On the Role of Drivers’ Steering Yoke and Autopilot in the Collision of a Musk-Car into an Emergency Vehicle

Musk is in violation of his employer’s own rules about how drivers should behave. By filming the drive himself from the driver’s seat and also interacting with Twitter commenters during the drive, Musk is ignoring his own company’s guidelines that advise drivers to keep their hands on the steering yoke at all times. According to Tesla’s handbook:

Musk was forced to take the steering wheel as the car tried to go through a red light in Palo Alto. It looked as if the vehicle mistook the traffic signal and attempted to travel through the intersection at the wrong time. Last Friday, Musk posted the video on X.

The day before Musk livestreamed his drive, Reuters reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was planning on resolving its investigation into over a dozen crashes involving Tesla vehicles using Autopilot crashing into stationary emergency vehicles. The government could force a recall of autopilot and also FSD, which would affect the company’s valuation, due to its promise to provide full independence to customers in the near future.

Should the US government force a recall of autopilot software from the company after an investigation into crashes where it hit stationary emergency vehicles, it will be a big decision regarding Musk’s future.

Full Self-Driving (Beta) is a hands-on feature. Keep your hands on the steering yoke (or steering wheel) at all times, be mindful of road conditions and surrounding traffic, and always be prepared to take immediate action. Failure to follow these instructions could lead to injury or death.

Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule: Why the Palo Alto Police don’t need a $20 fine to prosecute a rich man’s self driving vehicle

The video is not of good quality. It regularly flips between vertical and horizontal filming. And Musk frequently comments that he hopes someone can edit the footage to make it more interesting.

At around the 27-minute mark, Musk claims he is going to drive to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s house, which he has previously threatened to do as part of their much-publicized (but probably will never happen) fight.

Musk Googles Zuckerberg’s address and then displays it prominently on-screen. Musk has banned the ElonJet account that tracks his private plane from X because he claimed it was a direct personal safety risk.

According to Captain James Reifschneider of the Palo Alto Police Department, the driver could have been issued a ticket for violating the handsfree law if an officer had seen them with the phone.

There was no question that Musk was in control of the vehicle, he was forced to stop his self driving system from running through the livestream, and he also explained that he was in the drivers seat when he turned the camera on himself.

Let me be clear: I’m pretty sure Palo Alto Police have better things to do than chase down the world’s richest man for a $20 fine. You can get points on your driving record for a second offense but only if it happened within three years of the first violation.

Some are questioning Musk’s power because he has been known to break the law. The New Yorker published a piece of reporting on “Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule,” a story about how the US government was forced to treat Musk because of how crucial Starlink was to the war in Ukraine.

Detecting a phone-like device in a driver’s hand: a police officer’s job description and the prosecution’s case

Police officers have to be able to verify a driver’s identity and collect a license plate and VIN in order for them to issue a ticket.

“The officer needs to be prepared to testify in court about what they personally observed (namely, that they saw the phone in the driver’s hand),” he writes.