A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
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Re: A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
#2Short answer is “yes”. It’s the same way a homeowner can be responsible if they negligently leave some issues on their property and a person falls to their death.
The ultimate responsibility is the person behind the wheel.
That said, I’d argue Tesla is also liable. To what extent I don’t know, but it was clearly a contributing factor.
Re: A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
#3Yes.
> Should Riad be found guilty, “it’s going to send shivers up and down everybody’s spine who has one of these vehicles and realizes, ‘Hey, I’m the one that’s responsible,’”
Duh. There's plenty of warnings, you are still responsible and your attention is required at all times to intervene when needed. Of course, there are going to be plenty of situations where it will be too late for a human to intervene. Those are going to look harder, but purely from a legal standpoint you are not (yet) allowed to hand off responsibility to some algorithm just because it's baked into the car you buy.
Re: A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
#4“It’s a wake-up call for drivers,”
Well played.
Re: A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
#5Autopilot is a free feature on Teslas, and is a simple lane assist system, akin to cruise control. It is not Full Self Driving.
FSD is an expensive upgrade, and is supposed to do things like stop at lights.
Driver was on autopilot, which explicitly warns you upon activation that it doesn't stop.
Clickbait from a once great, now awful newspaper.
Re: A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
#6The premise of this article is that a trial involving a crash with a level 2 system[1] is fundamentally different than one involving a level 1, without making the case for that.
In both cases the driver is responsible, and expected to monitor the road. Why would someone crashing while using e.g. a lane-keeping system be in a different position legally than someone using cruise control? Level 1 driving assistance has been in use for decades, and there's surely legal precedence to draw from.
1. https://www.synopsys.com/automotive/autonomous-driving-level...
Re: A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
#7Yes. Tesla cars are not self-driving cars, despite their marketing. They probably won't be for years to come. I don't think anyone who has read up on the current state of self driving would come to any other conclusion.
At best the convicted drivers could sue Tesla for damages because of their advertising after conviction, because Tesla puts a lot of effort into their marketing materials to convince people that the car drives for you, but on the paperwork you sign you're reminded that it doesn't, and the software features that force you to keep your hands on the wheel at all times are a constant reminder of that.
Re: A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
#8Short answer is “yes”. It’s the same way a homeowner can be responsible if they negligently leave some issues on their property and a person falls to their death. The ultimate responsibility is the person behind the wheel. That said, I’d argue Tesla is also liable. To what extent I don’t know, but it was clearly a contributing factor.
>Short answer is “yes” same way a homeowner can be responsible if they negligently leave some issues on their property and a person falls to their death.
There's a lot of gray area in those kinds of cases. The idea that one is negligent because one could have done something differently tends to permeate internet circle jerks about legal responsibility but these sorts of things tend to be very specific to the facts in question and the burdens of proof differ greatly between civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions.
In this case the driver will probably be probably be financially responsible for the outcome but being found guilty of manslaughter is a much higher bar. However, many states have various vehicular statutes with lower requirements or "but if driving a vehicle then X" type qualifiers on the definitions of normal crimes so that may complicate things.
Re: A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
#9> realizes, ‘Hey, I’m the one that’s responsible,’” Kornhauser said. “Just like when I was driving a ’55 Chevy”
Um, no shit the driver’s responsible. This seems like a weird question to be confused about prior to level 5, which Tesla’s 2022 “full self-driving” isn’t and 2019 wasn’t either.
Re: A Tesla on autopilot killed two people. Is the driver guilty of manslaughter?
#10Of course he's liable. He should have been driving. Fully autonomous cars aren't yet legal for anyone to drive autonomously, the driver still is responsible.