Tesla saves its zoned out driver from hitting runner in crosswalk

This runner would’ve been seriously injured if it wasn’t for this Tesla’s automatic emergency braking.

Reddit runner /user/NRobertL narrowly avoided a trip to the ER thanks to a Tesla stopping in the nick of time, no thanks to its zoned out driver fiddling with his smartphone instead of paying attention. As Rob was crossing a fairly quiet street, even though he made eye contact with a slow approaching Tesla driver, the driver kept rolling on through.

Read what went down in his thread embedded below.

A Tesla saved it’s driver from hitting me from r/running

Any good runner in suburban and busy city areas knows that collisions between cars and pedestrians happen a lot around crosswalks. Typically, runners should first have the right of way to cross, then make eye-contact with turning drivers before crossing.

Drivers should also yield to pedestrians even though they might not have the right of way.

Robert misjudged an approaching Tesla, slowly driving towards an intersection, that they’d eventually stop.

In my experience, Tesla drivers are often less aware than regular drivers because “my car will drive for me.” But it won’t work every time, so if anything, be more careful around these self-driving cars.

Aware of the suite of standard safety features on all Teslas, Robert was also lulled into a false sense of security around these presumably “safer towards pedestrians” cars. It didn’t help that he mistook seeing the Tesla driver’s eyes as an acknowledgement of his presence.

Teslas come with eight external cameras, a radar, 12 ultrasonic sensors and an onboard computer processing all information coming in. Among the handful of active safety features is Automatic Emergency Braking where Teslas will, “Detect cars or obstacles that the car may impact and applies the brakes accordingly.”

If that Tesla hit Robert, fines upwards of $1,000 and a license suspension would’ve quickly followed. Robert most likely would’ve been injured or seriously roughed up taking a full-frontal hit.

Pedestrians shouldn’t automatically feel safer around Teslas. In fact, people should be more wary of their presence because of this growing trend of inattentive drivers.

On the flip side, Tesla drivers should not treat active safety features as another set of eyes, all responsibility falls on your shoulders when you’re behind the wheel.