Car crashes into police officer while it was on "autopilot"

Until I read this news I actually didn't know that such technology existed and how it is that someone thought that it would be completely dependable defies all logic in my mind. I don't really even trust the cruise control on my truck and certainly wouldn't count on the car to steer and navigate obstacles, regardless of the claims made by the manufacturer.

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On a side note I want to say one of the attributes of the redneck lifestyle is that we don't generally take to what we consider to be "odd" vehicles. We are fans of trucks and very big fans of American-made trucks. A lot of this has to do with patriotism and a lot of it has to do with the high level of race fans that exist in our community. I realize that Tesla is actually made in the USA and owned by General Motors but the problem that rednecks would have with owning one of these things is the fact that they are too "computer driven." We like to be able to work on our own cars (a dying skill) and when the car is more computer than mechanical, that simply isn't an option. Therefore I don't know a single person that owns a Tesla.

Anyway, moving on.

We have all done something illegal or stupid in our cars at one point or another and the idea is that you don't have the cops become aware of that. I think you have to be pretty out of it for this situation to happen though.

The driver admitted straight away that the car was on autopilot and he was in fact, watching a movie.

It must have been a pretty fantastic movie because the Sheriff's car had full warning lights ablaze as the officer was at the site early in the morning responding to another car accident. I don't know about you, but I find it pretty difficult to simply not notice the extremely bright and flashing lights on a police cruiser.

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Both cars were severely damaged but thankfully no one suffered any sort of serious injury. At the moment the driver, who has not been identified has only been charged with failing to comply with the "Move Over" law, which requires drivers to give way to emergency vehicles. I think that there are probably some other charges pending.

This cant bode well for the Tesla technology, not because it shows that it doesn't work but because of the fact that some owners of the vehicles apparently put way too much faith in it to the point where the driver in this situation was so oblivious to his surroundings that he actually managed to crash into a cop by accident.

While I had no idea that the technology even existed because I don't pay much attention to Tesla, the "auto-pilot" tech has been attributed to multiple road deaths across the United States. I would be willing to bet that the tech ends up getting stripped from the vehicles entirely for legal reasons pretty soon.

Rednecks tend to enjoy big engines in big trucks with limited technology under the hood. While I don't want to get all arrogant and say that we are right about this idea, this rather strange story certainly points in that direction.