When a Tesla Kills – Who Gets Charged?

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Another self-driving Tesla has killed.

This time it was a pedestrian who walked in front of one and got run over by one, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – which is the federal “safety” apparat that has allowed these dangerous vehicles (and technology) to roam legally on public roads, notwithstanding it’s well-known they and the technology are dangerous.

This says much about the apparat’s “concern” for public safety.

But that is a topic for another time.

A more interesting topic is the lack of “concern” for accountability.

If a driver inadvertently runs into – or over – someone, he is the one who is held accountable. Either civilly (in terms of paying for the damage/harm caused as well as fines and increased insurance costs, etc.) or criminally if the inadvertence went beyond merely that into negligence.

Implicit in this is the idea that the driver is the one in control of his driving.

But what happens when the driver isn’t the one in control? When a car drives itself into – or over someone? Does the car get the ticket? Does the car get hauled before a judge and thrown in the clink? The answer, of course, is no – because no deterrent purpose would ber served. The car is not chastened. it’s as silly to charge a self-driving car for driving over someone as it is to charge a cement block that went through someone’s windshield after it fell  off the truck up ahead.

Well, how about the driver of the truck? Of course. It was his responsibility to secure his load. But what about the person in the front left seat of the self-driving ca?

Even if he wasn’t actually driving the car, it is a fact that he chose to engage the driverless (or self-driving) technology and that makes him responsible for using it.

But there’s a difference that makes all the difference.

The driver who engages the self-driving system is arguably no different than the driver who turns on the windshield wipers in that he is making use of legal technology that he – reasonably – assumes will work as advertised. When one turns on the windshield wipers, one expects that they will wipe the windshield. If they fly off the car and impale someone who happened to be in the path of the missile, it would be unjust to hold the driver who turned on his windshield wipers accountable for that.

It would be just to hold the vehicle’s manufacturer (and/or the manufacturer of the defective windshield wipers) accountable for that.

The vehicle’s owner bought the car – and along with, the wipers – assuming the car (and wipers) were fit to be used for the stated purpose and more important, were safe to use. After all, the car was sold legally – which means it had to comply with a multitude of government standards and was certified by the government as safe to use.

It is the same with self-driving Teslas (and other cars that have self-driving technology). These are all government-approved things. Put more directly, the government says they are “safe” things.”

And so, of course, does Teslas and other purveyors of this technology.

Which implies “fitness for use” and so why would you not use it?

The driver who was a passenger when his self-driving Tesla killed the pedestrian didn’t mean to run him down. He assumed his car would not run anyone down. No one (who’s not a psychopath) would knowingly use self-driving technology knowing it was not safe to do so.

But what about the manufacturers and government regulatory agency apparatchiks who do know it isn’t? They are aware that self-driving tech depends on everything working optimally – and optimally is often not actual, out in the real world. Cameras can’t see everything – and sometimes they see things that aren’t there. I have personally test driven cars with elements of this technology that slammed on the brakes for no reason – other than that the computer mistook a berm by the side of the road for something in the road.

Programming only encompasses the circumstances anticipated; circumstances are sometimes outside those parameters.

Things sometimes just glitch.

So, of course, do people. But when they do, they are held accountable. Good intentions (and inadvertence) notwithstanding.

The real problem with self-driving tech, it seems, is that no one is accountable for the harms caused when the technology glitches.

Not the manufacturers of the tech, certainly. And not the “safety” apparatchiks, either. This latter lack of accountability is arguably the most egregious facet of this business because (a) it’s their job and (b) they are the same people who have effronterously presumed to decide for us whether something is “safe” and even when it isn’t, the insist we must accept the risk. The most egregious example of this being the “safety” apparat’s refusal to countenance even temporarily disabling of defective air bags that can and have killed – and will kill again.

Just like self-driving cars and tech.

Never mind. It’s not us to decide. And it’s never they who are held accountable for what they decide.

. . .

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38 COMMENTS

  1. Car journalists that actually like real cars…old analog ice….

    Geoff interviews James Ruppert, who spent 36 years working as an automotive journalist for car magazines…..

    @ 33:37 in video…James says…EV’s are the gateway drug to no cars at all…..

    @ 35:00 in video….soon a real ID card required to charge an EV….

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol3X0n8Gbpc

  2. Virtue signalling…… or human rights violation signalling?

    The demand for metals and minerals for EV batteries is causing enormous human rights problems in many countries, says Amnesty International.

    Mining minerals for EV batteries….Young children, sent down holes in the ground, to scrape up toxic minerals into bags…

    @5:00 in video…In China buyers are finding out at around 4 years the EV’s start breaking down and cost too much to fix…so you have to buy a new one, every 4 years….

