The Dawn Project Urges Legislators To Ban Tesla Full Self-Driving Over Critical Safety Defects Published in New Report to Congress
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., July 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Public safety advocacy group The Dawn Project has called on legislators to take action to ban Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software from public roads over the litany of critical safety defects uncovered by the group’s safety tests of the software.
Today, The Dawn Project shared a report of its findings with legislators and key regulators, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which has numerous open investigations into Tesla Full Self-Driving. The report comes amid Tesla’s rollout of its “Robotaxi” service in Austin, Texas, which has been plagued with safety critical errors such as the Robotaxis driving on the wrong side of the road, blocking intersections, and nearly colliding with other cars.
The Dawn Project recently held a live demonstration of its safety tests in Austin which proved that the latest publicly available version of Tesla Full Self-Driving will run down a child crossing the road while illegally blowing past a stopped school bus with its red lights flashing and stop sign extended.
The Dawn Project was recreating a tragic incident in North Carolina in which a child was run down by a self-driving Tesla as they exited a school bus. The self-driving Tesla had blown past the school bus’s red flashing lights and stop sign before running down the child, who suffered a fractured neck and broken leg and was placed on a ventilator.
The Austin test was run eight times, and Full Self-Driving ran down the child mannequin while illegally blowing past the school bus on every single test. Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software did not disengage or even alert the driver to the fact there had been a collision on any of the test runs.
The Dawn Project has catalogued thousands of safety critical errors committed by Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software on public roads and constantly updates this database with new errors as they are identified. The Dawn Project also maintains a publicly accessible database of safety critical and other driving errors committed by Tesla’s Robotaxis in Austin. NHTSA has reported 50 fatalities and 2,185 crashes involving Tesla’s self-driving technology.
The Dawn Project’s Report to Congress outlines the key findings from the group’s safety tests and demands that legislators take immediate action to protect road users from Tesla Full Self-Driving by banning the software until Tesla conclusively proves it is safe.
Dan O’Dowd, Founder of The Dawn Project, commented: “Self-driving software that illegally blows past stopped school buses and runs down children crossing the road must be banned immediately. It is only a matter of time before a child is killed while getting off a school bus because of Elon Musk and Tesla’s utter negligence and contempt for public safety.”
“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration must step up and ban Tesla Full Self-Driving from public roads to protect children, pedestrians, and other road users. It is disappointing that the federal regulator in charge of road safety has taken no action to hold Tesla accountable. NHTSA must do its job and ban Tesla’s defective Full Self-Driving technology from public roads before more people are killed.”
“Legislators should protect their constituents from Tesla Full Self-Driving by calling for this dangerous and defective software to be banned immediately.”
A copy of The Dawn Project’s annual report can be viewed here.
Contact: info@dawnproject.com
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