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The BulleTin • Monday, deceMBer 13, 2021 A3 LOCAL, STATE & REGION DISTRACTED DRIVING In a Tesla, drivers can play video games Regulators investigating after Tesla owner from Oregon files complaint Mercedes-Benz issues recall over concerns a few days after reports surfaced that Tesla allows drivers to play video games on dashboard touch screens while vehicles are moving, Mercedes-Benz has issued a u.S. recall for a similar issue. The German automaker said in documents posted Friday by u.S. regulators that the issue affected 227 vehicles and already has been fixed by updating an internal com- puter server. But the fact that Mercedes did the recall over concerns about distracted driving, and Tesla has not, raised questions about whether federal auto safety standards are being applied equally by the national highway Traffic Safety administration. “MB is following the regulatory rules as they are supposed to — in sharp contrast to what we’ve been seeing from Tesla,” said Philip Koopman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at carnegie Mellon university. if nhTSa doesn’t take ac- tion against Tesla, the agency will have one standard for Tesla and another for Mer- cedes and other automakers, Koopman said. nhTSa didn’t directly address the double standard or Tesla, but said in a statement Friday that the federal vehicle safety act prohibits manufacturers from selling vehicles that pose an unreasonable risk to safety. BY TOM KRISHER associated Press Last August, Vince Patton was watching a YouTube video of a Tesla owner who had made a startling ob- servation: Tesla drivers could now play a video game on their car’s touch- screen dashboard — while the vehicle is moving. Curious to see for himself, Patton drove his own 2021 Tesla Model 3 to an empty community college parking lot, activated a game called “Sky Force Reloaded” from a menu and did a few loops. “I was just dumbfounded that, yes, sure enough, this sophisticated video game came up,” said Patton, a 59-year- old retired broadcast journalist who lives near Portland. He tried Solitaire, too, and was able to activate that game while driving. Later, he found he could browse the internet while his car was moving. Patton, who loves his car and says he has nothing against Tesla, worries that drivers will play games and be- come dangerously distracted. “Somebody’s going to get killed,” he said. “It’s absolutely insane.” Which is why early last month, Pat- ton decided to file a complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the government’s road safety agency. “NHTSA needs to prohibit all live video in the front seat and all live interactive web browsing while the car is in motion,” Patton wrote in his complaint. “Creating a dangerous distraction for the driver is recklessly negligent.” On Wednesday, NHTSA confirmed that it’s looking into the matter. News of Patton’s complaint was reported Tuesday by The New York Times. “We are aware of driver concerns Vince Patton, a new Tesla owner, demonstrates on Wednesday on a closed course in Portland how he can play video games on the vehicle’s console while driving. Patton, who lives near Portland, filed a complaint with federal regulators after discovering the feature in his new car. and are discussing the feature with the manufacturer,” a NHTSA spokes- woman wrote in an email. “The Vehi- cle Safety Act prohibits manufactur- ers from selling vehicles with design defects posing unreasonable risks to safety.” The spokeswoman declined to pro- vide further details of its conversa- tions with Tesla. The agency has not opened a formal investigation, which would involve requests for documents and other detailed information. Tesla, which has disbanded its media rela- tions department, did not respond to messages from The Associated Press. NHTSA’s inquiry marks the latest in a growing list of possible infrac- tions involving advanced auto tech- nology being reviewed by two federal agencies as potential safety risks. The government is looking into Tesla’s Autopilot partially automated driving system, as well as its “Full Self-Driving” software system, which is being tested by selected owners on public roads. In addition, as it increases scrutiny under President Joe Biden, NHTSA is investigating over-the-internet software updates that are intended to fix safety prob- lems and Tesla battery fires. In its statement, NHTSA said that it continues to research driving distrac- tions and that it has issued voluntary guidelines for automakers to deter- mine whether a particular task inter- feres with driver attention. “If a task does not meet the accep- tance criteria,” the statement said, “the NHTSA guidelines recommend that the task be made inaccessible for per- formance by the driver while driving.” The agency noted that crashes in- volving distracted drivers killed more than 3,100 people in 2019, represent- ing about 9% of all U.S. traffic deaths. But safety