Angela Chao: Shipping billionaire intoxicated when she drowned in Tesla, police report shows

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 256 points – Angela Chao: Shipping billionaire intoxicated when she drowned in Tesla, police report shows
bbc.com

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".

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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...

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

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.

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