Tesla denies malfunction caused crash that killed cyclist

Similar experience on my first time but not for the same reasons. I went for the brake with the left foot as I wanted to use it for driving still. I didn't realise that although it felt like the same force, the right foot and left foot had been trained to apply different pressures so I was doing the equivalent of slamming on the brake rather then gently applying the pressure. I actually thought it was a safety feature at first (heavy brakes to overcome accelerator actions) until I realised it was my clumsiness. 

Not long after passing my driving test, with the over-confidence of youth, I thought I was probably good enough to have a go at left foot braking. What I thought would be a gentle brush of the brakes actually turned into an emergency stop and (as I was in a manual) a stall. Thankfully I was on an empty road at slow speed. Never again.

Exactly right.  Also, what came out of that investigation was that no matter how hard you push the accelerator, if you also push the brakes at the same time, the car will stop straight away.  Even a V8 engine going full power was easily overcome by the brakes.   Another factor was that the drivers were installing thick luxury sheepskin floor mats in their cars which were slipping.  The drivers couldn't push the brakes all the way to the floor.  They would then get confused, panic and switch to pushing the accelerator thinking they were pushing the wrong pedal previously.

AidanR wrote:

This wouldn't be the first time that a driver crashed because they've been pressing the accelerator when they thought that they were pressing the brake.

Not long after I passed my test I was pulling up to the pumps in a petrol station when some idiot walked across in front of me. Instinctively I stood on the brake pedal, which proved to be the accelerator. Unaccountably, it turns out I was in neutral at the time, so instead of ending his life right there I merely rolled uncomfortably close whilst revving my engine to the red line. He gave me a look as if to say, "what's your problem mate?" The Grim Reaper went home cheated.

Have a listen of this podcast:

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/blame-game

Unfortunately will make you even less trusting of people behind the wheel of cars....

IanMSpencer wrote:

However, surely a Tesla being driven manually still has active collision avoidance systems that would ignore accelerator input and apply brakes if it detected an imminent crash?

I'm not aware of any collision avoidance system that is perfect. They might stop you if you're driving directly towards a brick wall. But with thing like corners, junctions and other vehicles moving, it's very hard to prevent every collision - you have to make assumptions about what both the driver of the vehicle and every other road user is going to do. Otherwise you'd never get anywhere!

Flooring the accelerator will probably override any current collision avoidance system.

Certainly true of my new Mazda.

This is how the speed limiter defeat works on a lot of modern cars, including those sold prior to the new mandatory speed limiter devices