The Anger of Tesla Fans Is Becoming a Problem

This week, the Biden administration confirmed a Reuters report that it plans to appoint Missy Cummings, an engineering professor at Duke University and a former fighter pilot, as the senior adviser for safety at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The head of Duke's Humans and Autonomy Lab, Cummings is an expert in human factors, a field examining interactions between people and machines. That's an important skill set for the development of advanced driver-assistance systems, or ADAS, emerging automotive technologies that rely on safe handoffs between car and driver on the roadway. It's the crucial bridge between the mostly dumb vehicles we drive today and self-driving cars. Cummings has studied ADAS for years, and she has been a vocal critic of Tesla's deployment of its Autopilot feature, which enables a vehicle to moderate speed, make turns, and respond to traffic signals on its own (though, contra the feature's name, the driver must remain vigilant and ready to intervene).