A Tesla electric car slammed into the back of a fire truck in South Jordan, Utah, but the only injury was the driver’s broken wrist.
The Tesla Model S was traveling south on Utah SR-154 around 6:30 p.m. on Friday, May 11. The car struck the back of a Unified Fire Authority mechanic truck which was stopped at a red light.
“While Tesla’s Autopilot feature indicates that a driver must be attentive at all times, the driver admitted that she was looking at her phone prior to the collision,” Sergeant Samuel Winkler with the South Jordan Police Department wrote.
The driver, a 28-year-old woman from nearby Lehi, Utah, was taken to a local hospital with a broken ankle.
The driver of the UFA truck was not hurt, and the truck was not badly damaged, either; he was able to drive back to the station after the initial investigation concluded.
Tesla collisions have been in the news this week.
On the night of Tuesday, May 8, two high-school seniors were killed and another severely injured when their Tesla hit a concrete wall and burst into flames.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the crash, but does not believe the Autopilot was involved.
Autopilot Abuse
Tesla’s Autopilot system has been the subject of intense scrutiny following a series of accidents involving drivers depending on the system.Tesla says the system, which includes warnings and also helps keep the car centered in its lane on the highway, “intended for use only with a fully attentive driver,” Tesla said in a statement after one accident. Drivers cannot sit back and ignore the road, expecting the car to drive itself.
On Jan. 25, of this year a Tesla Model S crashed into a stopped fire truck stopped in traffic on California’s Interstate 405.
The fire truck was parked in the breakdown lane, blocking the site of an earlier accident. A California Highway Patrol cruiser was also on the scene, blocking the lane. Both vehicles had their emergency flashers turned on, according to Mercury News.
The Tesla slammed into the stopped fire truck at about 65 mph. The driver refused medical treatment.
“The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision,” Tesla said after the fatal collision.
“The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken.”