Tesla confirms driver-assist was engaged in fatal Missouri I-35 crash — absent from police report
In an April 2025 crash where a Model Y struck a guardrail on I-35 near Pattonsburg, Missouri, and killed its driver, Tesla's own report to federal regulators confirms its driver-assist system was engaged — a detail that was missing from the police report.
Electrek revisited a fatal crash that occurred on April 14, 2025, on Interstate 35 near Pattonsburg in Daviess County, Missouri, around mile marker 68. A 2024 Tesla Model Y ran off the west side of the road and struck a guardrail, killing its driver, a 64-year-old woman from Raymore who was wearing her seatbelt.
At the time, Missouri state troopers described it as a single-vehicle crash in which the car simply "went off the road," without noting whether any driver-assist system was active.
Tesla's own report to federal safety regulators, however, shows the vehicle's driver-assist system was engaged at the time of the crash. It's the latest in a pattern of cases where driver-assist activation wasn't captured in the initial police report but later surfaced through Tesla's regulatory filings.
The disclosure comes as federal scrutiny of Tesla's driver-assist systems intensifies, including a House member's recent demand that the Department of Transportation address dozens of "sleeping driver" videos and NHTSA's ongoing audit of the Cybercab rollout — raising the question of whether this case draws further regulatory attention.
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