It’s only been two weeks since the last Tesla killed a motorcyclist in California, in a case called murder.
Now a local journalist, monitoring emergency channels, has posted this note about yet another Tesla case.
All lanes of the eastbound 210 freeway at the Azusa Avenue overpass are temporarily closed after a fatal crash Tuesday evening.
Initial reports indicate a motorcycle collided with a black Tesla Cyber Truck around 6:09 p.m. July 15. The collision is taking up the No. 1 and HOV lanes, according to the California Highway Patrol.
That reference to a lane is perhaps notable given Cybertruck owners have been complaining this past week how Tesla AI ignores the law, blindly changing lanes.
Elon Musk initially created “driverless” hype in response to a lawsuit over a cyclist death. A Tesla owner had sued claiming an intoxicating “new car smell” causing him to fall sleep should be blamed for death of a cyclist on Highway 1 just north of Santa Cruz, California.
A 63 year-old retiree driving a new Tesla Model S last November crossed a double yellow line, drove up a hill, drove down a hill, and finally crashed into bicyclist Joshua Alper, killing him as a result. […] Jain has been charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in Alper’s death, and not a felony, because he “did not act in a reckless way” according to the report.
Source: Twitter
A media blitz ensued with Musk angrily tweeting that he would prove how to stop all cyclist deaths from cars by rushing to deploy “driverless”, promoting the idea drivers could fall asleep and still be safe.
Source: Twitter
That was a whole decade ago in 2014 when AI was completely useless and unethical. However, clearly immoral Stanford activists like Fei-Fei Li, and a couple young Canadian graduate students, had totally sold Musk on the lie that AI would make driverless cars easily and rapidly achievable.
By 2016 Elon Musk was so steeped in the Stanford AI fraud cycles that he expanded his infamously wrong claims; drivers were told they would never need to touch the steering wheel at all by 2017! In fact, it was the opposite. Driverless required even more attentive drivers, not less. In April 2018 a Tesla ran over and killed a man who had stopped riding and stood next to his bike. Tesla hired armies of lawyers to bury this story, which is why the American press only reported on an Uber killing a pedestrian at the same time as Tesla.
Right? Everyone knows the Uber story. Have you ever heard about how Tesla killed a man standing by his bike at almost the exact same time?
And so fast forward to today, Uber cancelled their deadly driverless program while Tesla has killed yet another cyclist and criminally sped off to kill again and again and again:
The Los Angeles Police Department is asking for the public’s help to identify the driver of a Tesla that hit and killed a bicyclist and then fled the scene without stopping.
It happened on July 1, around 10 p.m. in South Los Angeles.
According to the LAPD, a black Tesla Model X was speeding eastbound on 67th Street in the direction of Flower Street, close to the 110 Freeway.
The Tesla struck a cyclist that was riding on 67th Street, knocking them to the ground in a violent collision.
The Tesla driver then sped off, not stopping to identify themselves or render aid, which is required by state law. Instead, the Tesla fled east toward Broadway Avenue where it was last seen.
Paramedics arrived on scene and transported the unidentified male cyclist to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
A computer science student, trying to start a career in AI, was drunk in a “self driving” Tesla. You’ll never guess what happened next.
Troopers responded at 12:46 a.m. on Sunday, July 6, to a crash near milepost 126.4 northbound in Sayreville, NJSP Sgt. Jeffrey Lebron said.
A Chrysler minivan was stopped on the right shoulder when a Tesla, operated by 21-year-old Anish Shriram of Livingston, slammed into the back of a Nissan….
The operator of the Nissan, Esther Paz, 58, of Brooklyn, NY, died of injuries sustained in the crash, Lebron said.
Anish Shriram had access to powerful automation, a weapon if you will. Prowling public roads with a deadly loitering heavy chemical munition, he was primed to cause catastrophic impact.
Would Anish walking around drunk with an assault rifle pointed at people be any different, really, when the news tells us he shot and killed someone?
With decades of experience studying asymmetric warfare, I recognize this predictable tragedy in a context of socio economic conflict that is far more necessary than people realize.
Back in 1990 I pressed into some communities of remote Nepal. My path uncovered Maoist rebels who expressed a bizarre faith in the power of a single man, who encouraged them to rise with the help of automatic weapons. These young adults were convinced their magical leader would deliver them prosperity wherever he told them to go. And I don’t mean they understood what that meant. You couldn’t actually converse about the theories or reality of philosophy, it was doctrine. Musk said this. Musk said that. What did Musk say? That is what the faithful ask, and not question whether Musk is completely wrong.
So when I read tragedy after tragedy about young adults who cite Musk as some kind of inspirational leader, right before they misfire their Tesla and kill someone, I see extremism of the Maoist kind (when I don’t see the Khmer Rouge).
Young man with automation technology wows the ladies in Butwal, Nepal. Today he would be showing off his Tesla instead of pointing his assault rifle into crowds. Source: AP
For me it’s like history all over again, observing the weaponization of believers, like those Maoists who had strapped on Kalishnakovs in the hills of 1990 Nepal.
Elon Musk repeatedly tried to convince the public his lazy designs were bullet-proof, despite none of it being true.
a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995