Remember, folks, the Tesla CEO promised us the safest car on the road that would eliminate crashes by 2018. Instead, the brand has uniquely increased dangers to the point where if someone films a major highway there’s a high likelihood they’ll get footage of a Tesla crash.
A BBC camera crew has filmed a collision between two cars while preparing a news report about road safety on the Lincolnshire stretch of the A1.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this story is some obvious propaganda slinging from a highway spokesperson.
National Highways is responsible for the A1. A spokesperson said safety was its top priority. “The A1 generally performs well on safety. Nevertheless, we are never complacent and we recognise the concern that people have expressed.”
No. The A1 doesn’t perform well. That’s the point of the BBC turning on a camera to watch Tesla crash, the kind of reporting clearly ignored by the person claiming to be responding. And here’s context from the UK Parliamentary debates just a few days ago, 29th July 2024:
…we see a worrying proliferation in road accidents—all too often fatal—along our stretch of this ancient road. The Department for Transport’s data unfortunately demonstrates that proliferation. In 2022, there were 500 crashes on the A1, 26% more than the A5 and 16% more than the A2. In the last five years there have been 201 closures, the majority due to accidents. That averages out as an accident every two weeks, but unfortunately, in the few weeks leading up to this debate, we have seen four serious accidents, including one tragic death and three people seriously injured.
That’s the A1 not generally performing well by any standard.
Yes, there has been complacency. Here’s an example: saying “generally performs well” about a road that doesn’t perform well. Few phrases could show as much complacency about safety as this one: “generally performs well”.
At least the spokesperson didn’t say “but how was the rest of the play Mrs. Lincoln, generally performed well?”
And of course there is actually no evidence that public concerns are being recognized, which undermines any claim about top priority. In other words, recognition is an extremely low bar for safety concern and National Highways hasn’t even proven that.
Perhaps the absolute stupidity of Tesla safety failures, the constant sore thumb of any road and cause of crashes, will help highlight the A1 being a safety failure.