    (what they don’t tell you is…there is no techs that know how to fix them….and there is no parts available)…

    At N. American prices of $50,000 per EV…slaves can’t afford $50,000 every 4 years….$12,000 per year…plus interest costs…..plus maintenance costs ….plus the getting very expensive electricity…plus you need two, one as a backup…they are so unreliable, problem filled…it will spend most of it’s time at the repair shop…not getting fixed….that is the point…stop slave mobility….

    @ 8:12 in video…brandon/kommiela recalling 100’s of electric school buses that can catch fire….

    @ 9:12 in video…Tesla’s FSD tech doesn’t work in fog or bright sunlight or dust…or snow?…etc…

    @14:02 in video…Florida fire marshal calls EV’s ticking time bombs…

    @6:14 in video…lithium battery fire in Sweden burns down 10 homes…

    @17:55 in video…in U.K…..considering eliminating tax breaks for EV’s….they only help the rich….

    @22:00 in video…..coming….increased taxes on gas and diesel…make them very expensive…. to force slaves into EV’s

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qtRYmLO2gc

    • The big hammer….

      increased taxes on gas and diesel…make them very expensive…. to force slaves into EV’s…

      if you complain….they say…buy an EV…or walk….

      Kommiela’s job one…if installed….

      Lots of other hammers available too…can’t buy parts, can’t get them repaired, can’t register or insure them, no fuel or very expensive fuel, total ban,

      • Can’t make money when there’s plenty.

        Block new offshore drilling (just like California), close refineries by regulation (just like California) and pretend that windmills are high tech (just like California).

        No supply with inflexible demand = high prices with no effort.

    • Every woke EV owner should be confronted with this……..

      Virtue signalling…… or human rights violation signalling?

      The demand for metals and minerals for EV batteries is causing enormous human rights problems in many countries, says Amnesty International.

      Mining minerals for EV batteries….Young children, sent down holes in the ground, to scrape up toxic minerals into bags…

  3. It’s why I don’t feel bad about trying to kick the things out of auto pilot on people. If i see a tesla and no hands on the wheel I slam on the brakes next to them to try and disengauge the auto pilot. I maintain that they are required to maintain control and it’s a gimmick. It really shouldnt go any further than that.

  4. Throwing the railroad switch argument aside, they should be programmed to save the occupant, and the occupant held liable to the same extent as if they were in control. Because they otherwise would be required to manually pilot the thing, and people who autopilot them drunk still get DUI’s.

    The way I see it, it should be use at your own risk, and you cannot pass the buck. If you are in the driver seat then you are operating the vehicle.

    People that sleep in their cars drunk routinely get DUI’s because they could (italicized) kill somebody if they decide to wake up and drive.

    I see no reason why the driver should not be held responsible unless it has been determined that the crash was a glitch. And the driver should be held responsible for turning on a self-driving gimmick offered by the manufacturer that is in no way safe. If you do or don’t want to steer it should make no difference, because alternativly you could stop the vehicle if conditions are shit, ect.

  5. I still look when my passenger says “clear my way”. Trust but verify.

    It may well be a function of age, but I don’t trust self-driving cars.

  6. When Animals Attack! is a series of television specials aired by Fox in the United States during the mid- to late-1990s.’

    By the mid-2020s, it was supplanted by a new TeeVee series, When Teslas Attack!. Its hard-to-watch episodes show how these fiendish machines silently approach their prey at high speed and then MOW THEM DOWN.

    Elon wept laughed.

    Another Cybertruck
    Wrapped itself around a telephone pole
    “I ain’t drunk, officer
    I just fell gettin’ out of muh car”

    Don’t worry about it, son
    We were that way when we were young
    You’ve got all the skills
    To make a damn good zionist

    — Dead Kennedys, Jock-O-Rama

  7. Easy answer: Insurance companies can refuse to cover damages when an accident occurs where the self-driving functional mode is engaged.

    Elon can pay for the damages and loss of life. He has created the problem, he can solve it.

    Don’t do it, self-driving doesn’t work.

    Drive the car, not ride shotgun.

  8. Being fully engaged in an OODA (Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action) loop could mean you are ready to react intuitively and quickly. Like how many times have you caught something knocked off a table before it hit the floor. You were engaged in that moment. Same with driving, how many times had a deer peer thru the brush then start on the road and you wheeled around it. For me, a few. Driving a Tesla in this self-driving mode removes a person from the first element of the OODA loop. One would have to re-engage into the process before starting and completing the loop in order to react. So being a monitor of the technology is inherently flawed.

