When safety statistician Randy Whitfield saw federal safety regulators claiming that airbag deployment crashes on Tesla Model S dropped 40 percent after the self-driving “Autosteer” feature was installed, his reaction was indelicate but clear: bullshit.
If such a reduction was true, it would be wonderful, he said. It would be a breakthrough in automotive safety.
But there was nothing in the report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to support such a striking claim and officials won’t tell him how they came to that conclusion.
So, he recently filed suit against NHTSA, insisting that the calculations be made public.
“I think we have a right to that,” he said.
The case involves a crash in 2016 in Florida that killed the driver of a 2015 Tesla S who was apparently using the vehicle’s autopilot feature. The NHTSA opened an investigation in June 2016 to determine whether a recall might be necessary.