this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
257 points (97.8% liked)

News

23014 readers
4 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Shipping tycoon Angela Chao was drunk when she inadvertently reversed her Tesla into a pond and drowned last month at a Texas ranch, police say.

Blanco County Sheriff's Office found her blood alcohol level was nearly three times the state's legal limit.

The 50-year-old died after dinner on 10 February with a group of friends at the estate near Johnson City.

Her brother-in-law, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, cited the tragedy in his resignation speech.

On Wednesday, Blanco County Sheriff's Office released the findings of its investigation concluding Ms Chao's death was an "unfortunate accident".

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 67 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Of course she was. Putting your car into reverse and letting it back fully into a pond without braking when you actually meant to put it in drive is not something an unimpaired driver does.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Don’t be so sure. I have seen people, rarely, actually be that incredibly stupid.

But, yes, it most often means they are impaired.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

One could argue that a room temperature IQ constitutes enough an impairment for driving.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

If Celsius, then yes.
Oh, and if Fahrenheit, then maybe.
If Kelvin, lend me your DeLorean time machine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

If that were the case, then we wouldn’t have global warming problem anymore.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Eh, not defending a drunk driver but there's more to this:

  • the Tesla gear interface is a touchscreen where there's no "feel" for which gear you've selected if you fatfinger it.
  • many folks, sober or drunk, when they get the car moving in an unexpected way reflexively stamp down on the pedal their foot is currently on. This could happen to you. You are not immune.

So if you are in the wrong gear, then panic stomp the pedal, you can absolutely find yourself speeding in the wrong direction.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

the Tesla gear interface is a touchscreen

Because of course it is... Jesus fucking Christ, of all the things to remove all tactile feedback from...

[–] pipe01 3 points 7 months ago

IIRC you have to swipe the whole screen to change into reverse, so you can't really do it accidentally

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Maybe the machine knew where she was going.

For those that don't know where they're going:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOW_kPzY_JY

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The gear selection method in those is non-intuitive. Doesn't alter your conclusions, just an unfortunate and unsafe design choice.

Edit: replaced wrong words

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Adrenaline does weird things to your brain, when controlling a car. When startled, we default to getting low and stable. That's good when standing, however, it putting your feet flat on the ground is extremely bad when in the driver's seat.

I've actually witnessed this in action. A slip resulted in 2 cars written off, 1 pushed through several gardens. I can easily see someone doing something similar, with a Tesla. Alcohol would just amplify the effect.