Autopilot saves the day! This could be a normal headline in the future, with automobile giants scrambling for ground in the electric future.
A 24-year-old man in eastern Norway had a close brush with an accident that could have turned fatal. He was driving his Model S on July 30th when he fell unconscious while driving due to heavy drinking. However, the Tesla Model S autopilot kept its lane and avoided any untoward happening as per Eastern Police District’s official Twitter account.
The car’s driver assistant system detected that the driver was unresponsive and brought the vehicle to a halt. The driver was evidently drunk and was attended to by the emergency personnel. Thanks to the vehicle’s safety system, no one was harmed in the incident.
The driver refuted that he was driving and fell unconscious, but to his bad luck, the motorists who passed by filmed the incident. The video clearly shows the driver “driving” the vehicle with his head hanging around while he dosed off for over a minute as the motorists followed him around.
This is becoming a norm where drunk drivers have been using the autopilot system to evade legal proceedings. What needs to be clearly understood is that the autopilot system of tesla is a driver-assist system and not responsible for driving the vehicle. The driver should remain attentive at all times and is accountable for any untoward incident that might occur. The same is notified to the drivers when they switch on the driver-assist system. Regular notifications are sent to the driver if they are unresponsive and torque is not being applied on the steering wheel.
As in this case of the Norwegian man, Autopilot itself decides to slow down the car and stop on the side of the road when such alerts are repeatedly ignored. Critiques can carry on with their critical analysis of the Tesla autopilot, but this incident alone shows the system’s efficacy. The application of which soon can not be denied.