The Dawn Project Report to Congress: Tesla’s Self-Driving Software Has Been Involved in 59 Deaths, Urgent Regulatory Reform Needed

Public safety group delivers report documenting Tesla Full Self-Driving failures and calls for three specific regulatory reforms

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., April 30, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Dawn Project today delivered a report to members of Congress and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) documenting widespread safety failures in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, and called on state legislators and federal lawmakers to take immediate regulatory action.

According to NHTSA data, Tesla’s self-driving technology has been involved in 3,069 crashes and 59 fatalities in the United States since 2021. The Dawn Project’s report compiles the group’s own road tests, public-domain crash data, and incidents from Tesla’s ongoing “Robotaxi” deployments in Austin, Dallas, and Houston.

The Dawn Project is urging Congress, the California Legislature, and NHTSA to:

• Close the “Level 2 loophole.” Tesla classifies FSD as a Level 2 driver-assist system, which exempts it from most autonomous-vehicle reporting and liability requirements, despite marketing the software as “Tesla self-driving”.
• Require Operational Design Domain (ODD) registration, so regulators and the public know where and under what conditions self-driving software is permitted and safe to operate.
• Mandate real-time crash reporting, giving regulators, law enforcement, and the public immediate access to incident data.

“Tesla continues to relentlessly market its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software as fully autonomous while hiding behind its Level 2 designation, which serves as a regulatory shield that allows the company to avoid liability for the deaths its defective self-driving software causes on public roads,” said Dan O’Dowd, Founder of The Dawn Project. “The versions of FSD currently on the road will run red lights, drive onto active train tracks, blow past school buses with stop signs out, ignore ‘Do Not Enter’ and ‘Road Closed’ signs, and speed in school zones.”

Key findings

The report documents that Robotaxis operating on FSD in Austin, even with trained safety monitors in the vehicle, have crashed at roughly four times the rate of the average human driver, according to Tesla’s own published incident data.

In a June 2025 live demonstration in Austin, The Dawn Project tested whether FSD would stop for a school bus with its stop arm extended and red lights flashing. Across eight consecutive runs, the Tesla illegally bypassed the bus and struck a child mannequin every time. The software did not disengage, brake, or alert the driver in any of the runs. The test recreated the conditions of a 2023 North Carolina crash that left a child critically injured.

The Dawn Project maintains a public database of safety-critical FSD errors observed on public roads, available here. NHTSA has reported 59 fatalities and 3,069 crashes spanning from California to Florida involving Tesla’s self-driving technology.

Background

The Dawn Project has briefed federal and state policymakers throughout 2025 and 2026, including the confirmation hearing for Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, multiple House and Senate committees, and a November 2025 congressional briefing featuring Neima Benavides, the successful plaintiff in Benavides v. Tesla.

In March 2026, the group testified before the California State Senate Transportation Committee alongside Tesla crash survivor Dillon Angulo and former NHTSA advisor Missy Cummings. Court records from the Benavides trial showed that Tesla withheld crash data from investigators and plaintiffs.

O’Dowd added: “Fifty-nine people have been killed in crashes involving Tesla’s self-driving software. It is time for Congress and NHTSA to end Tesla’s reckless human experiments on public roads.”

“In the interest of public safety, it is time for both local and federal legislators and regulators to take a stand and end this reckless self-driving experiment that allows Tesla to use public roads as its testing ground. This requires ending the Level 2 loophole that Tesla abuses, demanding ODD registration, and mandating real-time crash reporting to ensure that regulators, the public, and law enforcement have immediate, transparent access to crash data.”

The full report is available here.

Contact: Arthur Maltin, dawnproject@maltinpr.com, +1 (805) 335-7807

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