According to authorities, the driver admitted to police that he was inattentive during the accident

On April 19, the driver of a Tesla Model S collided with a motorcycle and the driver eventually died at the scene. Authorities have now confirmed that the Tesla owner was not only using the semi-autonomous technology of fully autonomous driving, but was also looking at his phone when the accident happened. The investigation is ongoing.

Fully autonomous driving is regularly criticized because of its name and the risk that owners put too much trust in it. Accidents like this show, to a certain extent, that some drivers are actually abusing the technology. The driver of the Tesla admitted at the scene that he was distracted and had fully autonomous driving switched on at the time of the accident.

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According to the Seattle Times, a police officer reported the following details about the accident. “The next thing he (the Tesla driver) remembered was a bang and the vehicle lurched forward while accelerating and collided with the motorcycle in front of him… based on admitted inattention while driving in autopilot mode and cell phone distraction while driving, trusting the machine to drive for him.”

While the cop wrote Autopilot, the other, less advanced version of Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving software, authorities have now used the data recorder in the car to confirm that it was running FSD. Notably, Tesla now refers to the system as FSD Supervised after several high-profile accidents of this type.

The word “supervised” means a lot of work for the automaker. To activate Autopilot or FSD, the driver must agree to remain alert and ready to take control at any time. In theory, this would be a problem-free situation, but science confirms that humans are really bad at passively paying attention.

“It’s human nature to just want to turn off and do something exciting instead of watching the car drive,” says Kelly Funkhouser, who conducts automated vehicle testing for Consumer Reports. “It’s like watching paint dry, right? That’s what we’re most concerned about with these systems,” she told NPR in 2021.

“As they become more competent, it’s easier for drivers to zone out and find something else to do.” In that sense, this problem with attention and semi-autonomous vehicles is one that extends to all Level 1 and 2 systems.