Tesla accident: Driver watched Harry Potter as he crashed

A digital video disc player was found in the Tesla car that was on autopilot when its driver was killed in a May 7 collision with a truck, Florida Highway Patrol officials said.

Whether the portable DVD player was operating at the time of the crash has not been determined, however, and witnesses who came upon the wreckage of the 2015 Model S sedan gave differing accounts on Friday about whether the player was showing a movie. The accident is stoking the debate on whether drivers are being lulled into a false sense of security by such technology. A man who lives on the property where Brown’s car came to rest some 900 feet from the intersection where the crash occurred said when he approached the wreckage 15 minutes after the crash, he could hear the DVD player. An FHP trooper on the scene told the property owner, Robert VanKavelaar, that a Harry Potter movie was showing on the DVD player, Mr VanKavelaar told Reuters on Friday. Another witness, Terence Mulligan, said he arrived at the scene before the first Florida state trooper and found “there was no movie playing.” “There was no music. I was at the car. Right at the car,” Mr Mulligan told Reuters on Friday. Sergeant Kim Montes of the Florida Highway Patrol said on Friday that “there was a portable DVD player in the vehicle”.