    (Sidebar: how many Tesla owners are selling their cars now that Elon is supporting Trump? My former liberal friend must be selling his Tesla stock right now.)

    • [H]ow many Tesla owners are selling their cars now that Elon is supporting Trump?

      Hopefully they greatly outnumber Trump supporters who are now willing to buy Teslas as a result of shameless grifter Elon Musk’s willingness to do some self-serving MAGA posturing.

    • Indeed. We are to be monitored and corrected by “driver assistance” gadgetry yet are required to monitor and correct the same flawed technology that is presented as superior to human reaction and interventions…

  9. Most likely the onus will fall on the meatsack sitting behind the steering wheel.

    The rational response to this, would be to refuse to buy it. Because you’re liable for what it does , but you don’t control what it does.

    But it’s probably going to take a while before sober rationality overtakes the typical consumer’s appetite for gizmos.

    This just enables bad drivers. Hang up the keys already, Grandma.

  10. One only has to look up to the aviation industry for the answer. The pilot in command (PIC) is responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft, full stop.

    LOL Just kidding! Of course that’s still a major problem with automation. The 737 Max headlines show that the manufacturer is still often to blame (at least Boeing was). But why has Boeing continued to build the same airframe since 1968? Because they figure the cost of running a new aircraft thought the regulatory gauntlet to certification is more expensive than trying to stretch, bend and widen the 737. My guess is that a wet-behind-the-ears pilot, when presented with a 1968 series 737 wouldn’t have any idea how to fly it, but yet he’s still labeled to be certified to do so.

    Will Uncle’s minions require autonomous automobiles to be “type certified?” If so, what will that entail? Will the vehicle’s software (and hardware, subsystems, etc), once certified, be locked down and unchangeable without a costly code review by the DOT? Running a $112 million (each) aircraft through the recertification process is one thing, but what about a <$100K vehicle that basically becomes worthless once off the dealer lot? Or will the regulators just pull the certification doc and just like that you're just going to scrap your vehicle?

    The autonomous vehicles we're seeing now are still in beta testing (maybe alpha tests). Tesla is running these tests around the general public. At least Waymo and GM are geofencing their test vehicles to select cities, and they're clearly marked. Who knows if that Model 3 next to you is being driven by a human… or the Family Circus prankster ghost Not Me!

  11. Not just Tesla. when a company causes harm, the people who made the decisions or took the actions are usually never held accountable.

    Who went to jail for harms and death caused by the 95% effective jab?
    Did the Sackler’s go to jail for drug dealing?
    Who went to jail for the Palestine, Oh train derailment?
    Who went to jail for the frauds of the 2000s mortgage ratings?

    Self driving is the government approved automobile future. They would never take any action that would belittle that.

  12. If more and more people are harmed or killed by this “self driving” technology, what are the odds that Tesla (and any other automobile manufacturers that install such technology in their vehicles) will lobby the federal government to make them IMMUNE from lawsuits ala the immunity from lawsuits that vaccine manufacturers got from the government almost 40 years ago?

    • Tesla already has a dead-man switch in their autopilot that requires the driver to keep a hand on the wheel. People have figured out how to bypass this with weights and bungie cords. But with the rise of the drowsy driver camera systems I’m sure they’ll be used to disengage the autonomy engines or stop the vehicle.

      Train engines have a deadman switch. At random times the engineer must take action, which might just be push a button, or the train will stop. This is your future as a driver.
      https://youtu.be/aayvBkTGZH0?si=RBtUmZ51x16tEfQB

      • Hi RK,

        Yup – and it’s Kafkaesque. On the one hand, the driver is sold the idea that his car is “self driving.” On the other, he is expected to be “ready to intervene” at any time. In other words, to be both not the driver and responsible for driving. And this is allowed.

        • Another contradictory concept from our tormentors.
          Using your cell phone is “distracted driving” and punishable by a fine because your reaction time is reduced.
          But sitting back and being ready to take control of a car THE INSTANT your “FSD” system sends the controls back to the driver has no reduced reaction time?
          Either you’re fully paying attention to the machine – or you’re not.
          But like all things government, it means never having to make logical sense.

        • The lie is that “airplanes fly themselves.” The reality is that autopilot systems will fly a preprogrammed route, but only under ideal conditions. And the air is rarely ideal. Not to mention ATC is always moving planes around to maintain distance requirements, moving around weather systems and adjusting for performance differences between aircraft. It is more like cruise control than an automatic system.

          Cars have to go around curves, maintain even closer distances and aren’t coordinated (as such). It’s not a “small world” problem.

