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.
Man I’ve seen so many other ridiculous things over the years. One was a guy reading a damn paperback book while driving down a busy highway. He was holding it up head level with his head tilted back like he was reading thru bifocals.
I’ve seen so many idiots texting and driving, stuffing their faces with hands full of food, doing makeup, drinking and driving…
Then with Teslas, there’s notorious examples of people putting trust in self-driving while they watch movies, play games, jerk off, or have sex.
It sounds like you’re just lacking life experience on the road and oblivious to irresponsible ‘self-driving’ car owners.
When I was in Az I saw a guy driving down the freeway playing a slide trombone, with his window down in 115 degree heat.
I’ve got over thirty five years of driving experience, and I’ve had a fair bit of VR/AR experience as well. I don’t care how stupid people are, the video is an obvious fake and the fact that people actually think it’s real is the actual problem. Because idiots who can’t tell will try to repeat it and it will go really poorly.