistance they needed to
reproduce our tests._
_How many more accidents and deaths will it take for NHTSA to ban
Tesla’s defective self-driving software?_
_Tesla and Elon Musk know that FSD has many safety defects that they
haven’t fixed, yet they continue to sell FSD and have shipped it to
400,000 ordinary consumers despite knowing that many people have
perished because they believed Tesla’s safety claims. Tesla has earned
billions of dollars foisting a defective and dangerous “Full
Self-Driving” car on the American public._
_According to a June 10, 2023, Washington Post article, on March 15,
2023, a Tesla running FSD ran down a child getting off a school bus
whose lights were flashing and whose stop sign was extended._
_It’s very simple. If Tesla cannot teach its Full Self-Driving car to
stop for a school bus with its light flashing and stop sign extended,
along with fixing many other safety critical safety defects that The
Dawn Project has identified, it should not be allowed to sell it to the
public._
_We are going to demonstrate this and other defects again on 22 June in
a public demonstration of Tesla Full Self-Driving with renowned Tesla
investor Ross Gerber.”_