          But I wonder just how much of a problem it really is anyway? Other than an autonomous RV that would let me sleep in the back and wake up at my destination in the morning, I don’t see the actual benefit. And getting rid of a CDL driver, just to get rid of that $0.25/mile paycheck? Don’t get that either. Solutions looking for a problem.

  13. ‘the logical outcome will be a ban on human drivers altogether, along with the cars that don’t have self driving capabilities.’ — Stufo

    Statistically, both human drivers and ‘autonomous’ algorithms make errors. Human errors can be due to inattention, distraction, recklessness, or rarely, misinterpreting what they’re seeing. Algorithms don’t suffer from inattention or emotions, but will regularly misinterpret the images fed to them.

    Thus, an obvious strategy presents itself to Elon: autonomous driving need not be error free. It merely needs to be a little more reliable than the average human. Then regulators can extend legal immunity to autonomous driving, on the grounds that it’s the safest available technology.

    AEB (Automated Emergency Braking), which predictably will cause some rear-ender accidents, is the pilot program for mainstreaming this insidious legal doctrine. AEB will make some mistakes. But the ensuing rear-enders will be blamed on humans ‘tailgating.’ Thus, it’s the human drivers that need to be removed from the equation. QED.

  14. “The real problem with self-driving tech, it seems, is that no one is accountable for the harms caused when the technology glitches.
    Not the manufacturers of the tech, certainly. And not the “safety” apparatchiks, either.”

    But it is being mandated…forced on the slaves…..banning the old safe analog cars….

    technology glitches….maybe a feature….weaponizing vehicles against slaves….part of the stop the slave mobility agenda…..they will be scared to get in them and walk…..

    Are these new high tech cars suicide pods in disguise?…the tech can be remotely controlled to drive you into a wall at high speed…..CAID……part of the slave herd reduction agenda?

    Sounds like the weaponized pagers and walkie talkies….or MAID….

    Get the slave to pay $50,000 for their own suicide pod on wheels….MAID or Tech AID…or CAID…Car AID…new cars are sarco?…..

    The Sarco pod (also known as Pegasos and has been referred to as a “suicide pod”[1]) is a euthanasia device or machine consisting of a 3D-printed detachable capsule mounted on a stand that contains a canister of liquid nitrogen to die by suicide through inert gas asphyxiation. “Sarco” is short for “sarcophagus”.[2][3]

    It is used in conjunction with an inert gas (nitrogen) which decreases oxygen levels rapidly which prevents panic, sense of suffocation and struggling before unconsciousness, known as the hypercapnic alarm response[4]: 45  caused by the presence of high carbon dioxide concentrations in the blood.[4] The Sarco was invented by euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke in 2017.

    In the news….

    Use of ‘suicide capsule’ suspended pending criminal probe after American woman dies.

    Tesla fire claims FOUR lives…trapped in car…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baOwctREk3U

    • Hi anonymous1.

      My understanding is that you have to manually activate the gas release and it only can be done from inside the sealed capsule. A computerized car as you surmise can be externally programmed whether through malicious intent or negligent behavior to perform the same function.

      • “My understanding is that you have to manually activate the gas release and it only can be done from inside the sealed capsule.”

        MAID…after they sign the consent form for you…..or your relatives….they jam a needle in you…gone…

        the tech can be remotely controlled to drive you into a wall at high speed…..CAID…this is worse…they decide you had wrong think….crash….

        they sign the consent form for you….sort of what happened with the injection mandates…

        they sign the consent form for you…they will never say it out loud…yet….but…in the current slave system….this isn’t done openly yet…but…

        in a master slave relationship…the slave is the master’s property…the master can kill it if it wants to…

        • Hi anonymous1.

          Let’s be honest about it at least amongst ourselves. Whether we call it MAID, CAID or by some other fancy name it’s still the T4 program and based on the way governments treat their “citizens” it’s being implemented by the same party as the first time.

          • They always use the doctors to get you…….

            Vladimir Bukovsky, a Soviet dissident who was imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital (enforced incarceration for political dissidents) described well our current predicament:

            The peculiar features of the Soviet political system, the Communist ideology, the uncertainties and difficulties of the science of psychiatry, the labyrinths of the human conscience-all these have weirdly woven themselves together to create a monstrous phenomenon, the use of medicine against man.”

            Like the Soviet Union today the monstrous phenomenon is again the use of fake science and poison called medicine against the masses by the control group…the masters….

            The nazis used doctors in the camps to dispose of people…..

