On May 7th this year an accident occurred on a Florida highway that resulted in the death of Joshua Brown, a 40-year old Ohio man. Brown’s Tesla Model S had been on auto-pilot, with initial reports stating that the collision with a Freightliner Cascadia truck-tractor was due to the automated driving systems not applying the brakes.

A preliminary report by the National Traffic Safety Board (NTSB) has now revealed that the Tesla car was speeding, traveling at 74 mph in a 65 mph zone. According to the report Brown, the owner of a Ohio-based research and development company, had been using the car’s cruise control and lane-keeping feature at the time of the crash.

The investigation is ongoing, and the report doesn’t come to a conclusion as to the actual cause of the accident.

“System performance data also revealed that the driver was operating the car using the advanced driver assistance features Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer lane keeping assistance,” states NTSB, “The car was also equipped with automatic emergency braking that is designed to automatically apply the brakes to reduce the severity of or assist in avoiding frontal collisions.”

The above video, filmed by Brown, was taken while he was driving his Tesla Model S and it shows how by employing auto-pilot a possible collision with a truck was avoided. Obviously enamored with his Tessy, Brown writes of the instance, “Tessy did great. I have done a lot of testing with the sensors in the car and the software capabilities. I have always been impressed with the car, but I had not tested the car’s side collision avoidance. I am VERY impressed. Excellent job Elon!”

The truck driver involved in the crash has been reported as saying that Brown’s car was traveling at such a high speed that he didn’t see him. The driver also stated that when he went over to the spot where Brown’s crashed car had stopped a Harry Potter movie, “was still playing when he died.” Florida Highway Patrol told reporters that a portable DVD player was found in the car.

While self-driving technology’s ambition is to have fully autonomous cars, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in 2015 of the auto-steering feature, “We’re being especially cautious at this early stage, so we’re advising drivers to keep their hands on the wheel just in case … The software is very new.”

Photo credit: National Traffic Safety Board