experts contend that dis- tracted driving crashes are under- counted. It’s unclear how long Tesla has al- lowed games to be played while ve- hicles are moving. But Patton said a software update that he noticed over the summer may have begun to allow “Sky Force Reloaded” to be used by Oregon’s Fred Meyer, QFC workers authorize strike BY DOUGLAS PERRY The oregonian Grocery workers at Fred Meyer and Quality Food Cen- ters stores in Oregon have voted to authorize an unfair labor practices strike, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 said Saturday night. Workers plan to go on strike beginning Friday morning if union leadership and manage- ment don’t reach an agreement on key bargaining issues. “Fred Meyer and QFC have repeatedly violated their le- gal duties to negotiate in good faith with Local 555, with the most blatant example being Fred Meyer’s refusal to pro- vide information necessary for the union to negotiate a new agreement and to process — Bulletin wire report Gillian Flaccus/aP grievances,” UFCW Local 555 President Dan Clay said in a statement. “The way these em- ployers have violated the Na- tional Labor Relations Act has left grocery workers no choice but to take action.” Miles Eshaia, a spokesper- son for the union, said workers voted to walk out after Fred Meyer and QFC stonewalled the union’s attempts to prove that certain workers uniformly are not being paid the hourly wage they’re supposed to be re- ceiving under the current con- tract. The two sides have been in contract negotiations since July, according to the union. Kroger, which owns Fred Meyer and QFC, did not re- spond Sunday to a request for comment. Last month, when nego- tiations for a new contract bogged down, Fred Meyer re- leased a statement that said, “The company and union had been making progress and came to a tentative agreement on safety, which has been the union’s stated priority.” Eshaia said Sunday that 97% of the union vote backed an unfair labor practices strike. An unfair labor practices strike is different — and often easier to resolve — than the better-known economic strike for concessions such as pay increases or benefits. Work- ers in an unfair labor practices strike cannot be permanently replaced, according to the Na- tional Labor Relations Board. Negotiations will continue. Had great delivery service this year? Want to show your appreciation to your carrier? Ext Ext ra! ra! Here’s how you can do that: 1. Send your gratuity to The Bulletin - We’ll promptly get it to the carrier 2. Call your gratuity in - Call us at 541-385-5800 to tip the carrier by credit card or debit card 3. Let us know you’re leaving something out for the carrier - We’ll let the carrier know to watch for it when they deliver www.bendbulletin.com Call us anytime to know who your carrier is. 541-385-5800 (due to privacy laws we can not give out the carrier’s phone number or address) drivers. The game, he noted, involves missiles and lasers that can be fired at objects. Before the video games can be acti- vated while the car is moving, drivers are asked whether they are passengers and must click a button saying they are. But Patton said there appears to be no way for Tesla to confirm that fact. “If you’re alone in the car,” he said, a driver could lie and still be able to play while driving. “That’s not much of a safety bar- rier,” he said. Even if only a passenger is playing the game, Patton said, it can still be distracting to the driver because the game takes up about two-thirds of the touch screen. This also makes it harder for the driver to see warnings and controls for windshield defrost- ers, he said. Previously, Patton said, games could be played only while the vehi- cles were in park. Many drivers use them while waiting for batteries to be recharged at Tesla’s Supercharger sta- tions, he said. The car, however, prevented him from watching movies on Netflix and YouTube while it was moving, he said. Jason Levine, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said in an email that NHTSA has the authority to declare the vehicles defec- tive and to seek a recall. “There’s little question that having a large screen next to the driver on which the driver, or a passenger, can play a video game while the vehicle is moving is an unreasonable risk to safety,” Levine wrote. “NHTSA’s recent statements would suggest this feature has been in violation of both the spirit and letter of NHTSA’s driver distraction guidelines and the law.” Tesla’s Autopilot system has been misused by drivers in the past, who have thwarted its system for detect- ing hands on the wheel. In one case, a driver in California was arrested while riding in the back seat as the car rolled down a freeway. After investigating two fatal crashes involving Autopilot, the National Transportation Safety Board recom- mended that Tesla install a camera system to ensure that drivers were paying attention. The agency said in October that Tesla hasn’t officially re- sponded.
