Video Vigilante

Crazy road rage incident in East Austin caught on tape

Police are investigating an odd incident in East Austin involving this man.

Screenshot KVUE News

KVUE — A woman caught a driver on camera in Central East Austin after she spotted him driving recklessly on Berkman Drive. Julie Nowlin had her 4-year-old daughter in the back seat when she left to meet neighbors for coffee last week around 9 am. That's when she noticed a driver trying to run others off the road.

"[He was] crossing on the yellow stripe, driving in the bike lane, driving really close to them, intimidating them until they exited and left," Nowlin said. So Nowlin grabbed her phone to document it. "I went to take a picture of his license plate and he saw me in the rear view mirror," Nowlin said.

The cellphone video shows a man pull over into a bike lane, get out of the car and spit on Nowlin's windshield. He then shouts profanities before making his way back to the car.

Nowlin said the man pulled over and got out three different times while she tried to get away. "He proceeded to try to follow me, chased me around the neighborhood at high speeds, almost hit a lady jogger," she said.

While she was being chased Nowlin called 911, but says she lost the man. In an attempt to get away from the scene, Nowlin rushed to a Starbucks close by. "I'm shaking right now talking about it — it was horrible," Nowlin said. "I was just hiding in Starbucks for two hours, waiting for police."

Now she hopes others will come forward to help Austin police catch him. Nowlin sent her video to CultureMap's partner KVUE and posted it on the neighborhood listserv. That's when several other people spoke up with similar stories about who they believe is the same man.

This weekend, a KVUE employee saw the same man get out of his car and harass a driver at a red light. Another man in the neighborhood didn't want to go on camera, but said the same man tailgated him and chased him down Berkman Drive to 51st Street.

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To read the full story and see the video, head to KVUE.

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Defensive Driving

Austin-based Tesla faces new probe focused on remote driving feature

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 2.6 million Teslas.

Federal regulators have opened an investigation into 2.6 million Teslas after reports of crashes involving the use of company technology that allows drivers to remotely command their vehicle to return to them, or move to another location, using a phone app.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also said Tuesday, January 7 that Austin-based Tesla did not report any of the accidents. Tesla is under order to report crashes on “publicly accessible roads” involving vehicles being operated through its autonomous driving technology.

The new investigation follows another probe launched in October looking into the company's “Full Self-Driving” system after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. That investigation covers 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

One driver filed a complaint after a crash while using Tesla's “Actually Smart Summon” technology and NHTSA is looking into another three similar incidents based on media reports, the NHTSA said. The agency is looking into 12 total incidents reported by users of the technology.

Each of the vehicles failed to detect posts and other parked vehicles, according to the NHTSA.

Regulators say the vehicles struck objects because the users had "too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement.”

Shares of Tesla Inc. slid more than 4 percent in late afternoon trading Tuesday.

Musk has complained that U.S. regulations are too onerous and are holding back the development of self-driving cars. Ethics experts are worried that once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, Musk will push him to ease oversight of Tesla, which just suffered its first decline in annual sales in more than a decade.

Musk donated an estimated $250 million to Trump's presidential campaign and is a frequent guest at Trump's Mar-a-Lago, vetting cabinet nominees and meeting with foreign heads of state. Trump has put Musk in charge of an advisory group, the Department of Government Efficiency, that will recommend where to cut government expenses and staff at federal agencies and reduce regulation.

The NHTSA said it will look into the top speed that Teslas can reach when users deploy its “summons” technology, as well as restrictions on public roads and line of sights requirements. It also said it expects to check for any “connectivity delays" with the app that could result in increased stopping distance.

Tesla’s Model 3 owner’s manual says that its “summons” feature is designed for use only in parking lots and driveways on private property and is disabled on public roads.

The new probe covers 2016-2025 Model S and X vehicles, 2017-2025 Model 3, 2020-2025 Model Y equipped with Tesla's Full Self-Driving driver assistance system.

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