A mum-of-four who ploughed her Toyota 4×4 into oncoming traffic has said the double smash was not her fault because the car’s computer system ‘took over’.
Diane Bryan, 58, from Barnsley in South Yorkshire, got the brand new Toyota RAV4 Excel just six months before she was involved in the December 2022 crash.
The Motability vehicle scheme allows people who receive mobility personal independence payments (PIP) to trade their payments in for an adapted vehicle.
She insisted that when she tried to turn left round a bend the wheel of the £41,000 vehicle refused to budge – and that the ‘white line’ technology didn’t kick in to pull her back when she crossed the central point.
The automobile veered to the opposite side of the road before hitting two incoming vehicles, the drivers of which escaped the incident unharmed, according to dashcam footage from the Southampton to Glastonbury trip.
Diane received six points and an £800 fine after it was determined that she drove without using the proper caution and attention in court. Additionally, Diane stated that her automobile was demolished before it was examined.
The Pre-Collision System on the Toyota RAV4 is one of the systems that helps prevent collisions by braking automatically if the driver doesn’t.
Other features include an emergency call system that will initiate immediately in the case of a collision and Lane Trace Assist, which uses steering assistance to maintain the car in the centre of the lane.
Diane said that she was notified of a recall in February of this year about the emergency call system’s Data Communication Module.
Errors listed included ’emergency calls… cannot be received by the vehicle’ and ‘the most recent location data will be cleared’.
Speaking after the case, Diane, said: ‘I’m a criminal for the first time in my life.
‘I have a criminal record for something outside of my control. I’m scared of driving and am nervous on the roads. I don’t drive on roads I don’t know.
‘The car was designed that at no point should it ever be able to cross a white line, but it went straight over.
‘If you get close to a line the steering wheel vibrates – if you ignore the vibration it re-centers itself in the road.
‘But there was no vibration in the steering wheel and it didn’t re-centre itself.
‘I went to court and three magistrates totally disbelieved what my husband and I said. I got charged with driving without due care and attention.
‘I was offered a Safe & Considerate Driving Course instead of points and a fine which I accepted, but they couldn’t provide an adapted vehicle.
‘Because I no longer had my vehicle I couldn’t do it – but had I been able-bodied, I could have done the course.
‘Instead, I was given six points on my license for the first time in over 30 years of driving.’
On December 17, 2022, Diane and her 56-year-old husband Stan Bryan were travelling from Southampton to Glastonbury when the collision occurred.
The mother said she was moving from a 60mph zone into a 40mph zone when the car went straight on at a bend despite her turning the wheel after it was pulled out of her hand ‘by the car’ and started spinning.
Still, this isn’t the first instance of an autonomous vehicle malfunctioning.
Now legislation in the UK is set to assign legal responsibility for crashes involving self-driving cars to manufacturers rather than individual car owners. King Charles announced the government’s plans to introduce an Automated Vehicles Bill.
This implies that drivers of self-driving vehicles would not be prosecuted, which is not the case in this instance.
We become upset when a human mistake causes an accident, yet we are content to let AI operate vehicles on public highways, even if it occasionally results in fatalities or serious injuries to people.
Cars should not be automated, they are dangerous and a liability to the general public, and should be taken off the roads, including Tesla cars.
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