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Posted on 03/27/2023 9:12:38 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
The family of a husband and wife who died when their Tesla crashed into a truck in a Florida rest stop has filed a wrongful-death suit against Elon Musk’s car company claiming that the electric vehicle ‘malfunctioned,’ causing the crash that ended the lives of their loved ones.
Mercury News reports that a wrongful death claim has been made against Tesla by the family of a California couple who were killed in a Tesla crash in July 2022. The 2015 Model S collided with a tractor-trailer rig parked at a Florida rest area, killing Mary Lou Seelandt, 66, and Karl Seelandt, 67.
Mary Lou Seelandt was driving the car “as intended and designed,” but it was “defective” and “malfunctioned,” according to the lawsuit, which was submitted last week to a federal court in Florida. The lawsuit does not specifically describe the defect, but it does state that the Model S had “crash avoidance and crash mitigation features,” which it claims did not work to avoid the accident.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
What is meant by “avoidance”? Seems like if you drive into the back of a trailer, presumably at some speed, you are going to hit it. Did the driver expect the car to stop automatically instead of them doing the braking?
I think this depends on what the root cause is determined.
Do they know?
Tesla will maintain that the driver needed to be monitoring the self-driving feature at all times and should have taken control once the car veered into the rest stop exit lane.
I don't know, I don't think anyone can know since she is dead, but I suspect that she panicked and froze, and let the car drive right into the Truck parking lot area and hit a truck. There wouldn't have been enough time for the 2015 vintage Tesla software and hardware to detect the collision around a curving exit lane until it was too late to avoid.
Having read about what people seem to expect from the “self-driving” Tesla, I’d guess the driver was sleeping. I saw a video of a driver in the UK sitting in the passenger seat with no driving as the car sped through dense traffic.
He later said it was useless to have such advanced technology and not use it. Whether this drive was just fatigued, or the driver believed it was safe to sleep because the car was on “autopilot” probably can’t be proven. Musk never says the cars are actually self-driving now, but we have no idea what the salesman told the buyer.
Here is a video of Musk promising self-driving cars, over and over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhr6fHmCJ6k
I don’t understand the mentality of wanting a vehicle to drive itself, to include parallel parking. Your average driver has poor driving skills, at best. So you’re going to let those minimal skills deteriorate further...on purpose?
Losing your head over the back of a parked semi isn’t going to get you any sympathy. Plus if you hit a parked vehicle, it’s your fault. That is the law everywhere!
All I know is that this is the sort of thing that is going to bring the delusional myths about “self-driving cars” screeching to a halt.
No! Idiots will still believe it. Unfortunately I have to deal with them every day!
Really? Aren’t lawsuits supposed to be “specific?” Looks like we can see the outcome of this “lawsuit” way ahead of time. The headline might read: “Tesla lawsuit dismissed in death of married couple.”
Regarding the multiple NHTSA investigations, as well as any litigation, we can assume there is/will be considerable pressure applied to make sure that, despite numerous fatalities - and substantial property damage - caused by defects, Tesla and EV’s with autonomous driving functions will be found COMPLETELY SAFE.
My current car has a few safety features but I use them more as a aid and don’t rely on them exclusively. Things like warnings there is something in my “blind” spots or when backing up something (a person, animal or vehicles) is approaching. I have not had to use it yet but is also a forward looking sensors that is suppose to apply the brakes if I get too close.
Driving safely is still the operators responsibility.
I have been driving for over 60 years and for the past 53 years have had a built in safety system (called a wife) that lets me know is I am not doing it correctly ;-)
Yup, I’ve argued with them before. All I say is “make trains do it first, then we’ll talk”.
EVs haven’t changed the law. It’s like suing Apple because you ran into some guy (me) because you weren’t paying attention on your Iphone coming to a red light. Doesn’t mean anything what Apple said!
Do they scratch their heads when you say that? LOL!
No, they just insist we’ll have self driving cars next year. (since 2015)
-manual transmission
-no digital screens
-no backup cameras
-no lane deviation sensors
-no automatic braking
-no next lane vehicle detection
-no automatic distancing to cars in front
Every detection action needs to be done by the driver. Every action and change to behavior needs to be done by the human operator, including changing gears.
If the car was supposed to be fully auto-pilot and that feature was turned on, I could see their winning in court, but the only vehicles I have heard of being like that have been test vehicles.
All the cars I have heard of being sold to regular people have had an auto-pilot system **that the person was supposed to pay attention to.**
Unless there was a manufacturer’s problem with the brakes, I don’t see that the family has a leg to stand on.
I think she must have fallen asleep. Some say she froze, but unless she was an inexperienced driver, I don’t see how that could happen.
DRIVER === Brake pedal +++ FOOT APPLIED TO BRAKE PEDAL==
CAR WILL STOP..
.
Unless a lawyer can get an idiot to accept liability (perhaps manslaughter) against the advice of his lawyer for the death of someone he did not actually kill, this will never happen!
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