One person died and twenty were injured. On December 11, 2021, this taxi driver was driving a Tesla Model 3 with his family by his side. The car was stopped at a red light when he heard a noise. His daughter-in-law hears “a kind of beep, like when you receive a text message. In any case, I’ve never heard it before”, assures the driver.
In automatic mode but not autonomous, the car restarted and accelerated, he says. So he pressed the brake pedal with both feet. He tried to manually trigger the automatic brake, supposed to engage by itself when approaching an obstacle. No way to stop the machine, remembers the fifties. What follows is tragic. Studs bend under the car which hits and expels a glass container, then crashes into a traffic light which sweeps away a van. It was this van that fatally struck a 19-year-old cyclist.
The passengers of the car come out unscathed and witness the tragic carnage. “The worst is when I go out and find all these people lying on the ground. My stepfather is devastated. He is coughing up blood from broken glass he swallowed. He starts running everywhere to go see the victims and apologize”explained the beautiful daughter of the driver.
Neither alcohol nor narcotics
The driver had consumed nothing. Neither alcohol nor narcotics. “I have all my points. I must be one of the few among my colleagues who has never had a recovery course. They tell me that I drive like a grandpa”, says the driver indicted for manslaughter and involuntary injuries. He filed a complaint at the end of March once morest the manufacturer Tesla France for “endangering the lives of others”.
Today man can no longer drive. “We manage as best we can with my wife who doesn’t have a license. I’m looking for a little job. Maybe distribute leaflets. Driving doesn’t mean anything to me anymore”. And the American company? “I hate her. Because of her, my family almost died.”
