A wrong-way crash in Ventura County triggered a chain of DUI arrests, including a man whose Tesla drove through road flares and struck a firefighter and fire truck

Bay Area News Group

VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. — A Saratoga man drove his Tesla into an emergency zone on the freeway, seriously injuring a firefighter, the California Highway Patrol said.

The series of crashes began about 2:25 a.m. Sunday in Simi Valley: A Ford Bronco Sport going the wrong way on westbound Highway 118 crashed head-on into a Honda CR-V, according to a report from the CHP office in Moorpark.

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While officers were investigating that crash, the Tesla Model 3 drove through the road flares and hit a firefighter who was assisting at the scene, the CHP said. The firefighter suffered serious injuries and was taken to a trauma center. The Tesla also struck a fire truck.

The driver, a 30-year-old Saratoga man, was arrested on suspicion of felony driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury.

As officers were wrapping up the investigation, another car drove through the flare pattern, the CHP said. Its driver, a 64-year-old Simi Valley man, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.

The driver of the Bronco in the wrong-way crash, a 24-year-old man from Shakopee, Minnesota, also was arrested on suspicion of DUI. He complained of injuries and was taken to a hospital; the Honda’s driver was not injured.

Three lanes of westbound Highway 118 were closed for about four hours, the CHP said.

The report did not say whether the Tesla was thought to have been in Autopilot mode.

Incidents in which Teslas crashed into a stationary emergency vehicle on a highway have been the subject of an ongoing study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

All the Teslas in those cases were confirmed to have been using Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control. Most of the crashes were at night, and flashing lights, flares or cones had been deployed near the stopped vehicles.

Included in the NHTSA study is a 2023 crash in Walnut Creek in which a driver died when her Tesla Model S struck a fire truck at an accident site on Interstate 680. The Tesla’s passenger and four firefighters were injured.

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