Joshua Brown and his 2015 Tesla, dubbed “Tessie”.

Driverless cars are the future.  We already have cars that help us parallel park, and every company seems to be getting in on the driverless car game, from Google to Tesla to the Department of Defense.  So far, so good, by and large.  There have been accidents, but they’ve typically been the fault of other people on the road, not the driverless cars.  That has just changed. The first fatality in a driverless car has occurred.

Joshua Brown, a 40-year-old technology company owner from Canton, Ohio, smashed into the side of a tractor trailer.  The fatal wreck happened on May 7 in Williston, Florida.  Brown was riding in his Tesla and watching Harry Potter on a portable DVD player when his car failed to apply the brakes for a turning tractor trailer driven by Frank Baressi.  According to Baressi, Brown went through his trailer so quickly that Baressi didn’t even see him.

Apparently, the Tesla failed to differentiate the bright white of a turning truck with the brightness of the sky, leading to the fatal accident. Sadly, Brown was the perfect candidate for a driverless car, because, according to those who knew him, he drove with a lead foot and the driverless car made him drive a little safer.

Tags: driverless car fatality, first fatality in driverless car, driverless car accident, tesla, tesla motors, joshua brown, canton, ohio, driverless car rider killed in wreck, driverless car wreck, williston, florida, harry potter, driverless car passenger killed in wreck, unusual accidents

I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty. […]

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, […]

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues […]

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called […]

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop […]

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader. […]

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account. […]