Attorney Amy Witherite of Witherite Law Group Asks: Should Government Shut Down Tesla’s Autopilot?

By: Witherite Law Group via Business Wire

August 13, 2024 at 11:20 AM EDT

Attorney Amy Witherite, whose firm specializes in motor vehicle accidents emphasizes that federal investigations, a well-documented Wall Street Journal article and Tesla’s own disclaimers point to the urgent need for the government to mandate a shutdown of Tesla’s Autopilot system to ensure public safety.

“In an aircraft, the autopilot is a device used to guide a plane without direct assistance from the pilot,” explains Amy Witherite, founder of the Witherite Law Group. “Modern autopilots can control every part of the flight, from just after takeoff to landing.

“The very name Autopilot for a Tesla is misleading,” said Witherite. “Tesla’s Autopilot requires much more monitoring than an aircraft’s autopilot,” says Witherite. “Pilots have more specialized training than drivers including training on how and when to use the technology.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are examining whether Tesla misled customers and investors with marketing that overstated the technology’s capabilities, giving drivers a false impression of what it can realistically do.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that its examination of Tesla’s Autopilot uncovered a trend of “avoidable crashes involving hazards that would have been visible to an attentive driver.”

According to the NHTSA report, Tesla’s Autopilot design has “led to foreseeable misuse and avoidable crashes.” The system did not “sufficiently ensure driver attention and appropriate use.”

Federal investigators note “if the vehicle encounters a circumstance outside Autopilot’s object or event detection response capabilities, crash outcomes are often severe because neither the system nor the driver reacts appropriately, resulting in high-speed differential and high energy crash outcomes.”

“In one case,” notes Witherite, “Tesla’s Autopilot missed stopping for a child exiting a school bus. Something that should not be hard for the system to miss. In another case, the vehicle slammed into a giant tractor-trailer truck crossing the highway.”

Tesla issued the recall to address a previous NHTSA investigation into whether the Autopilot system contained a defect that created an unreasonable risk to vehicle safety. The resulting recall affected more than 2 million Model Y, X, S, 3, and Cybertruck vehicles made since 2012 that were equipped with Autopilot. In updating the vehicle software, Tesla said it had installed new safeguards to prevent driver misuse.

However the NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation observed this pattern across all Tesla models and hardware versions. Crash and human factors assessment showed that Autopilot controls did not sufficiently ensure driver attention and appropriate use.

“The safest approach for all drivers would be for Tesla to disable the Autopilot system in its vehicles until we can be assured that it is safe,” said Witherite. “In addition, all data provided to federal regulators should be made public so we can see the full results of federal investigations.”

The Witherite Law Group specializes in vehicle accident cases and offers crucial support for individuals involved in accidents with driverless vehicles. For more information visit their website. www.witheritelaw.com.