The crash came just one day after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a report on a fatal crash in May involving a Tesla that was also in self-driving mode.
Albert Scaglione and his artist son-in-law, Tim Yanke, both survived Thursday's crash near the Bedford exit, about 107 miles east of Pittsburgh.
The Detroit Free Press was not able to reach Scaglione, owner of Park West Gallery, or Yanke, but Dale Vukovich of the Pennsylvania State Police, who responded to the crash, said Scaglione told him that he had activated the Autopilot feature.
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In his crash report, Vukovich stated that Scaglione's car was traveling east near mile marker 160, about 5 p.m. when it hit a guardrail "off the right side of the roadway. It then crossed over the eastbound lanes and hit the concrete median."
After that, the Tesla Model X rolled onto its roof and came to rest in the middle eastbound lane. A 2013 Infiniti G37 driven in the westbound lane by Thomas Hess of West Chester, Penn.., was struck by debris from the Scaglione car, but neither he nor his passenger was hurt.
Vukovich said he likely will cite Scaglione after he completes his investigation, but he declined to specify the charge.
Albert Scaglione, founder and CEO of Park West Gallery
Albert Scaglione, founder and CEO of Park West Gallery in Southfield was injured when his Tesla Model X crashed into a guard rail and a concrete median last Friday on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near the town of Bedford. (Photo: Eric Seals/ Free Press photographer)
The Pennsylvania Turnpike has narrow shoulders and concrete medians that leave little margin for driver error. There's not enough evidence, for the moment, to indicate that Tesla's Autopilot malfunctioned.
Last Wednesday, NHTSA announced it is investigating the design and performance of the Autopilot system after a 40-year-old Canton, Ohio, man died May 7 in Florida when his 2015 Tesla Model S hit a tractor-trailer while in self-driving mode. The federal agency said both the driver and the Autopilot system failed to detect the large tractor-trailer making a left turn in front of him.
But the driver of the truck said there was a Harry Potter video still running when the Tesla came to a stop about a quarter-mile from the impact.
