As much as I think the owner moved to the back seat after the crash (is it possible thermal effects altered head position after death like other parts), the body was found by fire marshall report to be in a seated position which I think would fly against being thrown into the back seat and landing seated.
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[UPDATED] 2 die in Tesla crash - NHTSA reports driver seat occupied
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As recently as 9/4 when the press saw the autopsy results about the alcohol concentrations, this was written by BusinessInsider:
“Police said the men were found in the back seat of the vehicle,….” (my emphasis, clearly one was in the front passenger seat)
I think there was one other article with misinformation on already established facts to the contrary that I noticed when reading news that day. The above however really stood out to me.
This was a big blow to the brand when the good constable was quick on his speculations. I also find it amazing that the conversation is still around auto pilot this, autopilot that. There was video evidence early on someone was in the driver seat. Now we learn he was drunk. Shame on the good constable and shame on the media to spin this in such a way that it was Tesla at fault.
Now let's move on to getting manufacturers to make it easier to get out of the g*****n car when it's locked, crashed, battery dead, submerged and/or on fire.
Soul Surfer
Cancervivor, tech geek & musician
Curious where you read that first responders said he had a “visible” broken neck? I’ve never seen that said, and as mentioned while the autopsy found a fractured c7 (doesn’t mean you’re paralyzed, discussed above) the description from the fire marshall’s report stated that “The base of decedent 2’s head was pressed against the metal frame of the seat”. By the time the fire fighters were able to examine the bodies, they had been subjected to muscle contraction from the intense heat. A focal acute subarachnoid hemorrhage (brain bleed) did show up on the autopsy and even that didn’t have to be fatal. “The primary symptom is a sudden, severe headache. The headache is sometimes associated with nausea, vomiting and a brief loss of consciousness”.
From everything I’ve read as I understand it he could have been knocked out from impact, come to badly injured but still conscious and able to crawl into the back seat away from smoke, heat and to a possible exit. So I still don’t rule out his being in the driver’s seat at impact. In fact rereading the autopsy under Pathological Findings, he had some rib damage, lacerated liver and abdominal bleeding. Results from impacting the steering wheel or crushing from seatbelt use? I understand extracting the charred body was difficult.
links to 10-pg Fire Marshall’s report: https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rerBWiSvyadk/v0
to 9-pg Constable’s report: https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/r5kTbAhsTsXg/v0
As we learned early on the vehicle was purchased and flatbedded from an original owner elsewhere in Texas. Think in December? The accident happened in April and when the police arrived and tried to ascertain info on the vehicle it was still showing up as the previous owner’s who had to provide evidence he had sold it and to whom which helped confirm the occupant lived down the street from the accident. This was in Pg 4 of the Constable’s report linked in immediately above post. When they did a search for insurance none came up (Fire Marshall’s report, Pg 6). I’m assuming this all has implications from a legal end as well. I wonder if the original owner is exposed to liability not seeing paperwork transferred.
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Well the people involved in assessing the initial scene and conducting the in-depth investigation actually have expertise in this field, they would have studied and have surely seen many vehicle fires in the past and would be intimately familiar with what the human body does under those conditions. And their initial assessment was that nobody was in the driver's seat when the vehicle crashed, so I'm not sure why we think we know better with googling and armchair speculating.
Someone with the owner's BAC would likely be far more inclined to lose consciousness, he would have been experiencing some pretty strong motor impairment even without being in a car crash. The owner's brother thought that maybe he hopped in the driver's seat to back the car out of the driveway and then possibly moved to the back seat before the car started accelerating forward towards its eventual crash.
I think that's far more likely than the owner being in the driver's seat and alcohol imbuing him with superhuman abilities allowing him to shrug off a fractured vertebrae and cracked skull, successfully navigating from the front driver's seat to the rear left passenger seat in his intoxicated state and immediately after being in a major accident.
A strong breeze can knock people on their asses when they're really drunk, alcohol has the opposite effect on a person's ability to remain conscious.
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For crying out loud! Lets get these facts through everybody's head once and for all:
1. Autopilot was IMPOSSIBLE to engage in the given street -- as reported by Tesla and confirmed by the NHTSA!
2. TACC could possible be engaged, but in the 550 feet distance from start to crash, it is physically IMPOSSIBLE for TACC to achieve even HALF the speed of the observed crash.
THEREFORE it is EVIDENT, that a human must have floored the accelerator in order to achieve the speed necessary for the observed crash impact within the 550 feet of travel distance.
Now, you can start speculating how and where the driver moved after the crash, whether it was a 3rd person, or the person found on the back-seat, or the person found on the passenger side. Those are all valid speculations. However, it is IMPOSSIBLE that the car arrived to the crash site driven by its own software TACC or Autopilot!
Wait... where do we have any statements or data (saying no one was driving when it crashed) from experts performing in-depth investigation?
