“instilled too much trust”—that’s a nice way to say the douchebag was too busy showing off his exclusive toy and being an attention whore.

AUTPILOT! BIOWEAPON DEFENSE MODE!

yeah, but when you’re a douchebag who’s married to your car and you live 24/7 to show it off to the proles who don’t have one nyah nyah nyah, look what I can do and you can’t, then this kind of thing will happen.

Agreed 100%. Tesla—and many here—should go read Digital Apollo. Inside that is the story of what is probably the best computer man has ever built—and what they went through to make it.

None of what you said eliminates the obligation of the driver, who is in control of the car, to avoid a discernible obstruction.

We the public have been saying “drivers must remain alert and attentive” for years—think texting and driving. And yet, people still get behind the wheel and become passengers and kill themselves and/or others.

This accident killed the nut behind the wheel, the guy who was in charge of making decisions surrounding his shiny new toy around which he lived his life.

BUT...BUT...MUSK SAID AUTOPILOT!!! DRIVES ITSELF!!! I HAVE A NEW TOY MY FRIENDS DON’T HAVE!!!! I MUST BE A DOUCHEBAG ELITIST AND SHOW IT OFF TO EXCESS!!! WARNINGS? I DON’T NEED NO WARNINGS!!!

What you call a “smug smile,” is probably her trying desperately to come across as non-threatening to an enraged asshole who, for all she knew, could trash her car or pull a gun.

These stupid maniacs need to be taken off the road. Right goddamn now.

How about because it isn’t limited to men?

At least he had a history that people could key off of. She didn’t:

Because women never do the same thing, right?

Really? It’s really hard to understand how an abusive man thoroughly loses his shit when his wife files for divorce, wants full custody and said man has access to a firearm? It’s downright commonplace enough as to be a mother fucking cliché at this point.

hardly. Realistic.

Well now wait, Justin didn’t pull the word “autopilot” out of thin air. The little Austin Powers lookalike man has been blasting that, plus “bioweapon defense mode!”, to the public for a long time. It’s something the public knows about.

I imagine that the Tesla is sufficiently locked down to prevent that, but on the other hand I do know one can plug a video player into a Prius dashboard screen if one really wants to.

Disable the beta, and restrict it to employee cars only, and that on a volunteer basis. You cannot test a critical system to this car on consumers surrounded by other people unaware of what you are doing.

Did the Tesla driver not have any obligation to avoid the discernible obstruction? Right of way notwithstanding, if a reasonable person would see the obstruction with plenty of time to stop, he had the obligation to stop—not continue on into the obstruction simply because “I have the right of way and he’s in it”.

Exactly. The driver had an obligation to stop for the discernible obstruction.