US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg on Monday said human drivers must pay attention at all times after videos emerged of people wearing what appeared to be Apple’s recently released Vision Pro headset while driving Teslas.
Buttigieg responded on Twitter/X to a video that had more than 24m views of a Tesla driver who appeared to be gesturing with his hands to manipulate a virtual reality field.
Despite their names, Tesla’s assisted driving features – Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving – do not mean the vehicles are fully autonomous, Buttigieg said Monday on social media.
“Reminder – ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully engaged in the driving task at all times,” Buttigieg said.
The issue is the government’s biggest concern isn’t safety, it’s being able to legislate those being unsafe. Which can actually be conflicting, because even if a VR headset showing directions on the road itself is less distracting than looking at a separate phone/GPS- a cop doesn’t know if you’re doing that, or if you have YouTube in the corner of your eye.