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A man suffered major injuries and died after the Tesla he was driving collided with a roadway barrier on Highway 101 Friday morning, leading to a vehicle fire and a three-car collision, according to the California Highway Patrol.
CHP officials say the driver of a blue Model S Tesla was traveling southbound on Highway 101 at freeway speeds when the vehicle struck the attenuator barrier dividing the highway and the carpool flyover onto Highway 85, causing the vehicle to catch fire.
The Tesla was subsequently struck by a Mazda as it careened into a lane on Highway 101, and then hit again by an Audi in another lane, CHP officials said.
The Tesla driver was transported to Stanford hospital with major injuries, CHP officials said. At 3:42 p.m., the CHP announced via Twitter that the driver had died of his injuries at Stanford Hospital. Later on Friday CHP reported that the driver was a 38-year-old from Foster City. His name was not released.
The Mountain View Fire Department responded to the collision Friday morning, but a fire spokeswoman declined to provide further information. Four emergency vehicles, including three fire engines, remained on the scene as of 11:45 a.m., according to the app PulsePoint.
Three lanes, including the flyover carpool lane, were closed off to traffic during an investigation of the crash. Tesla engineers were called in to verify that the vehicle was safe to move, CHP officials said. The freeway lanes were reopened shortly after 3 p.m.
Four cars involved. Tesla burned to a crisp. Looked like one serious injury. Very sad. Hope they made it.
I noticed several helicopters hovering over 101 while I was at the MV Caltrain station around this time. I guess they were probably news choppers. How awful. I hope the injured driver survives.
I was there a maybe two minutes after this all happened, and it was horrible. There was debris strewn everywhere, there were two people lying in the road, and I don’t want to go into detail out of respect, but the poor Tesla driver looked in bad shape, I hope that he survives and makes a good recovery, but he’s got a long road ahead of him. The Tesla wasn’t yet on fire when I saw this, and I also saw a Prius parked in the median, a box truck that another car had rear ended, and more parts all over the road than you’d expect. Cars are big, heavy, fast moving things, I really wish people drove more carefully.
Was it another self driving Tesla????? Wow technology is so safe.
Do you have some insider information nobody else has which leads you to believe that self driving was involved? It’s certainly possible, but we have no idea. It could have been distracted driving, aggressive driving, any number of things. That interchange is a mess in the mornings, with lots of people diving across several lanes to catch a last second ramp exit.
Right…because there were never car accidents before self-driving cars? While self-driving cars may not be perfect, and may never be, I’d still feel safer with them then all the people driving around on their phones or staring off into space. Are you afraid of all technology, or just self-driving cars?
These are not “accidents”, but are “stupids”, reflecting the way people drive.
Sadly, the article states that the driver of the Tesla suffered major injuries and died.
They don’t say about the other two cars – hope they survived this terrible incident.
Tesla is local so they can call in Tesla engineers to determine if it’s safe to move the car. What do they do for Tesla crashes everywhere else?
I really hope the Tesla driver experienced an accident versus driving like a handful of Tesla drivers who think they are better than other people because of their expensive cars. I’ve seen so many of these guys tailgating, accelerating off red lights, speeding on the highway etc. They have become the new douche-bags drivers taking over from BMW drivers.
But rest in peace regardless.
Strange how the car needed to be cut in half to remove the occupants.
Choose said on kron tonight that the Tesla was on the left side about to take the commuter lane onto the 85 flyover when at the last minute they decided they wanted to stay on 101s and clipped the guard rail that started the chain of events.
One disturbing observation while watching the report, CHP called Tesla engineers to determine if the car was stable to move, where the Tesla engineers deemed the battery of the car too dangerous move until they drained the charge to reduce explosions. Are these cars going to become bombs after they get into accidents?