Report released into first self-driving car death

A driver killed in a crash that attracted worldwide attention while using Tesla’s partially self-driving car ignored repeated warnings to put his hands on the wheel, federal investigators say in a report released this week.

The crash killed Ohio resident Joshua Brown, 40, when his Tesla Model S and a truck collided in Florida.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week released about a 500-page report detailing the facts, but declined to provide a final analysis or judgment because the investigation is ongoing, reports Tech Times.

The agency, which opened an investigation to explore the possibility that Tesla’s Autopilot system was faulty, says it had drawn “no conclusions about how or why the crash occurred”.

The report’s release comes after the NHTSA said in January that it had discovered no defects in Tesla’s self-driving system after completing its own investigation into the accident. They said that the driver should have seen the truck “at least” seven seconds before the collision, calling it a “period of extended distraction” and that he “took no braking, steering or other actions”.

This NTSB report appears to deliver no conflicting information. The agency says the driver was traveling at 74 miles per hour (119kmh) above the 65 mph limit (104kmh) on the road, when he collided with the truck.

The driver used the vehicle’s self-driving system for 37.5 minutes of the 41 minutes of his trip, according to the NTSB. During the time the self-driving system was activated, he had his hands on the wheel for a total of only about half a minute, investigators concluded.

Tesla has long insisted that drivers must keep their hands at the wheel, ready to take over at any time. The company, which declines to comment, has previously defended its system. But software upgrades since the accident would likely have prevented it, Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk has said.

NTSB says the driver received seven visual warnings on the instrument panel, which blared “Hold Steering Wheel,” followed by six audible warnings.

Although most attention in the crash has focused on Tesla and Brown, NTSB also quoted a witness to the crash as saying that the truck driver had sufficient time to avoid the collision. NTSB says the truck driver declined to be interviewed.