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- Police in the city of Redwood City, northern California, arrested a man who slept at the wheel of his Tesla Model S as she was coming down a freeway early Friday morning.
- The electric luxury sedan was traveling south on Highway 101. Art Montiel, an officer of the California Highway Patrol, told Business Insider
- that police thought the Tesla was running on the pilot automatic, the driver, Alexander Samek, having not reacted to their sirens and their headlights.
- Police interrupts traffic behind the Tesla, while another policeman who passes in front of the car slows down gradually, forcing the semi-autonomous sedan, which can react to different speeds of traffic and speed up or slow down accordingly , until a complete stop.
Police in Redwood City, a city in northern California, arrested a man on Friday morning who was traveling on Highway 101 early in the morning while sleeping in his Tesla Model S
Police first saw the luxury electric sedan heading south at around 150 km / h, around 3:40 pm, said Art Montiel, a California highway patrol officer, at Business Insider on Friday night.
Montiel stated that the police had acted when it became clear that the driver, Alexander Samek, aged 45, was sleeping.
"The driver did not react to the lights and sirens," Montiel said.
The officers thought the Tesla might be running on Autopilot, a semi-autonomous driving feature that allows Teslas to drive and change lanes in traffic with minimal human intervention.
To stop the Tesla from sleeping driver, Montiel said the police were blocking traffic behind the vehicle, while another policeman in front of the car was slowly slowing down, forcing the Tesla to force itself to react to speeds traffic and to speed up or slow down accordingly, at a complete stop.
"Once the vehicle stopped, the police came out of their patrol cars, approached the Tesla and knocked on the window to wake the driver," Montiel said.
Agents placed Samek in a police car, while another chased Tesla's highway from the drunk man and parked him at a gas station nearby.
Samek was arrested for impaired driving. Montiel applauded the CHP's "quick thinking" to put the Tesla and his pilot out of harm's way.
Several Teslas crashed while they were operating on autopilot over the last few months. A man was killed when his SUV, Model X, crashed into a highway barrier in Mountain View, California, in March.
Teslas equipped with the autopilot can not drive itself. The system uses a series of increasing warnings if it detects that the driver does not have hands on the steering wheel. If the driver does not respond, the system turns off.
Tesla declined to comment on the incident.
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