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.
People have always been idiots behind the wheel. I started driving before personal electronics and touchscreens were a thing. You still saw people bracing books or newspapers against the steering wheel with their thumbs so they could read as they drove down the highway. Now it’s watching movies, texting or other social media, video conversations, reading…
Just seems that there are way more people doing it. The social contract gets more broken every day.
It was amazing what I saw people doing when commuting in L.A. traffic. Yes, it was very slow. You still could hit the person in front of you!
Or fiddling with the radio / tape player / CD player, or putting on makeup / shaving. People have always done this.
This is one of the top reasons wfh is better. You don’t need to hurry to get ready.