Asleep at 70 MPH: Tesla FSD Hits CHP Car, Injures 2 Officers
Just before midnight on Tuesday, October 13, a California Highway Patrol patrol car sat behind flares and cones on eastbound Interstate 80 in Fairfield, protecting the scene of an earlier fatal crash. Then a Tesla arrived at freeway speed, drove through the closure, and slammed into the Dodge Charger with both officers inside. The 22-year-old driver from Sacramento told investigators he was asleep with Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" engaged. He walked away with minor injuries. The officers did not.
What happened on I-80
About an hour before the Tesla arrived, a 19-year-old from San Pablo lost control of his Honda Civic and was hit by a Chevrolet Tahoe. He didn't survive. Four lanes were already shut down behind flares and cones when the Tesla showed up at highway speed, per CHP. It went through the closure and into the Dodge Charger patrol car with both officers sitting in it. Cameras on the Charger and another vehicle at the scene caught the impact. The Tesla driver, from Sacramento, walked away with minor injuries. Both crashes are still under investigation, and CHP hasn't released the Tesla model or software version. For now, the driver's word is the only evidence FSD was on — Tesla's vehicle logs will settle that.
The pattern regulators already flagged
We've been here before. In August 2021, NHTSA opened an investigation after a series of Teslas on Autopilot crashed into stopped police cars and fire trucks, many at night with flares, cones, and flashing lights on scene. That probe ended with Tesla's December 2023 recall of more than 2 million vehicles, fixed with an over-the-air update that added more driver-attention alerts. FSD hasn't solved it either. In June 2024, a Tesla on FSD hit a parked Fullerton police car while officers were handling, again, a fatal crash. That driver admitted to being on his phone. A nighttime lane closure lit up with flares is about as clear a "stop or move over" signal as a road can give. If FSD was engaged in Fairfield, it drove straight into one at highway speed.
The monitoring gap Tesla keeps widening
FSD (Supervised) uses the cabin camera to make sure the driver is watching the road. It's supposed to nag, then disengage, when someone isn't paying attention. A driver who's actually asleep shouldn't get very far. So either he hadn't been asleep for long, or the camera didn't catch it — we don't know which yet. But Tesla has been relaxing that monitoring, not tightening it. We recently reported that Tesla drivers can easily bypass the monitoring system; even a simple dollar bill placed in front of the camera can nullify it. Last December, Elon Musk claimed FSD drivers can now text and drive "depending on context of surrounding traffic." Texting while driving is illegal in California. CHP stressed that FSD is a driver-assistance feature requiring the person behind the wheel to stay alert and in control: "Technology does not relieve drivers of their responsibility to safely operate their vehicles."
Why it matters: driver fault and Tesla fault aren't mutually exclusive
The driver is responsible. If he fell asleep at the wheel at freeway speed, he nearly killed two cops who were already cleaning up after a fatal crash, and he should face the consequences. But Tesla doesn't get to wash its hands of this. It sells a product called "Full Self-Driving" in the US, it agreed to drop that name in Europe this month after German regulators called it misleading, and its CEO tells owners they can text with it. When you tell people the car drives itself, some of them believe you. A 22-year-old driving home at midnight is exactly who believes you. This isn't new — more than five years of Teslas regularly plowing into emergency vehicles — and the government needs to step in. Juries are starting to see it that way too. Florida's $243 million Autopilot verdict put a third of the blame on Tesla, and the Katy, Texas FSD crash earlier this year showed the same complacency trap from another angle. Musk keeps promising unsupervised FSD on customer cars. If Tesla wants to take the driver out of the loop, will it take the liability for crashes like this one? Until it does, it shouldn't be telling anyone it's OK to look away.
Key Takeaways
- A 22-year-old driver told CHP he was asleep with Tesla's Full Self-Driving engaged when his car hit a patrol vehicle on I-80 in Fairfield, seriously injuring two officers.
- The crash happened at a scene already closed with flares and cones after an earlier fatal collision — the exact scenario NHTSA flagged in its 2021 investigation into Teslas hitting emergency vehicles.
- FSD's cabin-camera monitoring is supposed to disengage when a driver isn't paying attention, but Tesla has been relaxing that monitoring, and bypasses are reportedly easy.
- CHP says FSD is a driver-assistance feature and the driver remains responsible, but Tesla's marketing of "Full Self-Driving" and its CEO's texting claims shape how owners behave.
- Driver fault and Tesla fault aren't mutually exclusive — the Florida Autopilot verdict and the Katy, Texas FSD crash show juries are starting to treat them that way.
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