The Florida Highway Patrol investigates a crash near Gainesville in which two people died, July 6, 2022.
The U.S. government’s auto safety watchdog is sending investigators to another Tesla crash, this time one that killed two people along Interstate 75 in Florida.
The Associated Press reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed Friday that it sent a Special Crash Investigations team to probe the Wednesday crash into the back of a semi-trailer at a rest area near Gainesville. The agency would not say if the Tesla was operating on one of the company’s partially automated driving systems.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, the 2015 Tesla was traveling on Interstate 75 and for an “unknown reason,” exited into a rest area and hit a parked Walmart tractor-trailer. The FHP said the deadly crash happened just before 2 p.m. on Wednesday at the Paynes Prairie Rest Area.
The deceased were not immediately named, but they are described as a 66-year-old woman, identified as the driver, and a 67-year-old man, who was a passenger. Both are from Lompoc, California.
NHTSA is investigating 37 crashes involving automated driving systems since 2016. Of those, 30 involved Teslas, including 11 fatal crashes that have killed a total of 15 people.
The agency also said in documents that it’s investigating a fatal pedestrian crash in California involving a Tesla Model 3 that happened this month. It also sent a team to probe a Cruise automated vehicle crash in California that caused a minor injury in June.
In September of last year, the FHP said a driver failed to control her Tesla when it crashed into the patrol car of a trooper who was responding to a crash on Interstate 4 in Orlando. The incident was captured on the patrol car’s dashboard camera. The driver told the trooper that her vehicle was on Autopilot mode. “We have no proof one way or another if it was in the auto mode,” said FHP Lt Kim Montes following the incident.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.