Tesla fatal crash with fire truck draws US regulator inquiry

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked Tesla for more information after one of its vehicles collided with a fire truck in the San Francisco Bay area, resulting in the death of the driver.

The agency reached out to the manufacturer after the incident in Contra Costa County during the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend.

The county fire department said in a February 18 tweet that a Tesla struck one of its trucks that was blocking lanes while responding to an earlier accident.

Slow down and move over when approaching emergency vehicles. Truck 1 was struck by a Tesla while blocking I-680 lanes from a previous accident. Driver pronounced dead on-scene; passenger was extricated & transported to hospital. Four firefighters also transported for evaluation. pic.twitter.com/YCGn8We1bK

— Con Fire PIO (@ContraCostaFire) February 18, 2023

NHTSA has spent the last 18 months investigating how Tesla’s driver-assistance system Autopilot handles crash scenes involving fire trucks and other first-responder vehicles. It’s unclear whether Autopilot was involved in the Contra Costa County incident.

NHTSA opened the investigation in August 2021 after almost a dozen crashes with first-responder cars and trucks. The following month, Tesla deployed an over-the-air update to its cars aimed at improving their ability to detect emergency vehicles.

The company sent that software update to its cars without initiating a recall, leading NHTSA’s chief counsel and head of its vehicle defects division to publicly ask for technical and legal justification.

Since then, NHTSA has opened another defect investigation related to Autopilot, involving inadvertent braking, and escalated its probe into how the system handles crash scenes.

Tesla recalls over 362,000 cars

Last week, Tesla recalled almost 363,000 cars that have installed software the company markets as Full Self-Driving Beta, which despite the name doesn’t render the vehicles autonomous.

The company said in its recall notice that the feature could violate traffic laws before drivers — who are responsible for operating the vehicle at all times — are able to intervene.

Read: Tesla recalls over 362,000 cars due to self-driving software safety concerns