Drunk Tesla Driver Arrested For DUI Despite Self-Driving Car

A Bay Area man who took advantage of one of the marvels of modern technology was arrested on the afternoon of Jan. 13. The San Francisco branch of the California Highway Patrol tweeted out this image and accompanying caption Friday, showing an unidentified man who got arrested for a DUI after he was caught passed out behind the wheel of a self-driving Tesla.

The SF CHP got calls about the man and responded quickly, as they have patrols on the Bay Bridge at all times, SFGate reported. With a blood alcohol level significantly above a legally acceptable level, he told officers it was fine because the car was on autopilot.

Self-driving functionality is a staple of current Tesla models, but the technology has not advanced far enough for the company to recommend drunk people use it as a personal taxi. In a statement given to SFGate, Tesla said only “fully attentive” drivers should use the self-driving feature, with both hands on the steering wheel in case the onboard computer makes any mistakes. The utopian vision of owning one’s own drunk Uber is not here yet.

Since users of the self-driving tech are not “driving” in the same way traditional drivers are, there have been questions about whether or not drunk autopilot users should be charged with DUIs. As the tech becomes more and more commonplace in the United States and abroad, governments will give it more regulatory consideration out of pure necessity, as the U.S. government plans to do in the summer.