Cybertruck safety characteristics, including unlocking doors, remain unclear after the fatal accident
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by Brad Anderson
8 hours ago
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- An official report has cited alcohol, drug disability and dangerous speeds as accident contributors.
- The cybertruck caught fire after impact, trapping the passengers despite the efforts to escape.
- The handle without handle of the electric vehicle can have worsened the rescue efforts during the fire.
The testimony of a witness to a fatal accident involving a Tesla Cybertruck in Piedmont, California last November, raised concerns about the safety characteristics of the vehicle and the reckless behavior of people involved. According to American court documents, the driver and three passengers were under the influence at the time of the accident, when it was also revealed that the doors could not be opened.
Three of the four Tesla occupants were killed in the devastating crash. Matthew Riordan’s family owned Cybertruck, and he told investigators that his friend Soren Dixon, 19, begged him to take out the truck during a party. Riordan finally gave in, allowing Dixon to drive the Cybertruck, with Jack Nelson friends, Krysta Tsukahara and Jordan Miller joining for the journey. Riordan followed in another car and witnessed the accident.
Read: Feds examining the deadly Tesla Cybertruck crash that killed three teenagers
An autopsy later revealed that Dixon was twice the legal limit of alcohol at the time of the accident and also had cocaine and methamphetamine in his system. In interviews with investigators, Riordan said that he had frantically tried to save others but that he could only remove Miller from the wreckage.
“I could hear Krysta screaming and the car saying” Crash detected, “said Riordan.” I went back to the broken window and I shouted so that they try to go out at this window … Krysta tried to come, sticking my head (outside) from the back, I grabbed her arm to try to shoot her, but she got back because of the fire. ” He also tried the doors, but they wouldn’t move.
“Nothing was moving at all,” he said. “I then tried the button on the windshield of Jordan’s door, then the Krysta door”, but he could not open the doors. Riordan could not remove Miller from the Tesla on fire after desperately broke a window with a tree branch.
We do not know why Riordan could not open the doors of the Cybertruck, but it is quite possible that they automatically locked when Dixon began to drive and could not be opened from the outside. An official report by California Highway Patrol blamed the accident of a combination of alcohol intoxication, drug disorders and dangerous speeds.
However, it should be noted that the Tesla models, including the Y model and the S model, have a feature that automatically unlocks the doors when the airbags have been drawn. Many other cars also have this feature, but we have not been able to check if the Cybertruck also has this function.
A key problem with the cybertruck is that it has no external door handles. Instead, you need to press a pillar button to unlock the door, and finding these buttons in the middle of a flamboyant inferno could be very difficult.
