Lawmaker Demands Federal Probe Into Tesla Driver-Monitoring Failures
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi calls on DOT and NHTSA to investigate after NBC News uncovered dozens of videos of drivers sleeping at the wheel.
U.S. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) has issued a formal demand to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to investigate Tesla's driver-monitoring systems. The lawmaker is questioning whether the company's safeguards are fundamentally ineffective or constitute a systemic safety defect that necessitates a federal recall.
The demand follows an NBC News investigation that surfaced 43 videos of drivers appearing to sleep while their vehicles were in motion using either Autopilot or Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. According to the report, 17 of those videos were posted in 2026 alone. Beyond social media footage, NBC News identified 13 separate instances in California where drivers were cited for unsafe driving while utilizing the software.
The Supervision Gap
Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD are classified as Level 2 driver assistance systems, meaning they are not autonomous and require constant human supervision. To enforce this, Tesla employs a cabin camera to track head and eye movements alongside steering wheel input monitoring. However, the gap between this technical requirement and actual driver behavior has widened. Rep. Krishnamoorthi noted that while FSD requires continuous supervision, the system's messaging appears to encourage use even when the vehicle detects the driver may be less capable.
Regulatory Pressure
This latest congressional pressure arrives as NHTSA is already conducting an open engineering analysis (EA26002) involving approximately 3.2 million FSD-equipped vehicles. That specific probe focuses on issues regarding reduced visibility and has already identified nine incidents, including one fatality. The current controversy over sleeping drivers suggests that the software's ability to ensure human attentiveness may be failing, potentially transforming a driver-assist tool into a significant public safety liability.
What's Next
Industry analysts suggest the outcome of the DOT and NHTSA response could lead to a mandatory recall or the implementation of stricter federal regulations regarding how driver-monitoring systems must operate. For now, the federal agencies must determine if the reported instances of driver dormancy are isolated cases of user misuse or a failure of Tesla's safety architecture to prevent dangerous behavior.