January 1, California Driver Charged with Vehicular Manslaughter in Tesla Autopilot Crash

State prosecutors filed vehicular manslaughter charges against the man who drove a Tesla on Autopilot and ran a red light, slamming into another car and killing two people in 2019.

The driver, Kevin George Aziz Riad, is the first person in the U.S. to be charged with a felony for a fatal crash involving a partially automated system.

Riad, 27, faces two counts of vehicular manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail while the case is pending.

Police said a Model S was traveling at a high rate of speed when it left a freeway and ran a red light, crashing into a Honda Civic at an intersection on December 29, 2019.

While the criminal charges against Riad aren’t the first involving an automated driving system, they are the first to involve a widely-used driver technology.

In Arizona, authorities filed a charge of negligent homicide in 2020 against a driver Uber had hired to take part in the testing of a fully autonomous vehicle on public roads.

The vehicle, an SUV with the human backup driver on board, struck and killed a pedestrian.

By contrast, an estimated 765,000 Teslas are equipped with Autopilot in the U.S. alone.

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Tesla driver charged with vehicular manslaughter over fatal Autopilot crash