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according toAssociated PressKevin George Aziz Riad, who drove a Tesla Model S through a red light and crashed into a Honda Civic in 2019 that killed two people, has become the first person charged with a felony in a assisted driving-related case in the United States, reports.California prosecutors in October charged Riad with two motor vehicle manslaughter charges, and while Autopilot was not specifically mentioned in court filings, according to the lawsuit. NHTSA(National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) in-depth investigation over the past few years, Riad’s Model S at the time of the incident was in the state of Autopilot enabled.
Although Riad is the first perpetrator in the United States to be charged with a felony for the improper use of an assisted driving system, the first person to be prosecuted for a car accident caused by this type of technology has to go back four years. Uber The driver in the self-driving car crash. She was also charged with negligent death because she was so distracted that she failed to notice a warning from the vehicle more than five seconds before the incident. In a statement to The Associated Press, NHTSA stressed that even vehicles with partially automated systems “must ensure that the human driver is in control of the situation at all times.”