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Video footage has surfaced online that shows a police department in Parker, Colorado, reportedly pulling over a Tesla for traveling 64mph in a 45mph zone.
While this isn’t unusual in itself, the plea from the Tesla’s driver is, as the excuse was that they weren't in control at the time. “I wasn’t driving. I had Autopilot on,” came the plea.
The three-minute video was released by the police, alongside a blunt reply (or perhaps a warning to other drivers?) that read: “Driver assistance technology does not replace the driver.”
“Whether your vehicle has adaptive cruise control, lane centering or full self-driving, you are still legally responsible for operating your vehicle safely,” the response added.
Despite the driver being clocked at 64mph in a 45mph zone, the Tesla owner belligerently claims they weren’t in control, it wasn’t their fault and that the self-driving system was activated.
The police officer then says: “I don’t know how these systems work, but you’re not the first person I have stopped with Autopilot activated.”
In fact, one of Electrek’s own writers documented the moment he got a speeding ticket while using Tesla’s Full Self-Driving.
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Despite setting the system to Standard mode — as opposed to the faster Hurry or Mad Max settings — the vehicle still crept up to 78km/h in a 50km/h zone.
Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems are designed to assist the person behind the wheel, rather than completely replace them, no matter what Elon Musk espouses in his various public statements.
Currently, the law states that the buck stops with the driver, and any reckless driving, speeding or accident ultimately remains the driver’s fault, as they need to be ready to take control if and when these systems fail.
However, Tesla makes things difficult, as it has designed FSD to drift over the limit, even in Standard mode, and also took away the adjustable speed offset that once allowed owners to cap how far over the limit the vehicle would creep in autonomous modes.
Electrek reports that the adjustable speed offset was recently removed in FSD v14 and replaced with fixed driving profiles.
It is easy to see why Tesla has trained its systems this way, as many drivers get frustrated when technology vehemently adheres to speed limits and subsequently fails to keep up with traffic.