US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg on Monday said human drivers must pay attention at all times after videos emerged of people wearing what appeared to be Apple’s recently released Vision Pro headset while driving Teslas.
Buttigieg responded on Twitter/X to a video that had more than 24m views of a Tesla driver who appeared to be gesturing with his hands to manipulate a virtual reality field.
Despite their names, Tesla’s assisted driving features – Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving – do not mean the vehicles are fully autonomous, Buttigieg said Monday on social media.
“Reminder – ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully engaged in the driving task at all times,” Buttigieg said.
I mean, I’d use partial self driving on I5 to eat my taco bell, but I’m still paying attention to what’s in front of me!
Yeah, you’re paying attention to the fast food you’re too impatient to wait to eat safely. You’re not properly paying attention to the road or all of the other people whose lives are now in danger because you’re shoving a chalupa down your pie hole instead of safely operating the two ton missile you’re supposed to be guiding down the highway. Your lane assist isn’t magic, and when you inevitably fuck this up, I hope it’s a single-vehicle accident and you spare other drivers the misfortune.
Jeez, It was a rental I had for a month about 2 years ago.
And for your information, it was a single chicken taco. There were no cars around. I’m not talking LA I5, this is in the middle of nowhere and I had to make an emergency drive up Eureka from Sacramento.