Two government agencies set to probe the worst act of idiocy in years
https://www.keysnews.com/ap/national/2-us-agencies-send-teams-to-probe-tesla-crash-with-no-driver/article_cccc599c-a182-11eb-8a3f-039089e7427e.htmlSo here's the situation: On Saturday night, a 59-year-old man and a 69-year-old man boarded a 2019 Tesla Model S automobile in the vicinity of the city of Spring, Texas. One of them sat in the front passenger seat, and the other sat in the back seat. No one sat in the driver's seat. It is not known who either man voted for in the 2020 election.
The car then proceeded to miss a curve at high speed, travel 100 feet, plow into a huge tree and catch fire. Both men were, as you would expect, killed.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.
And one of the things they SHOULD be investigating is the fact the Spring Fire Department pumped 32,000 gallons of water on the car before the fire would go out. The fire department called Tesla and were told to "just let it burn out on its own."
But seriously, even if your car has "full self driving capability" that the manufacturer swears will not drive itself, who the fuck thinks not at least sitting in the driver's seat is a good idea? Were they, like, drunk off their asses and thought they wouldn't get busted for DUI if they weren't driving?
= new reply since forum marked as read
By far the most likely situation I’ve heard is that the owner was letting his friend try out how fast the car was, his friend did not expect it to be so fast and quickly lost control, the vehicle crashed, the driver’s door got bent, blocked or rendered inoperable so the driver moved around trying to get out another door before the fire got to him. When authorities arrived at the scene they found no-one in the driver’s seat and presumed it had been in this fancy autopilot mode that everyone’s been talking about.
It’s pretty much impossible that the events happened the way that’s been portrayed in the media, who have wanted a more sensational story. The Constable only made things worse when he insisted that nobody was in the driver’s seat when the crash occurred (how they would have known this he doesn’t explain). For this to have happened would have required a very extravagant and deliberate attempt at circumventing Tesla’s safety systems, which check for weight in the driver’s seat, a buckled seat belt and torque on the steering wheel inter alia. And all that would have had to be done in the few hundred feet between the owner’s driveway and where the accident occurred, PLUS have autopilot unexpectedly and violently accelerate down a residential street straight into a tree as soon as they rigged it. Yeah, that’s probably what happened.
Also, the fire from the car took a few minutes to put out, the fire department has also had to put out the PR rumor that it took them hours to extinguish it. Now precautionary measures were surely in place for longer periods, just as they would be for a gas fire or where surrounding vegetation may have caught fire.
That's what I was looking (hoping) for. Thank you! 
