A Tesla owner in Ohio had a terrifying experience recently when his car tried to drive him right into a crossing train, according to multiple videos posted to the Tesla Motors Club forum. The vehicle was in Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode and allegedly, this isn’t the first time the driver has experienced a disturbing incident at a railroad crossing.
“I have owned my Tesla for less than a year, and within the last six months, it has twice attempted to drive directly into a passing train while in FSD mode,” a forum user identified as Craig Doty II from Camden, Ohio wrote on Sunday. “The most recent incident occurred on May 8, 2024, and I have dash cam footage from that event.”
Most commenters on the forum asked intelligent questions, trying to learn more about why this may have happened. But others expressed skepticism that Doty was actually using FSD, the driver’s assistance software that’s been blamed for a number of accidents in recent years. FSD is supposed to be supervised by a human and Tesla recently changed the name to “Full Self-Driving (Supervised).”
Doty pushed back on the skepticism, saying that most of the time, FSD works just fine, but that he’s had two concerning experiences since buying his car.
“Both incidents happened at different railroad crossings, where I was the first car at the tracks,” Doty wrote on Sunday. “I have a 55-mile commute one-way each morning, and 98% of the time, the FSD does exactly what it’s supposed to do.”
Some of the commenters suggested perhaps Doty was using Autopilot, the less sophisticated version of FSD that acts more like fancy cruise control. But Doty goes on to say he’s not trying to engage in “insurance fraud,” by claiming it was in FSD rather than Autopilot.
“This is not an attempt at ‘insurance fraud.’ It is very concerning to me that the FSD system has failed to recognize a train crossing twice,” Doty writes.
Gizmodo was unable to reach Doty for this story, but he’s posted four videos with different angles from the crash, which he says happened earlier this month.
Doty also posted a photo of his car in the aftermath of the incident, showing damage to the front of the car, presumably from the collision with the crossing arm at the intersection.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to questions emailed Tuesday morning. Gizmodo will update this post if we hear back.
Update, May 22 12:00 p.m. ET: After this story was first published Gizmodo was able to communicate with Doty over email, who provided data from the Tesla Data Report that shows FSD was activated “up until the point I took control of it and cranked the wheel to the right and slammed on the brake!”