The RCMP in Alberta have charged a 20-year-old British Columbia man with speeding while he was asleep at the wheel of a Tesla electric car.
The RCMP received a call at about 4 p.m. on July 9 concerning a 2019 Tesla Model S speeding south on Highway 2 near Ponoka, about 100 kilometres south of Edmonton.
Both front seats were fully reclined, and both the driver and passenger appeared to be sound asleep, police say.
The car appeared to be driving on autopilot at more than 140 km/h, RCMP Sgt. Darrin Turnbull told CBC News on Thursday. The speed limit on that stretch of highway is 110 km/h.
“Nobody was looking out the windshield to see where the car was going,” he said.
“I’ve been in policing for over 23 years and the majority of that in traffic law enforcement, and I’m speechless.
“I’ve never, ever seen anything like this before, but of course the technology wasn’t there.”
Tesla Model S sedans have autopilot functions, including auto-steer and “traffic-aware” cruise control, and both functions appeared to be activated.
“We believe the vehicle was operating on the autopilot system, which is really just an advanced driver safety system, a driver assist program. You still need to be driving the vehicle,” Turnbull said.
“But of course, there are after-market things that can be done to a vehicle against the manufacturer’s recommendations to change or circumvent the safety system.”
After the responding officer activated emergency lights on their vehicle, the Tesla automatically began to accelerate, Turnbull said, even as those vehicles that were ahead of the Tesla on the highway moved out of the way.
“Nobody appeared to be in the car, but the vehicle sped up because the line was clear in front.”
The responding officer obtained radar readings on the vehicle, confirming that it had automatically accelerated to exactly 150 km/h.
The RCMP charged the driver with speeding and issued a 24-hour licence suspension for fatigue.
After further investigation and consultation with the Crown, a Criminal Code charge of dangerous driving was laid against the driver, police said.
The driver was served with a summons for court in December.
Autonomous cars are in their early stages in much of Canada, with Ontario and Quebec approving pilot projects as long as a vigilant driver is present to take control of the vehicle when needed.
There have not been any reported self-driving car crashes in Canada, but several have been reported in the United States, putting Tesla’s autopilot driving system functions under scrutiny.
On Dec. 29, 2019, a Tesla Model S sedan left a freeway in Gardena, Calif., at high speed, ran a red light and struck a Honda Civic, killing two people inside, police said. On the same day, a Tesla Model 3 hit a parked firetruck on an Indiana freeway, killing a passenger in the Tesla.
On Dec. 7, a Model 3 struck a police cruiser on a Connecticut highway, but no one was hurt.
Tesla’s autopilot function is designed to keep a car in its lane and at a safe distance from other vehicles. Autopilot also can change lanes on its own.
‘It gives all of us a bad name’
Angie Dean, president of the Tesla Owners Club of Alberta, said the incident is troubling for the 300 paying members of her group and the more than 1,000 active members of the club’s online Facebook group.
Dean said the driver-assist functions in Tesla vehicles are designed to enhance safety, not detract from it.
“This type of story is sort of next to a worst-case scenario,” she said. “The only thing that would be worse than this is if someone had got hurt. Everyone that I’ve spoken with is just so disappointed and so frustrated because it’s abuse of the system.
“It gives all of us a bad name, and the vast majority of us would never do something like this. We bought these cars because we want to be safer.”
The driver-assist program requires regular input from the driver to function, Dean said. If the driver’s hands come off the wheel, warnings begin going off every 15 seconds, she said.
“It asks you to put your hands on the wheel and turn it a little bit so that it knows that your hands are on the wheel,” Dean said.
“If you don’t, it starts beeping at you. And if you still don’t, it gets even louder. And if you still don’t, it actually turns the hazard lights on, slows the vehicle down and it pulls it over. It turns the car off and autopilot will not engage for the rest of that drive.”
The technology behind self-driving cars is available and in use, but there are examples showing it may not be fully ready for the real world. 2:09
Despite the build-in safeguards, videos circulating online instruct drivers on ways to “hack” and override these systems, Dean said.
“There are a lot of systems that are in place that are really, really trying not to make this possible. But if there’s a will, there’s a way, I suppose. ”
Just because some vehicles can drive themselves, it doesn’t mean they should, the RCMP said.
“Although manufacturers of new vehicles have built in safeguards to prevent drivers from taking advantage of the new safety systems in vehicles, those systems are just that — supplemental safety systems,” said Supt. Gary Graham of Alberta RCMP Traffic Services.
“They are not self-driving systems, they still come with the responsibility of driving.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
Google, Meta and TikTok have removed social media accounts belonging to an industrial plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region aimed at recruiting young foreign women to make drones for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were taken down following an investigation by The Associated Press published Oct. 10 that detailed working conditions in the drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, which is under U.S. and British sanctions.
Videos and other posts on the social media platforms promised the young women, who are largely from Africa, a free plane ticket to Russia and a salary of more than $500 a month following their recruitment via the program called “Alabuga Start.”
But instead of a work-study program in areas like hospitality and catering, some of them said they learned only arriving in the Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with AP, some of the women who worked in the complex complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching. AP did not identify them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
The tech companies also removed accounts for Alabuga Polytechnic, a vocational boarding school for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production.
The accounts collectively had at least 158,344 followers while one page on TikTok had more than a million likes.
In a statement, YouTube said its parent company Google is committed to sanctions and trade compliance and “after review and consistent with our policies, we terminated channels associated with Alabuga Special Economic Zone.”
Meta said it removed accounts on Facebook and Instagram that “violate our policies.” The company said it was committed to complying with sanctions laws and said it recognized that human exploitation is a serious problem which required a multifaceted approach, including at Meta.
It said it had teams dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts and aimed to remove those seeking to abuse its platforms.
TikTok said it removed videos and accounts which violated its community guidelines, which state it does not allow content that is used for the recruitment of victims, coordination of their transport, and their exploitation using force, fraud, coercion, or deception.
The women aged 18-22 were recruited to fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia. They are from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive also is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
Accounts affiliated to Alabuga with tens of thousands of followers are still accessible on Telegram, which did not reply to a request for comment. The plant’s management also did not respond to AP.
The Alabuga Start recruiting drive used a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.
Videos also showed them enjoying Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports. None of the videos made it clear the women would be working in a drone manufacturing complex.
Online, Alabuga promoted visits to the industrial area by foreign dignitaries, including some from Brazil, Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, a Turkish diplomat who visited the plant had compared Alabuga Polytechnic to colleges in Turkey and pronounced it “much more developed and high-tech.”
According to Russian investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some pupils at Alabuga Polytechnic are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.
Videos previously on the platforms showed the vocational school students in team-building exercises such as “military-patriotic” paintball matches and recreating historic Soviet battles while wearing camouflage.
Last month, Alabuga Start said on Telegram its “audience has grown significantly!”
That could be due to its hiring of influencers, who promoted the site on TikTok and Instagram as an easy way for young women to make money after leaving school.
TikTok removed two videos promoting Alabuga after publication of the AP investigation.
Experts told AP that about 90% of the women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work in drone manufacturing.
