A 42-year-old Palm Harbor man was tragically killed in a fiery head-on collision on State Road 54 in Pasco County Monday morning. A 19-year-old woman also sustained serious injuries in the crash.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), the crash occurred around 7:55 a.m. west of Heron Cove Drive. A 19-year-old woman driving an Infiniti G37 westbound on SR-54 failed to negotiate a curve, entered the median, and overturned. Upon re-entering the roadway, the Infiniti collided head-on with an eastbound Tesla Model 3, driven by the Palm Harbor man.
Important news. The Tesla did not stop!!! Why not?! Infinity driver crossed road slowing and obvious to see, Tesla killed the driver int he Tesla!
Sir, I’m a big fan of your blog because you provide us with a reliable source of crash reporting. You’re doing the right thing for the academic community and we appreciate you. To me this crash demonstrates once again a fundamental failure in Tesla’s collision avoidance system. The overturned vehicle is a large, detectable obstacle with sufficient contrast against the roadway for immediate reaction. With normal and proper sensor functionality, any system would detect this mass, calculate a collision trajectory, and initiate emergency braking protocols. This is precisely what it is meant to do. There is no “edge case” for large oncoming object avoidance, precisely the scenario these systems are designed to handle. However, the observed Tesla impact angle and damage patterns suggest minimal detection or deceleration occurred before impact. A functioning automated emergency braking system significantly reduces collision velocity, if not prevents impact entirely. There seems to be in the image alone evidence of a critical gap between Tesla’s safety claims and real-world performance in basic obstacle avoidance scenarios.
Former safety investigator here. DOGE killed my job so I’ve got time on my hands as a political prisoner, before they send me off to whatever national park is about to be converted into a concentration camp for scientists. Here’s the simple formula:
Available Reaction Time = Detection Distance ÷ Relative Speed
In a typical highway scenario we would say:
Detection distance: 60 meters (Tesla cameras can detect large objects at 80+ meters)
Vehicle speed: 31 m/s (70 mph)
Available Time = 60m ÷ 31m/s = 1.94 seconds
Computer reaction timeline would go something like this:
Sensor detection: 0.05 seconds
Processing: 0.1 seconds
Brake activation: 0.1 seconds
Total: 0.25 seconds
Braking Distance Calculation
Braking distance = (Speed²) ÷ (2 × Deceleration)
With Tesla’s claimed deceleration of 9 m/s²:
Required stopping distance from 70 mph: (31 m/s)² ÷ (2 × 9 m/s²) = 53.4 meters
Time required to stop = Available Time (1.94s) – Computer Reaction Time (0.25s) = 1.69 seconds
This shows the computer had approximately 1.69 seconds to apply braking, thus more than sufficient to significantly reduce impact speed or potentially avoid this tragedy entirely.
The large, high-contrast, overturned vehicle is unambiguously detected by multiple sensors in a properly functioning vehicle.
Tesla is never properly functioning. Which is why DOGE was created to fire everyone who could point out these deadly failures.
Even accounting for the sliding motion, the predictive algorithms should have registered this as an obstacle requiring emergency response, which is actually the core function of collision avoidance. If the Tesla is not detecting large obstacles and preventing or mitigating impacts, it’s not working and should be halted on roads as false advertising. The DOGE man appears to have fundamentally failed at his primary task.
But we all knew that already, as just the last year of data on Tesla alone presents a very damning picture for public safety. How many more lives must be lost while Elon Musk fronts foreign investors who censor our best scientists to destroy American lives?