The California Highway Patrol on Friday pulled over a Tesla Model S that was traveling down the road—but whose driver appeared to be asleep at the wheel. The vehicle was traveling southbound on Highway 101 in Palo Alto.
Officers said that they were unable to get the man's attention.
"One of the officers basically ended up going in front of the vehicle and basically tried to slow it down," a California Highway Patrol spokesman told KCBS radio. The process took about seven minutes, and the car traveled for about seven miles before coming to a stop.
The driver was Alexander Samek, who serves on the Los Altos Planning Commission. He was arrested for driving under the influence.
So how was the vehicle able to travel for more than seven minutes with an apparently sleeping driver? The obvious theory is that the Model S had its Autopilot system turned on, but officials said on Friday that they hadn't confirmed that yet. It's quite possible that Autopilot saved Samek's life.
The situation is a bit of a puzzle because Autopilot is supposed to detect if a driver's hands are on the wheel and disengage if they're not. Tesla has steadily tightened up these rules, with recent revisions of the software warning drivers in as little as 30 seconds. So if the driver did fall asleep at the wheel the car should have started slowing down on its own within a few minutes.
In a similar case back in January, police encountered a man asleep behind the wheel of a Tesla car on the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. When police woke him up, he insisted that everything was fine because his vehicle was "on autopilot." Unfortunately for him, there's no autopilot exception to drunk-driving laws.
As I mentioned in another thread, here in California, you can't move more than 2 miles without seeing a Tesla. It's like the California car. I'm hearing about this sleeping issue more and more. I will say that the car is doing it's job in keeping the driver safe if they doze off but lets face it, alcoholics will love that car. It's like a cab ride after a night of drinking at the local bar.
If your car drives itself, I'm OK with you getting hammered and driving home. It's a huge plus for the self driving cars IMO. But I suppose since someone has to be able to take over if something happens, then it shouldn't be happening.
This is why autonomous cars will never completely take over. The local constabulary stands to lose a fortune in DUI revenues.
Which also begs the question. If a car is autonomous, shouldn't the police have something that transmit's to it to pull over rather than some time consuming process of trying to slow and stop the car by getting in front of it?
Which also begs the question. If a car is autonomous, shouldn't the police have something that transmit's to it to pull over rather than some time consuming process of trying to slow and stop the car by getting in front of it?
At some point this will happen. I am surprised that it hasn't already. But it also opens the possibility of and exploit of the system by some one that is just out to cause trouble. Imagine if you could create a device that just moves these autonomous cars out of your way. I would be on board with that
