Paris 13th - English Summary
Technical inquiry report on the electric vehicle accident that occurred on December 11, 2021, on Avenue d’Ivry in Paris (13th arrondissement)
On Saturday, December 11, 2021, in Paris (13th arrondissement), at around 8:45 p.m., a Tesla light vehicle was traveling north up Avenue d’Ivry. The roadway was developed by the City of Paris to allow cyclists to travel safely on this important road. From Boulevard Massena to Rue de Tolbiac, concrete barriers physically separate the flow of road vehicles from cyclists.
Although his vehicle was highly automated, the driver had not activated Autopilot, a driving aid that controls the vehicle’s longitudinal and lateral movements. The vehicle was driven manually.
Roughly halfway down Avenue d’Ivry, the car braked suddenly due to the activation of the AEBS, probably due to an unexpected reaction of this system, as no nearby obstacle was identified by the driver. Probably thinking that this was regenerative braking associated with the accelerator pedal, and to avoid stopping the vehicle, the driver pressed hard on the accelerator without realizing it. The AEBS is deactivated and the vehicle then accelerates sharply.
Not having immediately noticed this acceleration, the driver panicked and unconsciously kept his foot on the accelerator. He nevertheless managed to steer his vehicle and at a crossroads took advantage of the absence of a concrete barrier to enter the cycle path, which was little used, allowing him to avoid hitting other road vehicles. Despite the dizzying speed and the narrowness of the lane, he stayed in the cycle path while avoiding the cycle parking facilities on the left-hand side of the road and the concrete barriers on the right.
Unfortunately, at 118 km/h, the vehicle fatally struck a cyclist from behind who was traveling north. Arriving at the end of the cycle path, it then hit street furniture at 140 km/h, including a glass container which exploded, injuring around twenty people present at the intersection. It was finally stopped after the collision with a light utility vehicle at the intersection with Rue de Tolbiac.
The main cause of the accident was the driver’s failure to understand his mistake in pressing the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. Panicked by such rapid acceleration, he was unable to react to his surroundings or attempt to correct the acceleration, including taking his foot off the accelerator.
The factors contributing to the accident were the ability to deactivate the automatic braking of the AEBS by pressing the accelerator, and the driver’s lack of knowledge of the vehicle’s operation and performance.
The BEA-TT proposes safety guidelines related to these factors, and of more general application, a modification of the data of the Event Data Recorder (EDR), equipment intended to record certain kinematic and operating parameters of the systems equipping new vehicles.
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