My understanding is that the only people to state that were Cappi in the preliminary investigation report and Constable Mark Herman.
Versus:
That same preliminary report also states the car was fully equipped with FSD...
Yet:
See also: "Owner started in driver's seat in deadly Tesla crash, investigators find"
Owner started in driver's seat in deadly Tesla crash, investigators find
As I stated in my comment above I have not seen anything in writing to that affect from anyone on the scene that night. Charred bodies are fragile.
Drunk drivers through the years have been documented by police as walking away from crashes that kill their uninebriated passengers. The guy wasn’t appearing so drunk that his wife and friend’s wife stopped them from getting into the car for a test drive after they had just returned from dinner with them. He couldn’t have been falling down drunk. He was not a small stature guy either so probably held it better, but still legally drunk and with diminished response time.
As to this whole back seat driver scenario claim, a lot depends on how the conversation went with the BIL. He didn’t see him climb to the back and he knew and was confirmed by security from the owner’s house that the owner got into the driver’s seat. Having likely seen or heard about the reported Tesla backseat antics on social media, maybe that came to his mind as a plausible explanation; or maybe the person questioning him lead with “could that have explained it?” since they themselves were aware of videos of it in the media, instead of maybe he crawled back there. And who knows maybe the BIL said that too. We don’t know how the interview with the BIL went down and won’t likely unless in the NTSB report.
As for a breeze knocking over really drunk people or them falling askeep, there are drunks that socially function “well” just as their are those that fall over, fall asleep or are belligerent.
I come back to how the wife and friend’s wife apparently perceiving the guy’s state. If he was inebriated enough to survive his injuries (deadened pain and such) I still think he could have managed to climb to the back. I kind of wonder what Elon and Tesla know by now.
Drunk drivers through the years have been documented by police as walking away from crashes that kill their uninebriated passengers. The guy wasn’t appearing so drunk that his wife and friend’s wife stopped them from getting into the car for a test drive after they had just returned from dinner with them. He couldn’t have been falling down drunk. He was not a small stature guy either so probably held it better, but still legally drunk and with diminished response time.
As to this whole back seat driver scenario claim, a lot depends on how the conversation went with the BIL. He didn’t see him climb to the back and he knew and was confirmed by security from the owner’s house that the owner got into the driver’s seat. Having likely seen or heard about the reported Tesla backseat antics on social media, maybe that came to his mind as a plausible explanation; or maybe the person questioning him lead with “could that have explained it?” since they themselves were aware of videos of it in the media, instead of maybe he crawled back there. And who knows maybe the BIL said that too. We don’t know how the interview with the BIL went down and won’t likely unless in the NTSB report.
As for a breeze knocking over really drunk people or them falling askeep, there are drunks that socially function “well” just as their are those that fall over, fall asleep or are belligerent.
I come back to how the wife and friend’s wife apparently perceiving the guy’s state. If he was inebriated enough to survive his injuries (deadened pain and such) I still think he could have managed to climb to the back. I kind of wonder what Elon and Tesla know by now.
No no I said the initial assessment was that nobody occupied the driver's seat when the crash occurred, I wouldn't be debating this if we had results from the in-depth investigation. But I was saying that the people involved in each step have a lot more insight than we do.
Which preliminary report stated the car was fully equipped with FSD?
What happened between the moment the owner got into the driver's seat and when it crashed is anyone's guess right now, but I'll be pretty surprised if the investigators determine he was sitting in that seat when the crash occurred. I think it was likely a drunk owner trying to show off the car/technology and making some really bad mistakes along the way, none of which is really the technology's fault and all of which I'm sure would be possible with a car that had plain old cruise control.
What do we think that means exactly in the context of an on-site preliminary investigation? I would guess it's what the wife told the officer. I doubt the officer knows about FSD / Beta, the nuance between the suite of functions etc, or how they would have determined any of this at the scene of the crash. The report seemingly mentions nothing about Autopilot, TACC, or any of the details that we know are important.
Ok, you said
You are conflating the initial report with in depth investigation.
The preliminary report has factual errors that have been addressed by later reports. The FSD option is just one example of the inital report clearly being wrong.
Data provided after preliminary report:
Owner is on video getting into the driver's seat 500 feet or so from the crash site
Seatbelts were unbuckled
Steering wheel is deformed
Car did not have FSD
Testing did not show that TACC was able to be engaged at that location
Further, TACC, even it were able to be engaged, even if it drove off the road, even if it operated with seat belt unbuckled and no one in the driver's seat (it doesn't), would not accelerate at the rate needed to produce the crash.
But don't rely on random internet post, read what Tesla's people with expertise in the field have to say:
Tesla (TSLA) Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript | The Motley Fool
Related article : No, Media & Politicians — Autopilot & TACC Weren't On In The Houston Crash
I would suggest @AndreP go back and read the first 76 pages of this thread (or at least the last dozen pages), as he's rehashing theories that were disproven months ago.
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