Three College Kids Burned To Death Inside A Cybertruck Because The Doors Wouldn't Open: Highway Patrol

The primary cause of a terrifying Cybertruck crash in November was determined to likely have been driver impairment after a night of drinking and drugs, California Highway Patrol told The LA Times. Testimony submitted as part of a CHP investigation has indicated that the crashed truck immediately burst into flames and locked its passengers inside, condemning them to their deaths, according to SFist. The truck had four people in it at the time of the crash, but another motorist, Matthew Riordan, was able to pull one of the passengers out of the wreckage and they ultimately survived. Riordan had attended the same party as the folks in the Tesla, and was following in a separate car. His heroic effort to save the rest of the lives inside the crashed Tesla were reportedly thwarted by the truck itself, as testimony shows the Cybertruck's doors could not be opened in the aftermath of the crash. The truck was just two blocks from the quartet's intended destination, and the college students were visiting home from school during the Thanksgiving holiday.

Riordan reported that he "pulled for a few seconds, but nothing budged at all." He also said "I then tried the button on the windshield of [survivor Jordan Miller's] door, then [victim Krysta Tsukahara's] door." After pounding on the windows with his fists he grabbed a thick tree branch and began striking the windows with it "around a dozen times" until one of the windows cracked and dislodged. He was able to pull the lone survivor out of the doomed vehicle, and went back for a second. Riordan testified, "I grabbed her arm to try and pull her towards me, but she retreated because of the fire."

Reports from the scene indicate that the truck jumped the curb, smashed into a cement wall, and wedged itself in between the wall and the sturdy trunk of a tree. The truck did notify emergency responders that there had been a crash, though it wasn't enough to save any lives, as the flames had already consumed the truck and ended three lives by the time officers arrived on the scene. Toxicology reports indicate that the deceased had consumed alcohol and cocaine earlier in the evening, while the driver had also ingested methamphetamines. The truck was travelling at a high rate of speed in a residential area when it crashed, more likely caused by driver impairment and human error than Tesla's unreliable driver assistance systems. 

Tesla programs the Cybertruck to lock all of its doors at any speed over 5 miles per hour, and will keep the doors locked until the truck is stopped and in park. Most modern automakers will program locked doors to automatically unlock in the case of an airbag deployment or emergency situation. I don't know if Tesla has similar programming for the Cybertruck, but truck's computers obviously indicated something was wrong and called emergency services, and either didn't or couldn't unlock the doors. I would ask Tesla for comment on the story, but the world's most valuable automaker doesn't have a public relations team and does not answer media requests. Maybe we'll never know what caused the doors to remain locked, but whatever did it almost certainly took the lives of three young people.

The investigation into the crash, and specifically into what caused it to burst into flames and burn so violently and rapidly, is still ongoing.