A Tesla driver in Ottawa faces a careless driving charge after a rush hour stop. Police say the person was asleep at the wheel as the car moved through traffic on Highway 417, according to a CTV News report.
The stop happened Tuesday, Nov. 10. The charge carries a C$490 fine and six demerit points upon conviction, Drive Tesla reported.
An Ontario Provincial Police officer explained the stop in CTV’s report. The car was moving through traffic without a fault in its driving, he said. The person at the wheel still had to stay in control.
Anyone who has heard their Tesla warn them to watch the road might wonder how that worked. A camera inside the car checks on the driver. Yet a police officer spotted someone asleep at the wheel.
An Extra Pair
Tesla owner Lynn Le-Fave took CTV’s Dylan Dyson for a drive in her car. She uses self-driving 94 percent of the time, based on the car’s own figures.
She also described a time when someone stepped out between parked cars. Her Tesla spotted the person well before she did, she said.
“I find it’s an extra pair of eyes for me, right?” Le-Fave said. Her reaction to the sleeping driver, though, was hardly an endorsement.
“First question is, how the heck did they do that?” she asked, noting that the camera checks whether she is watching the road. She had a second question: “Are they nuts?”
Still on Duty
Tesla’s Model Y manual says Full Self-Driving (Supervised) can follow a route and make turns. It can also handle junctions and enter or leave highways. Even with those tasks covered, the driver must watch the road and be ready to take over at all times.
With the feature on, the cabin camera checks whether the driver is paying attention. The car gives warnings that grow more urgent and call for a response. Tesla notes that how the system works can vary with the car’s equipment and software.
On his test drive, Dyson put on sunglasses and the car kept going. That brief test does not explain how the driver in the stopped Tesla remained asleep, or show that anyone had fooled the camera.
Sleep was not the only problem the OPP officer had seen with drivers using the feature. Earlier that year, he said, a Tesla driver was caught using a laptop while the car was in self-drive mode.
All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.