Police stopped a Tesla operating on Autopilot with drunk driver asleep

The Tesla Model S involved
in the incident is not pictured here.
Bryan Logan/Business Insider

• Police in the Northern California town of Redwood City
  arrested a man they found sleeping behind the wheel of his
  Tesla Model S as it drove down a highway early Friday
  morning.
• The electric luxury sedan had been traveling south on
  Highway 101, going about 70 mph, California Highway Patrol
  Officer Art Montiel told Business Insider.
• Montiel said officers believed the Tesla was operating
  on Autopilot because the driver, Alexander Samek, did not
  respond to their lights and sirens when they tried to pull the
  vehicle over.
• Police stopped traffic behind the Tesla while another
  officer traveling in front of the car gradually slowed down,
  forcing the semi-autonomous sedan, which can respond to varying
  traffic speeds and accelerate or slow down accordingly, to a
  complete stop.

Police in the Northern California town of Redwood City arrested a
man who was traveling on Highway 101 early Friday morning while
sleeping behind the wheel of his Tesla Model S.

Officers first spotted the electric luxury sedan driving south at
about 70 mph around 3:40 a.m., California Highway Patrol Officer
Art Montiel told Business Insider on Friday night.

Montiel said the officers took action when it became clear that
the driver, 45-year-old Alexander Samek, was sleeping.

“The driver wasn’t responding to lights and sirens,” Montiel
said.

The officers believed the Tesla may have been operating on
Autopilot, a
semi-autonomous-driving feature that allows Teslas to drive
and change lanes in traffic with minimal human input.

In order to get the sleeping driver’s Tesla to stop, Montiel said
officers blocked traffic behind the vehicle while another officer
traveling in front of the car gradually slowed down, forcing the
Tesla, which can respond to varying traffic speeds and accelerate
or slow down accordingly, to a complete stop.

“Once the vehicle came to a stop, the officers got out of their
patrol cars, approached the Tesla, and knocked on the windows to
wake up the driver,” Montiel said.

Officers placed Samek in a patrol car, while another one drove
the intoxicated man’s Tesla off the freeway and parked it at a
nearby gas station.

Samek was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.
Montiel applauded the CHP’s “quick thinking” to get the Tesla and
its driver out of harm’s way.

Several Teslas
have crashed while operating on Autopilot in recent months. A
man was killed when
his Model X SUV slammed into a highway barrier in Mountain
View, California, in March.

Teslas equipped with Autopilot cannot drive themselves. The
system deploys an escalating series of warnings if it detects
that the driver does not have their hands on the steering wheel.
If the driver does not respond, the system deactivates itself.

Tesla declined to comment on the incident.

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