A San Mateo driver, Walter Huang, died in a car collision that occurred on March 23, 2018. Huang was a father and a game app developer who worked for Apple. He regularly commuted back and forth between the area of Foster City where he lived and Sunnyvale, which is where he worked. Although he regularly took the route where he would ride on Highway 101 and pass Highway 85, March 23, 2018, was unlike all the other days. His vehicle collided into a gore point, causing him to die due to injuries sustained during the crash.
Huang was driving in a Tesla at the time of the accident. Tesla is known as a provider of self-driving vehicles because that is how the company advertises its vehicles to the public. However, there is reason to believe that the self-driving features are not as beneficial or convenient as most would think. Huang became dependent on autopilot features provided by Tesla and may have had his hands off the wheel at the time of the collision. After performing a thorough and detailed investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board came to the conclusion that Huang was likely playing a game on his phone when he collided into a barrier on the highway. Data and records from his phone show that the game application was running when the accident happened. However, the NTSB cannot prove that he had the phone in his hands when the collision occurred.
Along with the possibility of playing a smartphone game, other issues occurred that ultimately led to the untimely death of Walter Huang. The Tesla that he was known to drive did not provide an alert signal when he was getting closer to a collision. The vehicle is supposed to provide an alert signal to drivers to let them know when they are getting too close to something on the road, but it failed to do that for him. The vehicle is equipped with automatic brakes, but those brakes did not work at the time of the accident or they were not activated when they should have been to prevent Huang from crashing.
There is a lot of talk about Tesla vehicles and the way that they are regularly advertised to the public. People are often led to believe that these vehicles will do most of the driving for them while making it possible for them to do plenty of other things on the road, such as texting, checking their email, playing a game on the phone, or even eating a sandwich. No matter the types of features that a vehicle comes with, a driver should keep their hands on the wheel for their own safety. Advertisements from Tesla have made people feel otherwise.
Because of what transpired that day in March, Huang’s family members have decided to file a lawsuit against Tesla. They believe that he would still be here if it were not for the over-exaggerated advertisements provided by Tesla. Because they are his loved ones, they have the right to file a personal injury lawsuit in which they can request compensation for Huang’s wrongful death.
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