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Terrifying video shows elderly Tesla driver AND passenger both asleep in car as it barrels down California freeway

dailymail | 2026-03-12 19:42 | 568 views

Comments (67)
dailymail 2026-03-12 19:43

An elderly man was fast asleep at the wheel of his [Tesla](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/tesla/index.html) as it barreled down a California freeway, shocking video footage showed. Worse yet, there was an elderly female in the passenger seat who had also nodded off during the journey, per the clip obtained by KRON 4. The bystander who had captured the footage and sent it to the news station said the ordeal took place on Highway 4 in the Bay Area city of Pittsburg on Sunday afternoon.

BringBackUsenet 2026-03-12 19:47

This is nothing new. I've seen YT videos of cops chasing after Teslas with sleeping "drivers". Apparently "FSD" doesn't know to pull over when blue lights are behind you.

MikeDFootball 2026-03-12 19:51

dude, full self driving. right?

Key-Beginning-2201 2026-03-12 19:54

That's how Walter Huang died

First-Ad-7960 2026-03-12 19:57

“Ordeal” ???

SpareDot8685 2026-03-12 19:57

Must be going someplace really important to take a nap on the way

beren12 2026-03-12 20:13

I’d like to die in my sleep like my grandpa. Not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car…

sevseg_decoder 2026-03-12 20:21

Would be a moot point if they merely adequately enforced drivers being awake.  My car has level 1 self driving and it hits the brakes hard (for a millisecond) if you don’t wiggle the wheel a little every once in a while.

AdHairy4360 2026-03-12 20:22

Harder to take video of non Tesla cars driving down the road with sleeping drivers. They tend to be in crashes or ditched.

sevseg_decoder 2026-03-12 20:27

Unironically, it’s these types of old people who I point to when I say “labeling this as ‘full self driving’ is just reckless, along with being fraudulent.” Because these are the same people who assume that because they saw something on the news channel they trust, it 100% has to be true. The same people who get scammed by people claiming to be the IRS etc. and who don’t believe in regulations do they think “oh well they technically have to say I have to be paying attention but what would be the point of ‘full self driving’ if I was doing that?” Long winded but seriously fuck this fraudulent horse shit. There’s no good explanation on earth other than fooling people, people who will text and fall asleep etc., for it to be named “full self driving.”

SpinningHead 2026-03-12 20:28

Why does Elmo get to use us all as guinea pigs?

romuloskagen 2026-03-12 20:30

This is why FSD is a great thing. Too many people driving that are too tired, too distracted, too emotional, too drunk, etc. Let the software handle it.

BringBackUsenet 2026-03-12 20:36

He's been to The Island.

AlchemyFire 2026-03-12 20:37

Wasn’t there a report of a dude doing a full on porno while the car was in self drive? People are fucking stupid

BringBackUsenet 2026-03-12 20:39

Bend over, I'll Drive [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XeHAzdV1W4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XeHAzdV1W4)

mb10240 2026-03-12 20:42

I’ve watched enough On Patrol Live to know the Arkansas State Police and Georgia Highway Patrol will just PIT you. I wonder how FSD(S) would handle that?

TacosAreJustice 2026-03-12 20:52

Yeah, honestly, it’s one of my chief fears with modern society… basically the tragedy of the commons at a larger scale. It’s funny, I was walking my dogs the other day and a FedEx truck stopped to deliver packages. Keys in, engine running. Obviously, I’m not going to steal it… but as we further erode trust, it becomes more likely. I guarantee when things start to get bad in the economy self checkout is going to go away… but they won’t hire more staff. The next few years are going to be weird. We are going to see trust break down in lots of ways. Fittingly, the people who gained the most by abusing the trust are most likely going to lose the most.

BringBackUsenet 2026-03-12 20:53

Media hype is SHOCKING, just SHOCKING!!!

Lacrewpandora 2026-03-12 20:56

IIRC, Elon gets a mulligan with a few superfluous deaths on his march towards saving humanity and extending the light of consciousness to Mars.

finepnutty 2026-03-12 20:59

Darwin something something

ralpher1 2026-03-12 21:12

He seems to have been begging to make the island. But he still got “judo lessons” from Epstein

curiousengineer601 2026-03-12 21:13

Honestly probably safer than the old guy driving it himself. The average person is a terrible driver. Do we expect self driving cars to be perfect or just better than the drunk guy on his phone?

AndyTheSane 2026-03-12 21:25

Enough self driving that you can fall asleep.. but not enough to ensure that you ever wake up.

heleuma 2026-03-12 21:33

I think we have enough data at this point to confidently say it is not safer for them to be asleep. The fact that you think it is is concerning.

nlaak 2026-03-12 21:39

> Harder to take video of non Tesla cars driving down the road with sleeping drivers. Ever heard of passengers?

AdHairy4360 2026-03-12 21:42

Yes and what is the point. You do know that people fall asleep at the wheel all the time even with passengers. Rather it happen with a car with self driving features than ones without. At least gives more time for people to wake up.

OutsideMenu6973 2026-03-12 21:47

How does one trust it enough to fall asleep? I get dozing off but then why even leave the house to begin with take a nap

CouncilmanRickPrime 2026-03-12 21:52

Until he dies in a wreck while napping. Then it's "well, obviously he should've paid attention!"

