First ever felony charges against driver using autopilot filed against man who killed two people

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California prosecutors filed charges against a man who allegedly ran a red light and killed two people in 2019 while driving a Tesla on Autopilot, with experts calling it the first set of serious charges against someone using a widely available driver-assist system.

Kevin George Aziz Riad, 27, has pled not guilty to two counts of vehicular manslaughter. The limousine service driver is free on bail while the case is pending.

Los Angeles County prosecutors filed the charges in October, but they came to light only last week. 

Riad’s Tesla Model S was moving at a high speed when it left a freeway and ran a red light before striking a Honda Civic on December 29, 2019, police said.

The crash happened near the intersection of Artesia Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena, according to MyNewsLA.com.

The two people in the Civic, Gilberto Alcazar Lopez, 40, and Maria Guadalupe Nieves-Lopez, 39, died at the scene.

Teslas on Autopilot have hit highway barriers or tractor-trailers that were crossing roads. The NHTSA has sent teams to 27 crashes involving Autopilot since 2016, involving at least 11 deaths. The agency doesn’t publicize names of victims, though some have been revealed by local law enforcement and reported in media outlets.

In 2020, authorities filed a charge of negligent homicide against an Uber driver hired to test a fully autonomous car on public roads. Police have said they have proof she was streaming a TV show on her phone at the time of the accident. 

The car struck and killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018.

The misuse of Autopilot, which can control steering, speed and braking, has occurred on numerous occasions and is the subject of investigations by two federal agencies. The filing of charges in the California crash could serve as a warning to drivers who use systems like Autopilot that they cannot rely on them to control vehicles. 

Autopilot and other driver-assist systems are widely used on roads across the world. An estimated 765,000 Tesla vehicles are equipped with it in the United States alone.

Kevin George Aziz Riad appears to be the first person to be charged with a felony in the United States for a fatal crash involving a motorist driving with the widely used driver technology.

A memorial website for Maria Guadalupe Nieves-Lopez says she was survived by her mother and three siblings. 

Riad, the driver, and a woman in the Tesla were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.

Criminal charging documents do not mention Autopilot, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which sent investigators to the crash, confirmed last week that Autopilot was in use in the Tesla at the time of the crash.

Riad’s defense attorney did not respond to requests for comment last week, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to discuss the case. 

The families of Lopez and Nieves-Lopez have sued Tesla and Riad in separate lawsuits. 

They have alleged negligence by Riad and have accused Tesla of selling defective vehicles that can accelerate suddenly and that lack an effective automatic emergency braking system. A joint trial is scheduled for mid-2023.

Lopez’s family, in court documents, alleges that the car ‘suddenly and unintentionally accelerated to an excessive, unsafe and uncontrollable speed.’ Nieves-Lopez’s family further asserts that Riad was an unsafe driver, with multiple moving infractions on his record, and couldn’t handle the high-performance Tesla.

Riad’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 23.

NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board have been reviewing the widespread misuse of Autopilot by drivers, whose overconfidence and inattention have been blamed for multiple crashes, including fatal ones. 

In one crash report, the NTSB referred to its misuse as ‘automation complacency.’

In January 2018, a Tesla Model S on Autopilot hit a firetruck in Culver City, California.

Investigators said the design of the Autopilot system had ‘permitted the driver to disengage from the driving task.’ 

‘I was having a coffee and a bagel. And all I remember, that truck, and then I just saw the boom in my face and that was it,’ the driver told the NTSB, according to the Culver City Observer.

Firefighters at the scene said that the crash ‘scared the heck out of them.’

The driver, who said he was traveling from Woodland Hills to Los Angeles for work, did not have his hands on the steering wheel at the time of the crash, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

A Tesla spokesperson responded that, ‘Autopilot is intended for use only with a fully attentive driver.’ 

No one was hurt and it is unclear if the driver was ever charged.

In April, two men died after their 2019 Model S crashed into a tree and burst into flames near Spring, Texas, according to KHOU.

The victims were Dr. William Varner, 59, and Everette Talbot, 69.

Varner was the director of the Memorial Hermann Surgery Center, according to an online memorial page. 

Authorities initially said they were ‘positive’ that neither man was behind the wheel, but an NTSB report released in October revealed that the driver was actually behind the wheel and wearing his seatbelt at the time of the crash.

An autopsy found that Varner died partly due to to smoke inhalation, meaning that he was still breathing after the accident. 

In May, Param Sharma, 25, was arrested on misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and disobeying a peace officer after officers noticed his Tesla moving down a freeway while he sat in the back seat with no one in front. 

Dispatchers had gotten calls about a driverless Tesla Model 3 going east on Interstate 80 across the Bay Bridge, according to the New York Times.

Messages have been left seeking comment from Tesla, which has disbanded its media relations department. Since the Autopilot crashes began, Tesla has updated the software to try to make it harder for drivers to abuse it. 

It’s also tried to improve Autopilot’s ability to detect emergency vehicles.

The company has said that Autopilot and a more sophisticated ‘Full Self-Driving’ system cannot drive themselves and that drivers must pay attention and be ready to react at anytime. ‘Full Self-Driving’ is being tested by hundreds of Tesla owners on public roads in the U.S.

Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who studies automated vehicles, said this is the first U.S. case to his knowledge in which serious criminal charges were filed in a fatal crash involving a partially automated driver-assist system. 

Tesla, he said, could be ‘criminally, civilly or morally culpable’ if it is found to have put a dangerous technology on the road.

Donald Slavik, a Colorado lawyer who has served as a consultant in automotive technology lawsuits, including many against Tesla, said he, too, is unaware of any previous felony charges being filed against a US driver who was using partially automated driver technology involved in a fatal crash.

Separately, NHTSA is investigating a dozen crashes in which a Tesla on Autopilot ran into several parked emergency vehicles. In the crashes under investigation, at least 17 people were injured and one person was killed.

Asked about the manslaughter charges against Riad, the agency issued a statement saying there is no vehicle on sale that can drive itself. And whether or not a car is using a partially automated system, the agency said, ‘every vehicle requires the human driver to be in control at all times.’

NHTSA added that all state laws hold human drivers responsible for operation of their vehicles. Though automated systems can help drivers avoid crashes, the agency said, the technology must be used responsibly.

Rafaela Vasquez, the driver in the Uber autonomous test vehicle, was charged with negligent homicide in 2020 after the SUV fatally struck a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018.   

Police say they have proof her phone was streaming The Voice on Hulu at the time, according to the Phoenix New Times.

The crash marked the first time a pedestrian was killed by a self-driving car. 

The victim, Elaine Herzberg, 49, was homeless and had a string of drugs convictions when she was killed walking in front of the Uber self-driving car.

In January 2001, she was convicted of attempted armed robbery and sentenced to five years in prison, of which she served more than four years, being freed in November 2004. 

Vasquez attempted to rob a Blockbuster video store with an imitation firearm. 

Vasquez was also convicted of unsworn falsification committed in 1999, meaning she made a false statement to a public officials, and received a concurrent one year sentence.

At the time, she was known as Rafael and identified as male. It is not known when she transitioned to female.  

Last year, her lawyers filed an 83-page motion asking that the case be sent back to the grand jury for a new determination of probable cause. Vasquez has pleaded not guilty. Arizona prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against Uber.