Bummer Mitch McConnell wasn't in the trunk.

Don’t be so sure. I have seen people, rarely, actually be that incredibly stupid.

But, yes, it most often means they are impaired.

Eh, not defending a drunk driver but there's more to this:

• the Tesla gear interface is a touchscreen where there's no "feel" for which gear you've selected if you fatfinger it.
• many folks, sober or drunk, when they get the car moving in an unexpected way reflexively stamp down on the pedal their foot is currently on. This could happen to you. You are not immune.

So if you are in the wrong gear, then panic stomp the pedal, you can absolutely find yourself speeding in the wrong direction.

Maybe the machine knew where she was going.

For those that don't know where they're going:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOW_kPzY_JY

Adrenaline does weird things to your brain, when controlling a car. When startled, we default to getting low and stable. That's good when standing, however, it putting your feet flat on the ground is extremely bad when in the driver's seat.

I've actually witnessed this in action. A slip resulted in 2 cars written off, 1 pushed through several gardens. I can easily see someone doing something similar, with a Tesla. Alcohol would just amplify the effect.

The gear selection method in those is non-intuitive. Doesn't alter your conclusions, just an unfortunate and unsafe design choice.

Edit: replaced wrong words

Which is probably like 6 drinks in most states

You really don't want an automated system to have complete, unbreakable control over a scenario. You always want the option for a human to manually take control, because automation isn't foolproof, especially in edge cases.

However, they probably should have a breathalyzer that prevents you from taking manual control if you're so impaired that the automated system is probably safer than your drunken judgement.

Smell that Bill? Smells like someone died.

Some people like to drive, some people hate driving.

I would prefer driving in most situation regardless I'm a CEO or not. Probably that's why I'm not a CEO.....

That said, she could well hire a driver service for that, a taxi or even just call a Uber.

Err... her kids are just going to inherit that wealth.

This solves nothing and you shouldn't think it does.

The only way to get rid of the ruling class is to redistribute their wealth. Any other suggestion is just a distraction for useful idiots.

The false positives with that sort of system would be a major annoyance or dangerous. Steep driveways, rough transitions, potholes, railroad crossings, speed bumps, etc.

A Roomba operates on a nice flat floor and there is no reason it would have to traverse a surface transition of more than 3/8ths of an inch.

You hit a pot hole on the highway and now you’re stopping in the middle of it.

That’s why they don’t exist on vehicles, there’s lots of cases where they drop and still need to keep moving, while only a couple where it should stop, and in those cases it’s usually too late and won’t help.

After almost freezing to death in Colorado winter with a broken down rental, I make it a point to know how to operate all the locks and ignition manually.