The U.S. government’s road safety agency is again investigating Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system, this time after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents that it opened the probe on Thursday with the company reporting four crashes after Teslas entered areas of low visibility, including sun glare, fog and airborne dust.
In addition to the pedestrian’s death, another crash involved an injury, the agency said.
Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving” to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions, and if so, the contributing circumstances for these crashes.”
The c-suites have the ultimate power and therefore ultimate responsibility for whatever happens in their organization. Similar to how parents can be held criminally liable for their children’s actions. It’s just that much more incentive for them to make sure things are in order in their organization.
Also, Citizen’s United ruled that corporations are people, so they can be held to the same standards of responsibility as other people.
It’s a pretty limited liability, as can be seen in a lot of incidents (e.g. mass shootings). You have to prove a pretty high standard of negligence for a parent to be responsible for their kids’ actions.
The same should be true for anyone else as well, if the C-suite is unaware that something negligent or illegal was going on two levels below, they shouldn’t be held liable for that. You should only be liable for a crime that you are aware of, or should have been aware of if you were doing your due diligence. But yes, in many cases, the C-suites should be held to task here.