Why Scrapping Car Crash Data Could Be Deadly
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This is a summary of Rachel Maddow's A-Block on MSNBC, Dec. 16, 2024Imagine this: You’re driving through a tunnel, families packed into cars on a holiday commute, when suddenly—out of nowhere—a vehicle slams on its brakes. In seconds, chaos erupts. A multi-car pileup, children screaming, traffic grinding to a halt. That nightmare wasn’t hypothetical. It was Thanksgiving Day, 2022, and the car at the center of it all was a Tesla. Its “Full Self-Driving” feature decided to brake—hard—without reason, causing a massive crash that left eight people injured, including a two-year-old child.
This is not an isolated incident. It’s part of a disturbing pattern: Tesla’s self-driving technology, heralded as a “major milestone” by CEO Elon Musk, has been linked to hundreds of crashes and dozens of deaths across the country. Yet now, with a new Trump administration taking shape, the federal rule requiring automakers to report these crashes is in serious jeopardy.
Why? Because the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, spent $250 million to help Donald Trump get elected. And now it’s payback time.
The Data Tesla—and Trump—Want to Bury
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has collected data on crashes involving automated driving systems for years. The goal? To determine whether handing the wheel to a machine is safer than letting humans drive. But the data is damning, particularly for Tesla. Consider this:
Tesla accounts for 40 of the 45 fatal crashes reported to NHTSA involving self-driving or autopilot systems.
High-profile incidents include a Tesla plowing into a stopped firetruck, killing its driver, and another whipping around a stopped school bus, striking a tenth-grader.
The numbers don’t lie. But now, they may disappear. According to Reuters, Trump’s transition team is preparing to scrap the car crash reporting rule entirely, calling it a case of “excessive data collection.”
Excessive data? Ask the Contra Costa County firefighters sent to the hospital when a Tesla slammed into their truck. Ask the parents of the North Carolina tenth-grader who ended up in a medevac helicopter after stepping off his school bus. Ask the families stuck in that tunnel on Thanksgiving Day. Is tracking life-or-death safety data really “excessive”?
The Price of Silence
It’s no secret why this rule is suddenly being considered. Musk has become Trump’s most prominent financial backer, pouring a staggering sum into his campaign. In return, the incoming administration appears willing to kneecap federal oversight, directly benefiting Tesla.
But here’s the brutal truth: Without this data, we won’t know the scope of the problem. Without the data, there will be no accountability when self-driving cars make catastrophic errors. And without the data, more people will get hurt.
Those who argue that this is just government overreach and that companies like Tesla should regulate themselves consider these crashes as not theoretical. People have died. Kids have been hospitalized. Emergency responders have been endangered. The reporting requirement isn’t about punishing innovation. It’s about saving lives.
Why This Matters Now
This isn’t just a policy debate. It’s a harbinger of what’s to come when billionaires fund elections and demand favors in return. Elon Musk’s financial power doesn’t just buy him headlines or hashtags but access, influence, and deregulation. And if this rule is eliminated, it sets a dangerous precedent: What other industries will see safety oversight rolled back? What other lives will be put at risk to satisfy donors and lobbyists?
For years, we’ve been told self-driving technology will make the roads safer. That promise remains unfulfilled. If anything, the data points to greater danger. Yet rather than fix the problem, Trump’s team wants to bury it.
The Bottom Line—and What You Can Do
This isn’t a niche issue. It’s about every person who shares the road—whether you’re driving your kids to school, walking across the street, or trusting that the car behind you will stop. Safety data should be collected, studied, and used to make driving safer for everyone—not swept under the rug to protect powerful interests.
If this rule disappears, so does our ability to hold these companies accountable. That should alarm us all.
What happens next depends on whether we demand transparency and oversight and whether we hold policymakers accountable for protecting public safety. Call your representatives and pay attention to these decisions. In the fight between billionaires and basic safety, the stakes are measured in lives.
PLEASE HELP GET THIS MESSAGE OUT:
This is just one of the thousands of ways things are going to suck so bad going forward. And so many of the ways, we don’t even know yet. It’s horrifying.