DickWhittingtonsCat 2026-03-12 21:55

Don’t the advocates of this technology not only strive to create a moral panic against humans driving (not totally unjustified) but the Tesla threads are full of healthy adults who describe driving as being so incredibly taxing and fatiguing without this system. What chance would a senior have if piloting a car leaves you spent like running a marathon.

olyfrijole 2026-03-12 22:01

[I-95, 8 lanes wide](https://youtu.be/dY2DdcnH1Fw?si=8A-QI5xsTf6b5anp)

Veegermind 2026-03-12 22:07

I guess they woke up this time.

adorablefuzzykitten 2026-03-12 23:10

That seems like something that needs addressing.

adorablefuzzykitten 2026-03-12 23:11

Could be that you are safer with them completely asleep.

Far_Leg_3369 2026-03-12 23:20

Facts!

Engunnear 2026-03-12 23:20

It’s Schrödinger’s autonomy.

RepresentativeMove79 2026-03-12 23:33

Interestingly enough they seem to have reached their destination without issue and were much better rested than they had planned. Wild!!

ircsmith 2026-03-12 23:48

I don't see how this is possible. If I take my eyes off the road for 2.3 seconds the car throws a fit. I turn FSD off if I want to look for a new podcast, otherwise its nagging me.

zyneman 2026-03-12 23:49

passenger should be alert

GiveMeSomeShu-gar 2026-03-12 23:50

I thought Teslas had tech to monitor their eyes to make sure they are watching, no?

Beartrkkr 2026-03-13 00:10

Debbie does Tesla…

HeyyyyListennnnnn 2026-03-13 00:29

Steering wheel torque sensors are a very poor way to determine driver engagement, even just resting a hand in the right position can fool the system. Eye monitoring is better but even better would be just forcing people to drive their cars by not automating simple tasks.

hdizzle7 2026-03-13 00:33

I nodded off while the car was driving a few months ago and it woke me up immediately.

sevseg_decoder 2026-03-13 00:38

It also requires you actively steering at least once in a while. It’s neat, it’ll sort of drift gently just a bit to the right and you steer it back to the center (or simply hold it still) and it gets off your case

HeyyyyListennnnnn 2026-03-13 00:51

Little engagement tasks like that are nice, but given incidents on the road can happen in seconds, it's difficult to say it's enough.

failinglikefalling 2026-03-13 01:45

My car has both.

ski_hiker 2026-03-13 02:07

I was at a gas station when a blind guy came in. The cashier knew him and helped him grabbing the liquor he usually gets. She rang it up, helped him pay and then escorted him out the door. Dude got into a Tesla and drove away.

dtyamada 2026-03-13 02:59

But in Canada blue lights aren't cops, they're snowplows!

DistributedView 2026-03-13 02:59

Unlike Vernon Unsworth.....

JeffreyinKodiak 2026-03-13 03:06

Reported in the UK, a California incident, something seems off here folks.

pandaSmore 2026-03-13 03:13

"Unanticipated event"

Onikara-Star 2026-03-13 04:19

Their car is definitely not on software version 12. My Model 3 is and it drives like a stoned teenager.

Astral-projekt 2026-03-13 04:35

Laxed laws and no LiDar is as dumb as it gets.

IcyPraline9987 2026-03-13 04:53

What did it do? I drive at night a lot and I’m worried this will happen since I’m not really actively engaged in anything besides observing boring ass streets.

Fleg77 2026-03-13 10:13

It does…..

R0bsc0 2026-03-13 12:53

Probably safer than if they were driving..

za72 2026-03-13 13:01

Exactly, the drivers sharing the road with Teslas vehicles did not consent to be in the same road as FSD enabled vehicles... how is this not a major class action law suit?

BringBackUsenet 2026-03-13 13:10

And not take others with you.

davihar 2026-03-13 13:58

Same thing happens to pilots, most have autopilots but some don’t. We need to solve the human sleepy problem.

Bulky-Psychology6786 2026-03-13 14:23

Not sure how.. I own a Tesla model y and if you aren't looking straight ahead it starts beeping you, and prompting you to pay attention. After a few seconds of the flashing blue warning the car disengages FSD. I know this because I started drifting asleep on a long drive after not getting enough sleep the night before, and as my head started to dip the car started to complain, waking me back up.

ComicsEtAl 2026-03-13 19:18

Unless I’m driving, I cannot stay awake for 15 minutes in a moving car. FSD will *never* be for me.

JimMcDadeSpace 2026-03-13 21:06

FSD. A lie. One of so many by Musk.

Shaggybrown 2026-03-13 21:20

I bet if there were driving a normal car they would have never fallen asleep!

Feeling_Cost_8160 2026-03-14 00:45

It's safer than some drunk driving a regular car.

Strange-Number-5947 2026-03-14 16:07

They ain’t sleeping. They died in anticipation of eminent death in that deathmobile.

Agreeable-Ad4277 2026-03-14 17:55

I call BS

Sad_Note4359 2026-03-15 03:30

People fall asleep while driving on regular cruise control too🙄

dw-c137 2026-03-15 09:54

They do though. This is not possible unless the driver has physically tampered with the monitoring systems of the car for HW3 vehicles. And HW4 modern FSD will pull over if you don't respond if it thinks you aren't paying attention and will not start if you block the attention monitoring camera. At some point if you take the batteries out of your smoke detector who's fault is it that the alarm never went off? If you duct tape the throttle on a snow blower is it the snow blower's fault it goes off down the street without you? If this is even real, and not staged, it can only happen from a driver tampering with safety systems. This doesn't happen with a "stock" vehicle by accident or unintentionally.

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