            In the middle ages you had the Vatican Church’s pandemic plague church doctors…. that could declare you a witch, wizard, pagan or heretic and take your life and property!

            The church killed millions since 1200 ad…. while stealing vast amounts of property, gold and land.

  15. You ask an interesting question Eric one that many have asked themselves. Depending on how you look at things I suspect everyone from the programmer, bureaurats to the person in the left front seat might be indited for criminal negligence causing death.

    Perhaps a stretch but if you sign off on a piece of equipment as safe and it isn’t and someone dies we all know what happens. As this is not very different I can’t see a different outcome.

    Another thing I ask my self; if you live in a state that views your vehicle as an extension of your home (more of a 2A thing), if the car does not have a steering wheel or controls does that mean you can drink in it when it is moving on the “public” roads?

  16. I think that once self-driving cars become sufficiently commonplace (if that ever happens), there will be a significant push to remove any “erratic” elements out of the way that could impede the self driving functionality – all because safety, of course. This won’t primarily be about pedestrians, but about cars with actual human drivers in them.

    Someone will undoubtedly argue that human drivers behaving “erratically” could potentially upset the safe flow of self-driving cars, so much so that this significant danger needs to be dealt with in order to restore the safety of our roads. The logical outcome will be a ban on human drivers altogether, along with the cars that don’t have self driving capabilities.

    Self-driving cars, therefore, is the first step towards banning human drivers.

    • I agree, Stufo –

      Specifically, as regards the pending automatic braking mandate. This will be used to justify banning from the road cars that lack this “feature.” It will said that they are “unsafe” because of rear-rend accidents triggered by AEB.

    • OBD3…with VVC…. vehicle to vehicle communication…powered by 5G..in the car’s computer system…..so they don’t crash….human brains don’t have it so human’s will be banned from driving…

      so they don’t crash…some of the time….humans are better at driving….

      5G is very important to this…..during the lockdowns 5G was installed at hyper speed….the reason for the lockdowns?…maybe…

      during the lockdowns 5G was installed at hyper speed….but…they said it was unsafe outside…stay in your house….there is a bat germ loose…..

      The field of vi rology is about the same scientific level as the tooth fairy, the easter bunny, global warming, running your ice car on tap water, making gold from lead, pigs flying…100% fake science

      ….but….. it is useful in marketing campaigns helping big pharma to pedal stock……..and make billions of dollars…

      https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-06-06/short-history-virology

  17. ‘No one is accountable for the harms caused when the technology glitches.’ — eric

    Just like the PREP Act, which gives makers of fake and gay ‘vaccines’ a license to kill.

    Message: large corporate entities can buy as much impunity as they need. Ask Elon, as he cozies up to the Orange One.

    Meanwhile, the New York Slimes raises a feeble peep of protest against the Insurance Mafia:

    ‘There are plenty of families with three or four children whose annual premiums will top $20,000 this year. That can be enough to replace one of the cars that the policy covers.

    ‘Leah Carter, a mother of four in Merrick, N.Y., sent me 60 pages of documents … after their annual premium with Travelers Insurance roughly doubled in the space of a year or so, to more than $21,000.’

    https://archive.ph/h76x7#selection-4903.0-4903.250

    This is a typical shallow, low-effort article by a Lügenpresse scribbler. It lacks even a single insurance insider contact to explain what’s going on with these $20K-plus premiums. Here’s all the Slimes can come up with:

    ‘Consider paying out of pocket instead of making low-dollar claims when it’s feasible. It can be difficult to know how much, if at all, premiums may rise after you report one accident, which is annoying. But you could save money this way.’

    Yeah, right: pay your exorbitant premium, and pay $1,500 to replace your cracked windshield or headlight ‘assembly’ too. Find this painful? Just lie back and think of Israel …

    • NYC metro auto insurance has NEVER been cheap.
      My MIL resides in Suffolk County and in the Before Times, her Honda took at $5k rear end hit & run on the Northern State Pkwy.
      Troopers show up 1/2hr later for the obligatory paperwork and the perp was never to be found.
      Absent an injury resulting from the accident, law enforcers don’t really care about finding and prosecuting these people and call it a “civil matter.”

      Only recently did this story make the rounds to bring light to the kind of crooks that are out there with organized insurance fraud rings.

      https://nypost.com/2024/10/19/us-news/nyc-car-insurance-fraudsters-crash-into-driver-on-queens-beltway-parkway-in-chaotic-footage/

      Furthermore, the story dances around the fact that the misnamed “children” – who are actually adult losers – should have their own insurance policies.
      Permanent childhood with little responsibility thanks to mommy and daddy’s deep pockets.

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