“I was just shaking”—new documents reveal details of fatal Tesla crash

“It really looked like I had plenty of time to go across,” an anguished Florida truck driver said in an interview transcript released by the National Transportation Safety Board this week. Unfortunately, he was wrong.

Richard Wood was driving a semi truck on the morning of Friday, March 1, 2019. He pulled onto Florida’s SR 7 from a driveway, intending to make a left turn. But as he crossed to the opposite lane, a Tesla Model 3 belonging to Jeremy Banner crashed into the side of the truck. Banner’s Tesla went under Wood’s trailer, shearing off the roof and killing Banner.

The case attracted wide attention because Banner had engaged Tesla’s Autopilot technology. Not only that, the circumstances of Banner’s death were almost identical to the first Autopilot-related death in the United States: the death of Josh Brown in 2016. Brown was also killed when Autopilot failed to stop for a semi truck crossing in front of him on a Florida highway.

The truck driver’s interview transcript was one of many documents the NTSB released this week related to two fatal crashes involving Tesla’s Autopilot. I hope to go through documents related to the other crash, Walter Huang’s 2018 death, in the coming days.

“That dude didn’t make it”

The documents about Banner’s case provide a lot of new information about the circumstances of his death. Based on video footage, the NTSB estimates that the truck entered the roadway in front of Banner’s car about 4.5 seconds before the crash. Banner was traveling at almost 70 miles per hour; the truck was traveling about 10 miles per hour. Neither vehicle slowed down or took other evasive actions during those 4.5 seconds.

In fact, Wood says that initially he didn’t even realize that a fatal crash had occurred.

“I was going to take the left-hand lane and proceed on going north,” Wood said in an interview with authorities last March. “It’s a very busy intersection… It’s one of them intersections where you wonder why there isn’t a traffic light. But I’ve done it a dozen times. I clearly thought I had plenty of time.”

The crash happened just before the sun came up. Wood says he saw two pairs of headlights approaching, but believed they were far enough away that he could get across the intersection easily.

“It was dark and the cars looked like they was back further than what they was,” Wood said.

Then Wood says he “felt a push against my trailer.” He got out of his truck and “looked at my trailer and I seen debris stuck in the side of the trailer and it had a scuff mark down the side of the trailer.” It was still dark, he said. “I thought I had been involved in a hit and run.”

In reality, the momentum of Banner’s Model 3 carried the vehicle far down the road—apparently so far that Wood didn’t see it when he got out of his truck. Wood says it was only a few minutes later, as he saw the lights of emergency vehicles in the distance, that he realized the awful truth.

“This guy in this pickup truck come up and goes, ‘Are you the guy that drives this tractor?’ I said ‘yeah.’ And he goes, ‘That dude didn’t make it.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He goes, ‘That guy—it sheared the whole roof off his car.’”

It was only then, Wood says, that the reality of the situation fully hit him. “I went and got in the truck and I sit there until the cops got there because I was just shaking,” he told authorities.

No obvious distractions

Driver distraction is frequently a factor in situations like this, but the NTSB hasn’t identified any obvious factors impairing either driver. Wood says that he didn’t use his cell phone during that morning’s drive—a claim that seems to be backed up by cell phone records. He told investigators that he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since 2014.