As an Orange County police officer was investigating a deadly crash on a busy highway, a man operating a self-driving Tesla ploughed into his patrol vehicle.
The driver, who has not been identified, was using his Tesla's semi-autonomous self-driving mode, which assists with braking, steering and changing lanes but that isn't fool proof, when the vehicle veered into the cruiser, narrowly missing the cop, who was directing traffic. He was reportedly able to jump out of the way.
Another officer was reportedly inside the vehicle — neither sustained injuries. The man got out of the blue vehicle, The Los Angeles Times reported, and cooperated with the investigation — he admitted to being on his phone at the time of the crash, somehow failing to notice the flares and bright, flashing police lights at the scene where at least one person died in another crash.
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The incident happened on Thursday in Fullerton, a city in Orange County that borders Anaheim to the south, the home of Disneyland, according to the Times. The fatal crash that occurred shortly before the Tesla incident happened just after midnight near Orangethorpe and Courtney Avenues, a news release from the police said.
It's not clear whether the driver of the Tesla sustained any injuries from the accident. The news release stated, according to ABC 7 Los Angeles, that the driver was in "clear violation of responsible driving practices and California law" by engaging in the self-driving mode while being on his phone.
The station reported that the deadly crash involved a motorcyclist, with a driver striking them. No further details about that crash were immediately available.
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This isn't the first time a Tesla using self-driving mode veered into other vehicles. Just months ago, the Times reported that Tesla settled a lawsuit with the family of a Bay Area engineer who died in 2018 when a driver using the feature struck him. There have since been hundreds of collisions, the newspaper reported, with many of them resulting in fatalities.
A recall was issued by the company last year to fix the defects in its self-driving technology. It's not clear whether the recall actually fixed the issue — but, based on Thursday morning's accident, there are still likely some bugs left to work out.