According to data made public by U.S. safety regulators, automakers recorded close to 400 crashes involving vehicles with partially automated driver-assist systems, including 273 involving Teslas.
Federal safety authorities cautioned that the data is unfinished and was not intended to identify which automaker’s systems could be the safest. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a warning against using the statistics to compare different automakers, claiming that they weren’t evaluated according to the number of each manufacturer’s vehicles utilizing the systems or the distance they traveled.
According to the NHTSA, the groundbreaking data is still lacking adequate context and is only intended to be used as a quick reference to spot potential fault trends and decide whether the systems are helping to improve vehicle safety.
Although not exhaustive, the crash data reported by vehicle makers and operators to the NHTSA are significant and give the organization prompt data of collisions involving cars that had different levels of autonomous systems activated at least 30 seconds before the collision.
Seventy percent of reported crashes involve Teslas using Autopilot
Since businesses were required to begin reporting the accidents about a year ago, Tesla automobiles were linked to 273 accidents which involved its sophisticated driver-assist technologies, according to the statistics. From June 2021 to May 15, a total of 392 crashes were reported by 11 automakers and one supplier.
Tesla’s accidents occurred while running on Autopilot, Traffic Aware Cruise Control, “Full Self-Driving,” or other driver-assist technologies that have some control over steering and speed. About 830,000 of the company’s vehicles are equipped with the equipment. Following a string of crashes with stationary emergency vehicles, the NHTSA first started an investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot feature last year. The company ordered back close to 54,000 cars and SUVs in February because their “Full Self-Driving” feature failed to completely halt vehicles at stop signals.
Tesla Autopilot is a set of software tools that let drivers give up physical control of their electric cars, but they still need to be watchful at all times. The vehicles can keep a consistent speed, maintain a safe distance from other vehicles, stay in their lanes, and change lanes on highways. The “Full Self-Driving” beta, a more comprehensive set of functions, adds the capability to navigate city and suburban streets, stopping at stop signs and traffic lights, and making turns while driving vehicles from point A to point B.
Of the twelve automakers who reported crashes, Honda came in second after Tesla with 90 points, Subaru with 10 points, and Ford Motor with 5. All other automakers reported four or fewer crashes, including Toyota with 4, BMW with 3, and General Motors with 2.
The statistics, which were released by the NHTSA for the first time, demonstrate that Tesla vehicles accounted for the majority of serious injuries and fatalities — some of which date back more than a year — in the 392 collisions involving sophisticated driver-assistance systems released since last July. NHTSA data shows that eight of the Tesla crashes happened before June 2021.
In an earlier report, the NHTSA said that it had looked into 42 accidents that may have involved driver assistance, 35 of which were Tesla vehicles.
NHTSA orders manufacturers to report accidents involving Autopilot
In part to alleviate suspicions that manufacturers may conceal crashes by saying the software wasn’t activated at the moment of impact, the NHTSA compelled manufacturers to reveal crashes when the program was in use within 30 seconds of the crash.
In a conference call with the media regarding the whole data set from manufacturers, Steven Cliff, administrator of the NHTSA stated that the technologies offer huge potential to enhance safety, but they need to understand how these vehicles are doing in actual road scenarios.
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Contact a skilled New Jersey personal injury attorney right away if you or a loved one was hurt in an accident involving a car with automatic driver-assist systems. Our firm is dedicated to helping victims of auto accidents seek compensation for their medical expenses, property damage, and other crash-related losses.
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