A Massachusetts man has posted a video online that appears to show the driver of a Tesla car sleeping as he and a passenger travelled along a highway.
Teslas have an autopilot function, but the company says drivers are expected to remain alert.
Dakota Randall took a video on Sunday that showed the driver’s head slumped down. Randall said the car was a Tesla. In the passenger’s seat, another person appears to be sleeping.
A man says he was driving on an interstate in Massachusetts when he noticed a @Tesla with its driver and passenger both asleep. 😮
— NBC DFW (@NBCDFW) September 10, 2019
Details: https://t.co/wwEKYiKTek pic.twitter.com/k0CYVCGyqL
“I kind of looked over and saw what I thought was somebody asleep at the wheel and I was like that can’t be right, so I did a double take, looked over and sure enough this guy was just, head between his legs completely asleep,” Randall told NBC10 Boston. “It seemed like he had his cruise control on around like 55-60 miles per hour.”
The video was shot on an interstate highway in Newton, Massachusetts.
Randall says the car was traveling 90-95km/h (55-60 mph), and he honked to try to wake the driver. He told NBC he drove next to the Tesla for about 45 seconds to a minute before speeding up and leaving the sleeping driver behind.
“Some guy literally asleep at the wheel on the Mass Pike (great place for it),” he tweeted.
He did not call police. State police said they contacted Randall but he was unable to provide identifying information about the vehicle or driver.
A Tesla spokesperson said “many of these videos appear to be dangerous pranks or hoaxes” and that its driver-monitoring system repeatedly reminds drivers to remain engaged and prohibits the use of autopilot when warnings are ignored.
“This was no hoax, at least not on my part,” said Randall. “Maybe the people in the car were faking being asleep, but I’m sceptical.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
