I’m sure Tesla will appeal the ruling down. Schreiber acknowledged that the driver, George McGee, was negligent when he blew through flashing lights, a stop sign and a T-intersection at 62 miles an hour before slamming into a Chevrolet Tahoe that the couple had parked to get a look at the stars.
The lead defense lawyer in the Miami case, Joel Smith, countered that Tesla warns drivers that they must keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel yet McGee chose not to do that while he looked for a dropped cellphone, adding to the danger by speeding. Noting that McGee had gone through the same intersection 30 or 40 times previously and hadn’t crashed during any of those trips, Smith said that isolated the cause to one thing alone: “The cause is that he dropped his cellphone.”
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